Tiller effect: could someone please explain?

[J J]

Hi, I have been really interested in the discussion on the thread "upright bars: how does shorter or longer stem affect steering" that eddietheflay initiated.

Joe mentioned the "tiller effect," which is a new term to me. I looked it up and got something about steering a boat on water. Can someone please explain it as it relates to bicycle handling? 

(I'm starting this new thread so I don't derail eddietheflay's original one.)

Thanks!

Jim

[Shoji Takahashi]

Hi Jim,

Maybe this blog post can help? 

https://crosscountrycycle.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/tiller-effect/

Good luck!

shoji

Arlington MA

[Mackenzy Albright]

I associate tiller effect with wheel flop. Not sure if if that is correct. But I've only ever experienced negative effects of high swept back bars on a very raked out fork with a steep seat tube. I've never had any I'll effects on a low or mid trail bike with swept back bars. 

[Garth]

I call it the wheelbarrow effect myself, as that most aptly describes the sensation in a relatable way. Try pushing a wheelbarrow up a steep hill..... hilarity ensues. Once you get knocked off your intended line, it's very difficult to move it back on track as the wheelbarrow just wants to go in the direction it was moved to go. Steering just makes it worse. My experience with the Bombadil is just like that, although I'm sure it's not nearly as bad as the hilly bikes or Clem. On my franklin road bike with much less trail it just breezes up the same road and is easily corrected getting knocked about by rocks, even with an Albatross bar.

Dave Moulton also writes about it, among all sorts of other things in the design of bicycles.

 http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com/blog/2009/10/5/the-evolution-of-frame-design-part-i-the-wheelbarrow-effect.html

An easy way to feel it is this from the article :

To demonstrate this effect to yourself; hold a pen or ruler on a table top at 90 degrees to the surface, and move from side to side keeping the point of the pen in one spot; you are moving in one plane. Now hold the pen at an angle of 45 degrees and move from side to side and you will see that you swing in an arc.

This was something I later called the “Wheelbarrow Effect.” In Part II I will talk about how frame design evolved through the 1960s and 1970s to arrive closer to what we see today.

[Richard Rose]

Nearly 6,000 miles in on my Clem & nearly 1,000 on my Gus; said wheelbarrow effect (which I understand) does not exist. That said, neither is a racing bicycle. Thank goodness.

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 11, 2023, at 1:26 PM, Garth <gart...@gmail.com> wrote:



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/9ab5309c-371d-40e5-888e-bdc67f681f67n%40googlegroups.com.

[Ted W]

> Try pushing a wheelbarrow up a steep hill..... hilarity ensues. Once you get knocked off your intended line, it's very difficult to move it back on track as the wheelbarrow just wants to go in the direction it was moved to go

Thank you for describing it this way. You just described exactly how it feels to climb a hill with my Gus and Tosco bars. I'll try a longer stem and get my hands further forward.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/9ab5309c-371d-40e5-888e-bdc67f681f67n%40googlegroups.com.

--

Ted Wood < ted.l...@gmail.com >

[Johnny Alien]

I am not a fan of the super long stems with wide sweptback bars. Super flexy and the long stem makes the forward positions unusable for me. I struggle a but with Riv's sizing suggestions. Get a frame thats oversized and then stick a really tall and long stem on it with sweptback bars. All of those things don't add up. My Clem is on the larger size and I really enjoy it but I just a short stem. Never felt like a wheelbarrow to me. Most of my bikes steer pretty much the same with no odd behavior regardless of where my hands are in relation to the stem. I feel the flexiness way more and like builds that are a bit stiffer.

[Johnny Alien]

I also don't do really high bars via the stem or the bars themselves. The tosco is about the max I will do and enjoy. Otherwise I am in the choco/losco camp. Not much rise and no sweep forward.

[J J]

Thanks to all of you for the responses, and Shoji and Garth for the additional information. 

Yes, the wheelbarrow effect. That's a great descriptive image. I have definitely experienced it with an actual wheelbarrow (super annoying and funny) and on a bike!

But I've never experienced the wheelbarrow effect on my Hunq running the Boscomoose bar. I typically sit way upright, too. If I don't my wrists and shoulders hurt tremendously, my arms go numb, and it ruins my rides, etc. 

It's funny, Garth. I would've thought that the Bombadil and Hunq would have behave similarly, yet you suggested you're going to move to drop bars on your Bomba.  

[Joe Bernard]

On recumbents it's the weird sensation of steering a bicycle with zero weight on the front end; we're used to our weight slowing the steering down, on a 'bent you have to slow it down yourself by very lightly resting hands on the bar or it will wiggle all over the dang place. To a lesser degree this can happen on a high-bar conventional bicycle if you're sitting bolt upright. This is tiller effect. 

[Richard Rose]

This tiller effect would make riding no hands difficult, correct?

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 12, 2023, at 3:24 AM, Joe Bernard <joer...@gmail.com> wrote:

On recumbents it's the weird sensation of steering a bicycle with zero weight on the front end; we're used to our weight slowing the steering down, on a 'bent you have to slow it down yourself by very lightly resting hands on the bar or it will wiggle all over the dang place. To a lesser degree this can happen on a high-bar conventional bicycle if you're sitting bolt upright. This is tiller effect. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/6846bc05-97b3-4ddf-a017-1f8a9e8bcb19n%40googlegroups.com.