Post something Weird or Random

[Luca]

View attachment 111455

I have actually done this in real life lol

 

[Luca]

My irl friends did not find this funny at all but I did

 

[maycontainthunder]

 

[Luca]

View attachment 111488

Omg, this definitely goes in my list of top 10 funniest images from this thread

 

[Progster]

My irl friends did not find this funny at all but I did

View attachment 111487

 

[Shevek]

I bet the gyroscope made cornering fun.

I have forgotten the details, but gyros can make a two-wheeled car behave very well, just as a motorcycle would, without the manual steering corrections to maintain balance. I think this is the Ford Gyron 1

There is also an alternate control system for a tilting vehicle with three or four wheels by Phillip James, who must be one of us. There is no direct connection from the steering wheel to the wheels except at very low speed. Past a walking pace, you control the angle of the tilt, and the wheels automatically steer to match. The wonderful bit is that if you go sliding from pavement to gravel to pavement again, the wheels react fast enough to prevent loss of balance.

 

[Boogs]

That actually sounds a bit like how a bike/motorbike steers at anything above about 5/10 mph. You don't steer it, in fact you can't. You actually have to push the bars in the 'wrong' direction, which tilts the bike over, and puts it on a curved path. But doing it with gyro's is just a little, er, different? Cool!

 

[Shevek]

That actually sounds a bit like how a bike/motorbike steers at anything above about 5/10 mph. You don't steer it, in fact you can't. You actually have to push the bars in the 'wrong' direction, which tilts the bike over, and puts it on a curved path. But doing it with gyro's is just a little, er, different? Cool!

One of the funnier scenes in cycling occurs when an experienced bicyclist first gets on a "barrow" or traditional adult trike with a single front wheel. Sitting with the familiar seat, pedals, and handlebars, they habitually countersteer, as you describe, to set up a tilt before turning into the corner. The trike, of course, does not tilt, so they keep steering in the wrong direction and crash right away.
If you analyze the track of a bike as the wheels are first steered out from under the cg and then turned into the corner, there might be some surprise that we can manage it so well. However, if you analyze the tracks and cg of someone running around a football pitch, you get just the same relationships, just with a dotted line.

 

[Boogs]

One of the funnier scenes in cycling occurs when an experienced bicyclist first gets on a "barrow" or traditional adult trike with a single front wheel. Sitting with the familiar seat, pedals, and handlebars, they habitually countersteer, as you describe, to set up a tilt before turning into the corner. The trike, of course, does not tilt, so they keep steering in the wrong direction and crash right away.
If you analyze the track of a bike as the wheels are first steered out from under the cg and then turned into the corner, there might be some surprise that we can manage it so well. However, if you analyze the tracks and cg of someone running around a football pitch, you get just the same relationships, just with a dotted line.

Yeah! It's an odd thing when you try to look at it (and do it) consciously! That reverse push on the bars that most people aren't even aware they're doing! I remember when I passed my bike test, back in the day when you could jump on a learner bike with no training whatsoever, and roar off down the road (usually into the first hard object you come across! ) and I wen tout and got a secondhand 550-4, that unknown to me also turned out to have been tuned up and last used in amateur (I assume) prod racing! (according to the police who once stopped me and looked up all the records on it - this was news to me at the time!), and anyway, I set off on my new 'monster' (after riding a 125cc toy), and on coming to the first real bend, I damn near ran thing onto the pavement! It just would not turn! How I managed to keep upright and out of the gutter, I do not know! But it was a good lesson in life and motorbiking!
(Of course, if I hadn't kept out of the gutter, it wouldn't of been such a good lesson! )

 

[maycontainthunder]

 

[Shevek]

 

[Shevek]

Yeah! It's an odd thing when you try to look at it (and do it) consciously! That reverse push on the bars that most people aren't even aware they're doing! I remember when I passed my bike test, back in the day when you could jump on a learner bike with no training whatsoever, and roar off down the road (usually into the first hard object you come across! ) and I wen tout and got a secondhand 550-4, that unknown to me also turned out to have been tuned up and last used in amateur (I assume) prod racing! (according to the police who once stopped me and looked up all the records on it - this was news to me at the time!), and anyway, I set off on my new 'monster' (after riding a 125cc toy), and on coming to the first real bend, I damn near ran thing onto the pavement! It just would not turn! How I managed to keep upright and out of the gutter, I do not know! But it was a good lesson in life and motorbiking!
(Of course, if I hadn't kept out of the gutter, it wouldn't of been such a good lesson! )

I find it odd that motorcycle riders are often advised to push on one handlebar rather than pull on the other or just turn them. On a bicycle, the forces are so low that Bicycling magazine once ran a major article on how to descend quickly, and they thought that we hold the bars completely still, and turn by leaning, apparently by sheer force of will. Given the time and space, both kinds of riders don't so much countersteer as just stop correcting a slow fall until it becomes useful. Another puzzle is the advice to motorcyclists to push the front of the bike down during a wheelstand. There is no foundation from which to push. The instruction may cause riders to move their own cg forward and down, but that raises the bike.

 

[Boogs]

I find it odd that motorcycle riders are often advised to push on one handlebar rather than pull on the other or just turn them. On a bicycle, the forces are so low that Bicycling magazine once ran a major article on how to descend quickly, and they thought that we hold the bars completely still, and turn by leaning, apparently by sheer force of will. Given the time and space, both kinds of riders don't so much countersteer as just stop correcting a slow fall until it becomes useful. Another puzzle is the advice to motorcyclists to push the front of the bike down during a wheelstand. There is no foundation from which to push. The instruction may cause riders to move their own cg forward and down, but that raises the bike.

Love that! "Sheer force of will"! "Ah feel the power, moving' in me!"
Mind you, when I learnt to ride, it was in the days where you bought a second-hand 125, then you had two years to learn to survive before your learner license expired for a year (usually 6 months was plenty, you were dead or crippled, or you'd worked it out), and the nearest thing to lessons for the part two on road test, was all at about 20 mph tops. My test consisted of a guy with a clipboard, who told me to ride around a block, while he slowly walked to the next corner, waiting to watch me go past. Then for the emergency stop, he stands out from the pavement about 20/30 yards ahead waving his arm, and I'm doing all of, um, 10 mph? I don't know how anyone could have failed!

But the real point was I never got taught how to ride a bike by anyone. I'm not saying I'm a brilliant rider either, although I never had a injury, and the few accidents were very minor (e.g. first rainfall, I learnt about using the front brake properly! (just slid down the road, still sitting on the bike, but not the right way up!). Thing was, everyone did it that way, or at least everyone I knew.

From what I could make out, the pushing on the opposing bar in a turn was for when you've done it wrong and entered the curve at the wrong vector, and to avoid heading into the kerb/side of road. But if you're riding correctly (and I'm not talking about racing at stupid speeds and putting others at risk, I may be stupid but I ain't that dumb) you should enter the curve at the right conditions to just let the thing pull you through and out without taking a great deal of control (as you would to pull it into another line), and do most of the control with a little throttle, to increase and decrease the centrifugal (or is it centripetal, I always get that wrong!) force, which actually, now I think about it, sounds the same as what you said about the 'slow fall'?
Although to be fair about the above description, city riding and country lanes are pretty different styles, and the above is more with country riding.

 

[Shevek]

Love that! "Sheer force of will"! "Ah feel the power, moving' in me!"
Mind you, when I learnt to ride, it was in the days where you bought a second-hand 125, then you had two years to learn to survive before your learner license expired for a year (usually 6 months was plenty, you were dead or crippled, or you'd worked it out), and the nearest thing to lessons for the part two on road test, was all at about 20 mph tops. My test consisted of a guy with a clipboard, who told me to ride around a block, while he slowly walked to the next corner, waiting to watch me go past. Then for the emergency stop, he stands out from the pavement about 20/30 yards ahead waving his arm, and I'm doing all of, um, 10 mph? I don't know how anyone could have failed!

But the real point was I never got taught how to ride a bike by anyone. I'm not saying I'm a brilliant rider either, although I never had a injury, and the few accidents were very minor (e.g. first rainfall, I learnt about using the front brake properly! (just slid down the road, still sitting on the bike, but not the right way up!). Thing was, everyone did it that way, or at least everyone I knew.

From what I could make out, the pushing on the opposing bar in a turn was for when you've done it wrong and entered the curve at the wrong vector, and to avoid heading into the kerb/side of road. But if you're riding correctly (and I'm not talking about racing at stupid speeds and putting others at risk, I may be stupid but I ain't that dumb) you should enter the curve at the right conditions to just let the thing pull you through and out without taking a great deal of control (as you would to pull it into another line), and do most of the control with a little throttle, to increase and decrease the centrifugal (or is it centripetal, I always get that wrong!) force, which actually, now I think about it, sounds the same as what you said about the 'slow fall'?
Although to be fair about the above description, city riding and country lanes are pretty different styles, and the above is more with country riding.

When I took my motorcycle test, one job was to accelerate as hard as possible and then immediately brake as hard as possible, over about fifty meters, stopping within two meters of a line. I was on a 65 cc, so it wasn't too challenging. Another guy was there to regain his license on a Norton. He accelerated with gusto, and then put both wheels on the line, sliding in sideways. The examiner just checked him off.
Descriptions of how to ride shade off into "Body English." Golfers are always thinking about their "follow through." It does nothing at all to the ball, but apparently, planning on it helps hit the ball better. One old champion ignored style, but nobody copied him. I am also rather amazed at piano players, who are often dancing around with their shoulders, which must make hitting the keys much more complex. Dancing while playing music may be the body's way of setting extra timers.

 

[Boogs]

I guess one problem is that when humans enter stage left, exceptions tend to become the rule! While common sense exits stage right!
I've never really though much about how I learned to ride, but being as I am, I never even got into joining up with other bikers, even real bikers, so I never had anyone more experienced to show me, pass on the tips, etc etc. I learned as I went and never labelled the various skills because I didn't know them as individual actions or processes, I just 'did', just rode, no conversation in my head about what's happening around me (as I believe police drivers and the like are taught - talk about everything going on as it's happening, to train then to be more observant.

I suspect that's why I was never a brilliant rider, I'd never have won races or anything like that, but to be honest, apart from the getting around part, I just loved the whole thing of riding motorbikes. The freedom for one (especially not bound to what cars are limited to), the power and acceleration (for a price I could afford - never afford with a car), but more than anything, that adrenalin high, with the immediacy of the feeling of the road through the wheels, the feel of the traction as it made and broke, the control over the bike, the massive levels of concentration required to dodge in and out of traffic through central London without accidents without letting up for a split second - it was a drug without a doubt, and quite an addictive one too!

Funnily enough, the times I came closest to accidents when I was riding in London, were the few times I tried just riding like a motorist, travelling behind the vehicle in front, followed by the vehicle behind, and it was all so tedious and boring and pointless (may as well buy a little car), I'd start to find I was losing concentration, and starting to day dream(!!!), and I quickly realised after a couple near misses when the car in front put the brakes on, or similar, I was unsafe riding like that.

I think (and am very ignorant in this area) that with music, there's something extra going on, to do with the music, maybe even above an beyond the tune, but more about what it invokes? Maybe? And sometimes maybe it's the whole body that's plugged into the tune, or that thing that sits just below the surface of the tune, if that makes sense? More like dancing with the instrument? You may only need to just move your feet in a dance, but it's the whole body that plays the game really, and the feet are following along for the ride?

"The examiner just checked him off."

 

[Mr. Stevens]

 

[Boogs]

View attachment 111550

A man with a giant pretzel,
Made a sound that was most regretful.
He gave out a shout,
As his pants billowed out,
Leaving him anxious and fretful!

 

[Mr. Stevens]

 

[Boogs]

View attachment 111561

What? You want another one?
A rhyme about soup, or a bowl of won ton?
I think that now you're just having fun,
What'll be next, a nice current bun?

 

[Boogs]

Hope that these don't seem offensive,
Even if they are intensive.
I can make 'em long or short,
Even if devoid of thought!
And to prove that very cry,
I'll just continue 'til I die.
Adding more and more lines on,
Past conclusions long foregone.
Oh wow, it's reach the bottom line,
Like a foul malodorous crime.
Could it be I'll reach an ending?
Best be quick before offending!
Right, I'll stop then as you say,
You couldn't last another day,
Reading all this awful stuff,
Haven't you yet had enough?


P.S.
You can reply, but just in rhyme,
Though poor composure ain't no crime,
Have a think, take your time,
Show me up for being slime!

P.P.S.
Just joking about having to rhyme! It just fitted the words!