The “gyroscope” theory of bicycle stability was debunked over 40 years ago by physicist David Jones. Since then, hobbyists and bike nuts (including Yours Truly) thought bicycles stayed upright via something called the caster effect. Physicists from Cornell, the University of Wisconsin-Stout, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and University of Twente in the Netherlands found they can build a “two mass skate” bicycle with no gyroscropic effect and with no trail (for no caster effect) that can stay upright.

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