What is the physics reason behind balancing a two wheeler?

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  • The principle used here is the law of conservation of momentum.

    To change the linear momentum an external force is necessary.
    To change the angular momentum an external torque is necessary.

    In the absence of any external force ,the object continues to be in its state of uniform motion or angular motion.

    To fall down from a moving bicycle, you must tilt your self to the left or right of the bicycle so that gravity will pull you down.

    Suppose you tilt to the left,
    Imagine there is no friction between the tires and the road.

    The tires will move to the right.
    Being friction is always there, the movement of the tires to the right is prevented by the friction that acts toward left.

    Your effort to fall down to the left is balanced by the friction for certain angle of inclination of the bicycle.

    At this inclined position you will move along an arc of a circle rather than going in a straight path.

    Greater the speed greater is the radius of the circular path.

    But soon we adjust our selves, by practice to straighten ourselves once again.

    This is the reason why we are not falling down from the bicycle.

    This is the reason why will lean ourselves to left or right while turning to left or right.
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    Many tell the gyroscopic effect for not falling down.
    There is gyroscopic effect in bicycle, but the reason is not that.

    That is the answer for a different question.

    Any movement of the handle bar to the right causes the bike initially to fall to the left. This is exactly as would be expected from the gyroscopic effect acting on the front wheel.

    The front wheel of a bicycle is spinning around a horizontal axis.
    If the handle bar is turned to the left, you are turning the axis of the wheel in a horizontal plane. The gyroscopic effect is that you and your cycle are turned to the right about a horizontal axis.

    Though this is one reason why we are not falling from the cycle, this effect is not pronounced like the friction acting on the tires of the cycle.

    With both hands free from the bar, one can ride a bicycle without falling down and turn to left or right by leaning to left or right.

    Here is the site to show why gyroscopic effect is not a good reason for not falling from the cycle.

    http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/gyrobike…
    http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/gyrobike…
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