why does it feel so iffy ? as a lad I could ride everywhere no handed, 5 speed racer, sharp twitchy steering, no problems. On a mountain bike, just can’t do it, well not for more than about 5 seconds before having to snatch for the steering. I don’t often feel the need to do it just wondering what the reasons might be.

Geometry, innit

I reckon it is down to the steering being slower for more control on trails making it less quick to do those little adjustments required for neat no-handed riding

I was riding my ATB no-handed today.*

* Not all day, obviously 🙄

It’s the head angle, took me months to learn to ride my HT with a 66 degree head angle whereas all my bikes with more standard head angles were easy!

Slacker head angle means you have to lean more to compensate.

It’s a skill chav kids are born with.

no handed on mountain bikes – why does it feel so iffy ?

does it?

ride faster.

There’s no handed and there’s no handed http://www.flickr.com/groups/1458163@N23/

Danger Panda by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

Slack head angle = unstable. That’s why it’s much easier on a road bike/shopper.

oh goody a link to a bunch of look at me tits.

Slack head angle = unstable

physics fail.

sorry.

Klunk you’ve either got the skills or you haven’t, never mind, don’t take it to heart…oh, wait 🙂

rOcKeTdOg – I raise your Danger Panda to an eating ice cream offroad taking a picture with an iphone danger panda :0)

Offroad Velocake Ice Cream Danger Panda by tomlevell, on Flickr

LOOK AT ME

Oh and MTBs of all types are easy to ride no handed. Speed as ever is you friend. Also your enemy when it goes wrong…

Oddly I find it easier on the mtb (66deg HA), but I think that’s down to amount of time riding each bike and the resulting familiarity. I’m also much more likely to give it a try on the mtb.

I’m still working on riding Bakewell to great long stone on the monsal trail no handed all the way, best is about 98% so far

another question, what’s it like on a lefty ?

ahwiles – Member
Slack head angle = unstable
physics fail.

sorry.

Try using this software from researchers at Cornell university and you can see that your fail accusation is in fact and epic fail: 😛

http://ruina.tam.cornell.edu/research/topics/bicycle_mechanics/JBike6_web_folder/JBike6_download.htm

It’s related to this paper, published in Science (15 April 2011: 332(6027), 339-342):
http://bicycle.tudelft.nl/stablebicycle/StableBicyclev34Revised.pdf

Using the software I can tell you that a example bike with a 65 degree head angle is self stable (with mass of rider) from 5.5 to 8 m/s.
The same bike with an 90 degree head angle is self stable from 4 m/s upwards (no upper limit).
That’s with the same amount of trail, which wouldn’t necessarily be the case (and certainly wouldn’t be if you had the same forks). Increasing head angle with the same forks reduces trail. However, the same simulation as above with a 90 degree head angle and 0mm trail is actually stable over a wider spped range (contrary to popular opinion) and is self stable from 2.5m/s upwards.

p.s. interestingly, 0mm trail with anything less than 90 degrees head angle isn’t stable (hence the reason bikes always have trail I guess)

pwned