With humans, that's about all you need to say. You very quickly feel how the lean changes based on the steering input, so righting yourself becomes obvious. And when you inevitably overdo it and end up leaning the opposite way, you turn the bars that new direction. WOBBLE WOBble wobble straight.
I had a winter of long roller rides (3.5 hours was the longest) and by the time I hit the road again I could ride on the white line with no effort. I think the dynamics are the same, just higher stakes on the rollers!
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGEkmDRsq_M
Edit - also OP, very cool thesis work!
Also, I skimmed the following to help my understanding; others may find it useful too: https://www.cyclingtips.com/2018/11/the-geometry-of-bike-han...
The handlebars aren't really used to steer the bike, the way most people think of steering. What they do is shift the bicycle further away from under the rider, which then, due to the bicycles naturally self-stabilising, steer to upright itself.
I’ve never heard that folklore. I thought ‘everybody’ knew back-tires wear out a lot faster because the load on them is higher and because they’re the one being powered. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tire-rotation.html:
“It is common for a front tire to outlast a rear tire by as much as three to one. Rear tires have more weight on them, and also have to deal with drive forces.”
You can to some extent do it without that much motion as well. Basically, you're "falling" to one side and getting momentum, and then you "save" the fall by twisting back getting the bike under you, and that instead puts the momentum forward.
Wider, more supple tires might do better than that, the 26x2.2 rear on my tandem is 2k miles in, and probably has another 50% of its life left. Tandems are kind of noted for eating tires due to the loads on them.
So if we also assume that during the lifetime of the vehicle the cost of fuel you'll burn will be in the same ballpark as the cost of the vehicle, then the total cost of riding the bike will only be around 50% of using a car.
Let's say you start with brand new tires on both wheels. Let's further suppose that you completely wear out your rear tire in 1 year and your front tire in 4 years. If on the first anniversary you rotate and place the new tire in front, you'll need to repeat the procedure after 9 months, and then every 9 months after that. On the 4th anniversary you'll have bought 5 tires: on the 12th, 21st, 30th, 39th, and 48th months. If you simply replace each tire as it wears out without any rotation, on the 4th year you'll have bought 5 tires, 1 to replace the front tire once and 4 to replace the rear tire 4 times.
Weight is transferred to the front on heavy braking, and if you have proper technique, you will not go over the bars. The front tire does all of the actual stopping.
When you initially hit the brakes, your braking potential is split around 50:50. At absolute maximum potential braking force, your rear tire is near lifting, so it's around 100:0.
That said, if you only have one brake, it's better to have it on the front than the rear.
However, I like to have both (and suggest you do too!) because:
1. Brakes can fail
2. In slippery and inconsistent conditions, locking up the rear is preferable to the front
I have literally seen people flip over their handle bars by solely using their front brake going downhill.
How on earth science.uva.nl was inspired to pair up plates, add some thickness and a drive chain will likely remain a mystery for the ages.
Possible I am wrong, but there is a critical assumption, that being: “With additional inspection, knowing that the tangent vectors from the back-tire point with fixed distance to the front-tire track, we can find which way the bicycle went.”
As result, if the front and back tires do not maintain a fixed distance, prior research does not apply. Examples of factors that might produce minor variations include: suspension, untrue wheels, etc.
