Gyrobike - How It Works

Gyrowheel’s inner flywheel spins independently within the front wheel of a bicycle, creating a force that stabilizes the bike.

Gyrobike uses the principle of gyroscopic precession to stabilize the bike and the rider. Gyrobike “senses” unbalanced biking and re-centers the bike underneath the rider's weight at the point when tipping starts to occur. It provides high-speed stability at startup speeds, whether riding straight or turning.

The Results
On the road: riders feel more confident, learn to ride more quickly and feel safer.
The spinning flywheel has also proven to be "cool" to "extremely cool."
In the lab: Gyrobike has been empirically proven to increase stability of a bike by six to eight times as compared with an unaided bike.

What is Precession? Gyroscopes are spinning wheels that exhibit a special property called precession. When a force is put at the top of a spinning wheel (such as a rider falling on a bicycle), rather than falling, the gyroscope simply turns, or precesses, in the direction of the fall. This occurs on normal bike wheels when the bike is traveling at higher speeds. Hence, it is easier to ride a bicycle once you "get going". Gyrobike takes advantage of this property even when the bike is moving slowly. The flywheel inside the Gyrowheel spins independently of the bike wheel. Thus, even when a rider is moving very slowly on his or her bicycle, the precession of the Gyrowheel is still felt. If the rider begins to fall, the Gyrowheel precesses under the rider's weight, restabilizing the bike.

Ghost Testing: To test this effect, we performed what we call ghost testing. We pushed the bike forward without a rider on it to see how long it took to fall over. We found that the Gyrobike remained upright for 10-15 times as long as a normal bike. We were also able to see the precession in the manner in which the Gyrobike fell. As it began to fall, the precession turned the wheel in the direction of the fall and the bike turned in a large arc before finally falling down due to lack of velocity. This was in contrast to the normal bike, which fell directly over. Don’t believe us? Check out the video on the left to see the ghost testing in action.