VlogB

♪ ♪ When you think about a conventional bicycle, you normally think two wheels, right?

The thing I'm riding has three.

Makes for a couple of big differences.

Number one: I don't have to worry about balancing.

Check it out.

This is a recumbent tricycle.

Leaning back means I make less air resistance as I go through the air, and I can go a lot faster.

(chuckles) This is so much fun.

The three wheels give me really solid stability, and I don't have to balance at all.

But how does a rider keep a two-wheeler balanced?

This is a two-wheeler.

This is Calvin's balance bike.

Have a good ride.

Okay!

NATHAN: Go for it.

Calvin is just learning how to balance by straddling the bike and propelling it with his feet.

I wonder if I can balance such a small bike, (bell dinging) The balance bike is so low to the ground, it's actually really hard to balance for me.

I have to steer back and forth constantly just to keep it up.

This one's a BMX bike.

The BMX bike is easy to balance because you have a lot of control over it, but it's still wobbly.

Now I'm back on my trusty old road bike.

And it feels really different from riding the BMX.

Look at how much more the BMX moves under my body than the road bike.

Now the way you balance a bike is pretty similar to how you balance a broomstick on your hand.

Every time the broomstick starts to tip over, you move the bottom of the broomstick back under the center of mass.

There are many things that contribute to how easy it is to balance a bike-- like how fast you're going, the diameter of the wheels, the size of the bike.

But the thing that makes the biggest difference is how high off the ground my center of mass is.

That's because the higher off the ground my center of mass is, the longer it takes me to tip over from balanced, and the more time I have to correct for it.

The balance bike tips over really fast because I'm so low to the ground.

The BMX bike tips over slower, making it easier to balance.

And the road bike, I'm nice and high off the ground, giving me lots of time to correct, making it even easier to balance than the BMX.

But what would happen on a bike that was taller than my road bike?

Would that be even easier to balance?

I'm going to build a tall bike to find out.

To make my tall bike, I need a good shop, and I need some help.

And thankfully my friend Ecco is willing and able to help me build the tall bike.

Hey, Ecco.

How you doing?

She's an incredible sculptor, welder, and I'm so excited to get to finally work with her on a project.

And there's no better shop in town than the Artisan's Asylum, which is one of the biggest maker spaces in the country.

We have here two nearly identical cruisers to play with.

NATHAN: And do we have enough functional parts all here to make a working tall bike?

I think so.

NATHAN: We're going to use the blue one as the bottom, because it has more working parts, and it works closer to how we want.

Okay, so the top one doesn't need wheels, and the bottom one doesn't need its seat or handle bars.

ECCO: I guess it's time to start taking stuff apart.

My favorite time.

The first step is to take off the parts from each bike that we don't need because we have two of everything.

We only need one of each, but two frames.

Our main engineering challenge is how do we connect the handle bars on top to the forks of the front wheel on the ground so I can steer the tall bike?

What about attaching somehow from here directly to here?

ECCO: Then we have so much room to like make sure that that relationship is super straight.

NATHAN: We're going to weld on metal straps to attach the forks on the top bike to the forks on the bottom bike.

ECCO: Anywhere we want to weld, we want to take the paint off.

NATHAN: We're grinding the paint off the places where Ecco will be welding.

So now we just attach the silver part to the silver part, and something over there?

(Ecco laughs) And it's time to weld.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ECCO: Welded, whoo!

(Nathan laughs) NATHAN: Ecco is finishing the welded connection between the two frames, and also adding some reinforcement to stiffen the tall bike.

Awesome!

Look at that!

so we've added a couple of finishing touches to the bike.

We've put on a peg to help ourselves get onto the tall bike, we put on the chain, which is obviously super important, and almost as important as the chain, brake cables, so we can stop.

ECCO: Make sure you get up a running start so you have some balance to work with before it takes off and then do your best to just get up there and stay up there.

NATHAN: It's that easy?

ECCO: It's that easy!

(laughs) NATHAN: Uh...

Whoop... Wow, this is awesome!

This is way easier to balance than I expected.

It's kind of crazy because even though the tall bike seems like it would be less stable because I'm so much higher off the ground, it's actually easier to balance, and even more stable than the smaller bikes at lower speed.

It is so high up.

When you're up there on top of the tall bike, you just have so much time to correct.

It's very easy to steer and move the base back under yourself, staying balanced, even when you're high up.

Our tall bike works.

Yeah, with all that extra time to fall, you have a lot more time to correct, and you don't have to correct anywhere nearly as much.

(Nathan chuckling) What a crazy contraption.

So, Ecco, how do I get down?

ECCO: Kick a leg out, push the bike away from that leg, and just step down over the back.

That went better than I expected.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2BrtqWxzmiZrqGcmXqjtcKymqWdXZeura3NnJxmbJeewHeFjg%3D%3D