When turning a bicycle on a bicycle, why should you lean your body toward the inside of the curve?

If you have ever ridden a bicycle, you must know that when the bicycle is traveling on a straight road, the bicycle must be perpendicular to the ground; however, when the bicycle turns sharply, not only the position of the "handlebar" must be changed. direction, and both the person and the vehicle body must lean appropriately toward the inside of the bend. Why do we do this?

In fact, there is a very simple physical principle implicit here: when an object moves in a circular motion, it needs a centripetal force from the outside world. Without this centripetal force, the object will not move in a circle, but will fly out along the tangent direction of the circle. To make a bicycle turn, it is necessary to make the bicycle move in a circular motion, so a centripetal force must be provided to the bicycle. So, who provides this centripetal force?

This can only be done by the cyclist himself: while changing the direction of the handlebars, he and the bike can tilt toward the inside of the curve. At this time, the support force given to the bicycle by the road surface is not vertically upward, but along the direction in which the bicycle is tilted. This supporting force can be decomposed into component forces in two directions. One is in the vertical direction, and the force component in this direction offsets the gravity of the person and the bicycle. The other component is along the horizontal direction. The component in this direction is the centripetal force required for the bicycle to turn. That's it, people very cleverly turned the original linear motion bicycle into a circular motion.

In addition, the size of the centripetal force F is related to the speed v of the circular motion and the radius r of the circular motion (F=mv2/r, where m refers to the mass of the object). Therefore, the higher the speed of the bicycle, the sharper the turn, the smaller the radius of the circular movement, and the greater the centripetal force required. This is why cyclists lean more and more into the curve.

Summary

There is a very common phenomenon in life: when we turn on a bicycle, both the person and the body must lean appropriately into the bend. There is a very simple physical principle implicit in this: when an object makes circular motion, it needs a centripetal force from the outside world. When the person and the vehicle body lean toward the inside of the curve, the support force provided by the road surface to the bicycle generates a horizontal component; and this horizontal component provides the centripetal force required for the bicycle to turn.

In addition, the magnitude F of the centripetal force satisfies F=mv2/r, where m refers to the mass of the object, v is the speed, and r is the radius of circular motion. Therefore, the higher the speed of the bicycle and the sharper the turn - the smaller the radius of the circular movement, the greater the centripetal force required, and the more obvious the cyclist has to lean toward the inside of the curve.