Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

Gyrowheel By Gyrobike

5 Written by Keith on October 6, 2009 – 3:12 pm

 

I learned about this revolution (pun intended) in bicycle technology from Daddytypes, and I thought it was so interesting that I had to report on it myself. I’ve always thought of gryroscopes as fun little toys that come with a string and that spin in funny ways and seem to defy gravity. Now, I know they are also responsible for orienting the International Space Station and they allow airplanes to navigate. But, those uses are way over my head and not particularly within my scope of interest. Finally, someone has come up with a use for gyroscopic motion that is completely relevant to my daily existence, or it would be if my kids weren’t already past the stage where they learned to ride a bike. Either way, I’m interested. Here’s what they’ve done.

 

 

 

The reason this is so interesting is because training wheels have been a necessary evil for years. I’ve never talked to anybody who really likes them, and they cause kids to learn bad biking habits. But, we put up with them because they were always the logical progression from tricycle to big boy bike. Now, thank god, there is going to be another option. This time there will be no bad habits, and children will be perfectly safe – actually safer than with training wheels. I wrote an article about learning to ride a bike a few months ago where I mentioned that training wheels were acceptable but not ideal. It’s really exciting that someone finally put technology to use for a kids product that will make our lives as parents easier, and their lives as kids more rewarding. And, apparently, the process for learning to ride couldn’t be easier with this gyrowheel; they taught 100 kids to ride a bike during product testing. It is said that learning to ride with this thing engaged can take as little as 30 seconds. I’m not sure if that could be true, but I would definitely believe it could be done in 30 minutes perhaps.