Author Topic: Windcheetah steering on a bike  (Read 1920 times)

Windcheetah steering on a bike
« on: 20 May, 2019, 10:40:26 am »
One of the things I found really odd about riding with hamster bars was swinging the tiller about to steer.  The Windcheetah steering concept seems more intuitive to me.  I saw this on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2etDedPYRI
Which seemed to me should work for a recumbent bike
I am surprised that this hasn't been tried on bikes before.  Is it a question or weight, complexity, cost or patent?
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Kim

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Re: Windcheetah steering on a bike
« Reply #1 on: 20 May, 2019, 11:51:15 am »
One of the things I found really odd about riding with hamster bars was swinging the tiller about to steer.  The Windcheetah steering concept seems more intuitive to me.

 :o

It takes all sorts, I suppose.

(FWIW on any bike I don't think about what the bars are doing, I think about what the wheel attached to them is doing.  In as much as I think about it at all, which is only something you need to do while you program your muscle-memory to ride the bike.)


Quote
I saw this on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2etDedPYRI
Which seemed to me should work for a recumbent bike
I am surprised that this hasn't been tried on bikes before.  Is it a question or weight, complexity, cost or patent?

Good question.  Other than being unintuitive ;) I don't see why it shouldn't work.

I've seen upright bicycles with a steering wheel before, although normally it's just operating as a handlebar in the usual way.  The one in this first photo would appear to be functionally similar (rotating in a vertical-ish plane to steer), without the free movement at the universal joint:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/802751/bicycle-collection-steering-wheel-sale-vintage-bikes-penny-farthing

Re: Windcheetah steering on a bike
« Reply #2 on: 25 May, 2019, 06:40:34 pm »
I've seen bikes that had joysticks before, but they were push = left , pull = right type, and I believe handling was not good. I think a Windcheetah joystick would make balance difficult and not offer enough leverage.

In my opinion, handlebars cotribute more to balance and steering dampening than we imagine - I can ride a bike with handlebars no-hands, but not a bike without handlebars...

...What do you mean, you've never tried that?!
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is...

LMT

Re: Windcheetah steering on a bike
« Reply #3 on: 25 May, 2019, 07:20:32 pm »
I've seen bikes that had joysticks before, but they were push = left , pull = right type, and I believe handling was not good. I think a Windcheetah joystick would make balance difficult and not offer enough leverage.

In my opinion, handlebars cotribute more to balance and steering dampening than we imagine - I can ride a bike with handlebars no-hands, but not a bike without handlebars...

...What do you mean, you've never tried that?!

I'd go with the above, the dynamics of a trike are different to a bike for obvious reasons. A joystick is a solution for a problem that does not exist on a two wheeled bent.