[log in to unmask] writes:
>When the academic (from
>place of practice) urges that "being able to ride a bike" does not amount to
>"knowing how to ride a bike"
If members of the list will tolerate a small (coffee time?) digression which
might be more relevant that it seems on the surface, there is some doubt that
anybody actually knows how a bicycle is ridden. This is discussed in Bicycling
Science (ref below), the authors found that many popular theories about this
could be confounded by experiment - bicycles seem to be inherently ridable no
matter what you do to try and compromise them.
My money is on a happy (eclectic?) combination of tacit knowledge (subtly
relearned for each combination of person and bike) and a variety of mechanical
effects in varying combinations, for example gyroscopic effects may apply in
some measure to some bicycles at some times. Maybe the best question is - Would
a bicycle be rideable if nobody ever tried to ride a bicycle?
Best wishes from Sheffield
Chris Rust
Frank Rowland Whitt, David Gordon Wilson.
Bicycling science p215
2nd Edition Published M.I.T., 1982.
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