Wheels Wheel ballancing to increase gyroscopic effect

[fourfeathers]

Hy guys,
Has anyone had experience with ballancing the road wheels to increase the gyroscopic effect and is it a good idea or not necessary. I know that motorcyclists' do it as do racing cyclists. Your thoughts please.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

I would suspect that any effect from balancing would be small.

But I've pondered the possibility of weighting wheels to achieve the same thing. I suppose balancing would become a necessary part of that

 

[fourfeathers]

Thx for your reply Bluegoatwoods. I've found that with the wheel off the bike when you spin the wheel and hold the axel between your fingers the wheel will wobble, even if the wheel is spun quite fast, you can feel it pull from side to side. So I reacon ballancing could possibley make some increase to stability especialy when cornering.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

Yes, I see what you are getting at. And I can see how it might affect stability at higher speeds. I suppose the answer is to have the wheel "trued". And I'd guess one would need to use wheels of a reasonable quality. The cheap ones would go "off" too quickly, maybe.

If trueness and weight were combined, that might make a very stable wheel. But I'm afraid I can't go further; I've never tried it. One of these days, though, I might.

 

[Ghost0]

When I got my first kit I didn't pay much attention to the wheels and tires. But now that I am running at around 40 mph I pay close attention to the wheels. Well trued and balanced makes a big difference at those speeds.

 

[fourfeathers]

Thanks again BGW for your thoughts on this. I don't know if it will make a great amount of difference but I'd like to give it a go. I'm a bit strange that way, love to tinker and experiment. Apart from that I like to know that everything is as right as it should be when riding these things out on the road so I'm in control as much as I can be. Once I've figured out how to do it I'll report as to the effects. Cheers.

 

[fourfeathers]

Hey Ghost0, did you true and ballance the wheels yourself, if so how did you go about it.

 

[Ghost0]

Yes I did it myself. I just used an old set of forks to put the wheel in and would tape a piece of wire close to the crown of the forks to act as an indicator to see where the high spots and low spots are. There is a good video on bicycletutor.com that helps understand truing, http://bicycletutor.com/wheel-truing/. As far as balancing I have yet to need weights to balance. Just playing with the wheel, tire and reflector I have been able to get them balanced pretty good. It is only a static balance which is not as good as a dynamic balance but seems to work OK up to 40 mph. If we were going past 50 I might look into dynamic balancing.

 

[fourfeathers]

Thanks for that Ghost0, I'll pick up on your sugestion.