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You don't have to be an engineer to drive
a car! The four scientific principles in Pedal Magic that enable you to
teach bike riding so quickly, easily and safely are
centripetal force, operant conditioning, game
theory and geometric distribution. But you'll never know you
are using them. |
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That
bicycle balancing is a simple no-two-ways-about-it matter
will be obvious to anyone who knows a little physics (see
explanation further below). Even if you do not know physics
or what centripetal force is, you
will be able to get a general feel for how bike balancing
works.
What is not obvious is how it is possible to teach anyone to
execute the simple physics in just minutes. This is where the
other three principles mentioned above come in. They are
imbedded in two tight and precise Pedal Magic drills which virtually all
beginners master in 2 to 5 minutes.
The physical forces of bicycle balancing guarantee that a
beginner with quick enough reflex and sufficient muscle
strength (click
for our quick indoor
test) will be able to ride a bike.
Pedal Magic arms you with the ability to teach any such
person to ride easily and safely in minutes.
This page will also help you understand why Pedal Magic is not a
pseudo-system of hope-it-works drills. It is a lightning-fast,
precise, uncommon-sense technique made easy
for ordinary people through the power of science. You
just drive the car. The engineering is already done. |
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...It appears that none of them considered the actual
physics of bicycle balancing and how to teach beginners to
execute that physics. They merely focused on keeping the
learner upright while leaving actual learning up to the
nervous and clueless beginner... |
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Though Pedal Magic's roots are in solid science and not some
seat-of-the-pants notions from the school of hard knocks, the reader
need not understand the diagram below or
the box next to it to get a general feel for how and why
Pedal Magic is able to do what it does.
If you would like to read on do not be intimidated by the
diagram and the math. They are not all that hard to
understand. The thick arrow in the diagram is a rider
starting to lose balance.
What
causes a bike to stay up
A beginner is able to keep a
bicycle upright starting from the very moment s/he
overcomes the instinctive fear-driven human tendency to
turn away from the fall. This is
exactly the opposite of what physical laws of bicycle
balancing dictate.
If it were not for this wrong but
powerful inborn wiring of the human brain, riding a
bicycle would simply be a matter of getting on one and
pedaling.
Therefore, regardless of the method used, teaching and
learning bicycle balancing boil down to changing inborn
balancing behavior to fearlessly leverage certain physical
forces of nature to stay in balance.
You decide how long you want to labor in the teaching
mode, and keep your beginner laboring in the learning mode, by the
teaching option you choose.
Differences
in teaching devices and approaches
Ever since the invention of
the bicycle, people have developed numerous devices and
methods to teach bike riding.
It appears that none of them considered the actual physics
of bicycle balancing and how to teach beginners to execute
that physics. They merely focused on keeping the learner
upright while leaving actual learning up to the nervous and
clueless beginner.
In 1984 a Management Scientist broke through such linear
and obvious thinking to create a revolutionary process. It
turned the unnecessarily painful and prolonged change
process into a quick, focused, safe, 5-minute event full of
fun and joy for all concerned.
The physics of bicycle balancing dictates that if one has
fast enough reflex, and sufficient muscle strength to pedal
a bike, s/ he will be able to ride a bike.
Teaching bike riding is about getting the learner to execute
bike balancing physics, not to keep the learner upright
somehow. No matter what, the crutches have to come off
sometime.
Pedal Magic bypasses all unnecessary activities and goes
straight to the heart of bike balancing using a subtle
scientific approach. That is why it can have every beginner
riding in minutes.
Reverse thinking
- the science neither teacher nor student needs to know!
The dominant force involved in
bicycle balancing is centripetal force. High school
physics text books usually cover circular motion and
centripetal force as shown in the diagram below. But, the
key to understanding bicycle balancing is a little reverse
thinking, which is what triggered the development of the
Pedal Magic process.
See
The crux of Pedal Magic below
the box if you are interested in the rest of the story. |
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Physics
books discuss centripetal force in terms of the required
amount of force towards the center of a circle to keep an
object from veering off its circular path.
Applying this principle to bike riding, physics books
would say that a bicyclist has to tilt the bike X degrees
off the vertical towards the center of the circle to
create sufficient centripetal force to remain on the
circle. This is usually discussed within the context of a
bicyclist negotiating a curve on a path.
Value of X (how much to tilt or lean) is calculable from
equation inside the circle (m is mass of bike and rider, g
is acceleration due to gravity, v is the velocity of the
bike, and R is radius of the circle).
If X is too large (i.e. rider tilts too much into the
circle), centripetal force will be too much and the bike
will start turning into a circle with radius smaller than
R. If X is not large enough, there won't be sufficient
force to keep the bike on the circle and the bike will
veer off, turning in a circle with radius larger than R.
Now for the reverse thinking required to understand
what keeps a bicycle in balance...
What we are interested in is not what the value of X
should be to keep a bike on the circle, but what we should
do to reduce the value of X (i.e. reduce the tilt to bring
the bicycle into upright position).
Balance equation in the circle tells us that to reduce X,
the rider needs to create an opposite force larger than
the existing value of the right hand side of the equation.
This can be done by increasing v (velocity) in the
numerator, reducing R (radius) in the denominator, or
doing both. |
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The crux of Pedal Magic
Immediate and assured
learning without any running or falling arises from the
behavioral aspects of bike balancing and a mix of
precise scientific principles imbedded in the
teaching process, not just this physics component of the
method. However, in creating Pedal Magic the first
principle Reginald Joules started
with was the physics below that keeps a bicycle in
balance.
Joules was the first one to develop the reverse-thinking
explanation of what keeps a bicycle in balance. Many others
had tried to explain bicycle balancing in terms of
gyroscopic forces, shifting center of gravity, angular
momentum of the wheels, etc. Such references and their
weaknesses can easily be found on the Web.
Joules formulated his simple but powerful explanation of
bicycle balancing in July 1984 while working out an easy
way to teach his daughters to ride. He ended up
teaching his wife to ride as well, all in a span of about
15 minutes. The method he built around the above model
using additional scientific principles eventually came to
be known as Pedal Magic.
Pull and counter-pull
Joules reasoned that when a
bike is falling out of balance, it is as if it is making a
circle to the side of the fall, pulling the bike towards
the center of that circle. He called it the "circle
of fall." In order to keep from falling into the
circle of fall (i.e. crashing), the rider has to create a
counter-pull out of the fall.
There are two ways a rider can create this counter-pull to
overcome the fall (if you are not afraid of a little math,
look at equation inside the circle above). One choice is
to quickly speed up the bicycle. The other is to quickly
tighten (shorten) the radius of the circle of fall.
Experienced riders instinctively do both as required.
Increasing speed quickly requires a lot of muscle strength
and is an undesirable and risky choice for a beginner.
Tightening the circle quickly is a much safer and easier
choice, especially for children.
Pedal Magic video demonstrates how to physically condition
a beginner's brain and body with ease in 2-5 minutes to
execute the correct balancing moves. It also contains
Pedal Magic's remedial method for beginners with severe
training wheels bad habits and dependencies. |
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