snilard
Guru of hot glue gun
Clever idea. Does it really work?
Steering damper/stabilizer
- Thread starter Mwhwsmith
- Start date
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
No idea, I don't have one nor do I know if they are available.
tiltmaniac
Zen MBB Master
I looked for it a week or so ago.
I found one distributor I think in the UK who was selling it.
I decided to use silicone rubber bands instead for mine. Not as pretty, but does what I want and is very cheap.
I found one distributor I think in the UK who was selling it.
I decided to use silicone rubber bands instead for mine. Not as pretty, but does what I want and is very cheap.
LarryOz
Cruzeum Curator & Sigma Wrangler
It is Jason's secret weapon - It makes the V magically defy gravity and climb steep hills effortlessly!
I'm gonna get one!
tiltmaniac
Zen MBB Master
Looks like you can buy the viscoset headset from the Cane Creek site's store.
www.canecreek.com/store/headsets/viscoset
For my part, what I wanted was an anti-flop mechanism, as opposed to a steering damper. The Viscoset headset doesn't do anti-flop as far as I can tell.
Mine, which is more anti-flop than anything else, involves some of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Wrapping-Exe...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Z3AXB0A619F75WAQXGV9
wrapped around the frame behind where the headset meets the bottom of the frame, and then up to the boom, held by one placing it on the other side of one of the bottlecage nuts.
www.canecreek.com/store/headsets/viscoset
For my part, what I wanted was an anti-flop mechanism, as opposed to a steering damper. The Viscoset headset doesn't do anti-flop as far as I can tell.
Mine, which is more anti-flop than anything else, involves some of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Wrapping-Exe...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Z3AXB0A619F75WAQXGV9
wrapped around the frame behind where the headset meets the bottom of the frame, and then up to the boom, held by one placing it on the other side of one of the bottlecage nuts.
Balor
Zen MBB Master
Rubber bands are more 'flop stop' than 'damper', though they do provide some dampening effect due to hysteresis.
50$ for a bunch of shims covered with viscous (likely paraffin-based like ski waxes) lube is on an expensive side, though it is clever and simple design.
Same effect can be had by thickening some lube with paraffin and relubing conventional 'loose ball' headset with it. You'll actually get better headset life AND some damping. I'm intending to experiment with that myself.
The effect, theoretically (especially combined with flop stop - and it should be fairly strong, btw) is better control over the handlebars at all speeds, both low and high.
You'll still have to deal with steering inertia when accelerating your steering, but you can offload some of the 'stopping' effort onto the viscous friction. (note - it would likely feel weird at first and would require some getting used to if you are already familiar with MBB dynamics).
50$ for a bunch of shims covered with viscous (likely paraffin-based like ski waxes) lube is on an expensive side, though it is clever and simple design.
Same effect can be had by thickening some lube with paraffin and relubing conventional 'loose ball' headset with it. You'll actually get better headset life AND some damping. I'm intending to experiment with that myself.
The effect, theoretically (especially combined with flop stop - and it should be fairly strong, btw) is better control over the handlebars at all speeds, both low and high.
You'll still have to deal with steering inertia when accelerating your steering, but you can offload some of the 'stopping' effort onto the viscous friction. (note - it would likely feel weird at first and would require some getting used to if you are already familiar with MBB dynamics).
tiltmaniac
Zen MBB Master
You're right on the money, Balor!
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
Hey! Where'd the thread go?? I was reading through, drooling over my keyboard hoping that lots of testing and new damping products would be discussed, but suddenly it all ended. I would like to try a dampener, but I don't like being a pioneer with mechanical things. For now, I'm terrified of going over 20 mph on my V20 due to occasional unstable moments, often due to road conditions. While I can accept that more practice will make perfect, I'm not willing to put my life on the line in the mean time. To each his own but I'm all for dampening out vibrations mechanically. Anything new on this?
Bill
Bill
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
A dampner is never going to stabilize the V20 like you are hoping without handicapping the feel of the steering which is not an acceptable trade off. What I designed and made is more soft steering limiter for when pushing or walking the bike around. I still use my original prototype on my V20, in fact I still haven't gotten around to painting the bare aluminum clamp. If you feel unstable on the bike you need more practice to become a better rider on it, there are no pills or apps for skill. The V20 will never match a DF bike for stability over lumpy rough roads but with a very careful touch you can control the bike to near the same performance. You are riding a high performance race machine, it's not going to handle like a family sedan.
tiltmaniac
Zen MBB Master
I'm still using my silicone rubber bands for flop-stopping (i.e. parking the bike without having if fall all over the place/damage itself).
I have some plastic tubing and springs that I'll be putting together at some point as a "more permanent" replacement flop-stopper. The current silicone rubber band (only one needed!) lasts about two months of daily riding.
I'd estimate I'll get to it sometime in the next month. Maybe.
I have some plastic tubing and springs that I'll be putting together at some point as a "more permanent" replacement flop-stopper. The current silicone rubber band (only one needed!) lasts about two months of daily riding.
I'd estimate I'll get to it sometime in the next month. Maybe.
Balor
Zen MBB Master
N.B.: I'm yet to try a 'real' damper myself, so take my advice on the 'DAMPER' side at face value - theorizing.
Jason is right, too: if you don't have trouble with damping the steering inertia, damper will only make things worse. But if you *do*, it is certainly going to make a difference!
However, when it comes to steering inertia, MBB designs are much closer to motocycles (and it may even be greater, depends on the weight of your legs
), so adding a moto damper seems like a warranted addition.
I should note that MBB varibike has moto steering damper factory installed:
http://newatlas.com/varibike-trike-arm-leg-powered/48031/
Whether this is 'great mind thinking alike' or 'crazy minds thinking alike' is up to you
I guess it greatly depends how you can finely coordinate movements of your arms and legs to control the bike - while legs are not 'dead weight', unless you are actively doing something steering-related with them, they might as well be as far as steering purposes are concerned.
For the 'flop stop' side, it an extremely welcome addition for a number of reasons.
Read this paper, this is really fascinating stuff:
http://www.bicycle.tudelft.nl/ProceedingsBMD2010/papers/patterson2010application.pdf
It is centered around a concept what Patterson calls a 'control spring' - a self-centring force that is vital for a bike to be pleasant to ride (or rideable at all).
"I used several bikes and riders to confirm our findings. This allowed me to determine that the spring constant that fit the subjective feel of many people is 1500 newtons per meter. The mystery spring constant worked as a useable bike design tool for several years. We have since discovered that the USAF uses an optimal spring constant for the F-15 fighter of 7.5 lb/inch, which is approximately 1400 new-tons/meter"
If you read this article, you'll see that this force is composed of two counteracting forces:
a. Wheel flop - that degrades the steering by making the wheel flop into the turn.
b. Trail force - that provides that most welcome 'self-centering' action.
Unfortunately, on MBB wheel flop is very strong due to basically being 'two-fold':
1. Wheel flop force (a "conventional wheel flop" that is actually head tube lowering as you turn the wheel, it's force depends on how much weight is on the front wheel, steering angle and trail.)
2. Front triangle weight - the 'directly observed' wheel flop that makes the fork flop under it's own weight due to CG of the steering being above the steering axis - hence it 'wants' to return to stable equilibrium - flop over. It gets worse with your legs added on top of it.
I've communicated with Patterson, he advises like 12cm of trail for MBB. Unfortunately, that makes (1) flop stronger, and low-speed behaviour would be very bad until you pick up the speed and trail forces overcome that wheel flop forces... and at very high speed this much trail would actually make steering corrections hard to perform.
Also I should note that trail force depends on traction, and traction is a limited and highly contested (steering and driving) resource on MBB! Plus, since trail force is due to friction of the tire against the pavement, lots of trails would make you slower. Not by much to be sure, but still!
So, barring exotic designs like negative angle steering (which I'm working on atm, nearly ready but it does have it's limitations), adding a pretty strong spring to counteract this 'two-fold' wheel flop would result in a bike that is much better to handle at all speeds, AND independent on front wheel traction AND would make you faster compared to lots of trail.
Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
Jason is right, too: if you don't have trouble with damping the steering inertia, damper will only make things worse. But if you *do*, it is certainly going to make a difference!
However, when it comes to steering inertia, MBB designs are much closer to motocycles (and it may even be greater, depends on the weight of your legs
), so adding a moto damper seems like a warranted addition.I should note that MBB varibike has moto steering damper factory installed:
http://newatlas.com/varibike-trike-arm-leg-powered/48031/
Whether this is 'great mind thinking alike' or 'crazy minds thinking alike' is up to you
I guess it greatly depends how you can finely coordinate movements of your arms and legs to control the bike - while legs are not 'dead weight', unless you are actively doing something steering-related with them, they might as well be as far as steering purposes are concerned.
For the 'flop stop' side, it an extremely welcome addition for a number of reasons.
Read this paper, this is really fascinating stuff:
http://www.bicycle.tudelft.nl/ProceedingsBMD2010/papers/patterson2010application.pdf
It is centered around a concept what Patterson calls a 'control spring' - a self-centring force that is vital for a bike to be pleasant to ride (or rideable at all).
"I used several bikes and riders to confirm our findings. This allowed me to determine that the spring constant that fit the subjective feel of many people is 1500 newtons per meter. The mystery spring constant worked as a useable bike design tool for several years. We have since discovered that the USAF uses an optimal spring constant for the F-15 fighter of 7.5 lb/inch, which is approximately 1400 new-tons/meter"
If you read this article, you'll see that this force is composed of two counteracting forces:
a. Wheel flop - that degrades the steering by making the wheel flop into the turn.
b. Trail force - that provides that most welcome 'self-centering' action.
Unfortunately, on MBB wheel flop is very strong due to basically being 'two-fold':
1. Wheel flop force (a "conventional wheel flop" that is actually head tube lowering as you turn the wheel, it's force depends on how much weight is on the front wheel, steering angle and trail.)
2. Front triangle weight - the 'directly observed' wheel flop that makes the fork flop under it's own weight due to CG of the steering being above the steering axis - hence it 'wants' to return to stable equilibrium - flop over. It gets worse with your legs added on top of it.
I've communicated with Patterson, he advises like 12cm of trail for MBB. Unfortunately, that makes (1) flop stronger, and low-speed behaviour would be very bad until you pick up the speed and trail forces overcome that wheel flop forces... and at very high speed this much trail would actually make steering corrections hard to perform.
Also I should note that trail force depends on traction, and traction is a limited and highly contested (steering and driving) resource on MBB! Plus, since trail force is due to friction of the tire against the pavement, lots of trails would make you slower. Not by much to be sure, but still!
So, barring exotic designs like negative angle steering (which I'm working on atm, nearly ready but it does have it's limitations), adding a pretty strong spring to counteract this 'two-fold' wheel flop would result in a bike that is much better to handle at all speeds, AND independent on front wheel traction AND would make you faster compared to lots of trail.
Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
DavidCH
In thought; expanding the paradigm of traversity
The more time you spend in the air the greater the confidence of a controlled landing ... I don't go in the air yet but if I lost a bit of weight I might
Balor
Zen MBB Master
Actual springs are much better, because rubber bands, like all elastomers, exhibit nonlinear spring rate - very light at first and extremely stiff when at maximum elongation. And then it breaks
.
super slim
Zen MBB Master
The vicious dampeners are for MTBs to minimise the steering jolt when hitting the side of rocks, not for road riding!
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Balor
Zen MBB Master
First, not all 'roads' are created equal. Or even if they did, they don't seem to stay that way (oh entropy, thou art a heartless bitch! ~(c)). It takes one pothole to go down and possibly get injured for life.
Next, let me post this article again:
http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/gear/a...eler-on-adapting-to-life-with-one-hand-33596/
A lot of one-armed cyclists are using steering dampers exactly because they have greatly reduced ability to damp steering inertia.
You should at the very least seriously consider it if you plan to use narrow bars AND you cannot ride no-handed yet.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
The MBB of CruzBike is nothing like any conventional motorcycle in the steering department. Steering dampners on motorcycles are designed to keep a bad shake from turning into a horrible shake and then crash. They aren't designed to keep the shake from happening at all and as I said in an earlier post when to tighten them down enough to do this the whole bikes handling becomes severally compromised. I believe you did understand that part of my post though.
The problem is everyone here is looking for that don't let the shake happen at all solution because on a bicycle with no weight just a little shake can mean a crash. The closest product to that is the viscous headset but I think that is a pour solution although I'd love to try one to see what other aspects it effect because knowledge is nice to have.
The problem is everyone here is looking for that don't let the shake happen at all solution because on a bicycle with no weight just a little shake can mean a crash. The closest product to that is the viscous headset but I think that is a pour solution although I'd love to try one to see what other aspects it effect because knowledge is nice to have.
RAR
Well-Known Member
What size tires are you using; how much pressure are in them?
Balor
Zen MBB Master
Indeed, steering damping as applied to MBB has nothing to do with preventing tank slappers (and not just because you, technically, cannot have one due to lack of a tank
), but because of massive steering inertia - to get rid of 'twitchiness', which is basically feeling of insufficient control over the handlebars. I should note that is much less of a problem with smaller riders due to how boom length adjustement is set up on Cruzbikes.Would you recommend a one-handed person to 'man up and ride it anyway - it will go away'? Riding MBB, especially with narrow bars, is kinda like riding one-handed when it comes to level of control over the front end, I suspect. I think this is just psycology at work - "we are not handicappped, therefore we should not use 'steering aids'" Well, if you enjoy a challenge, I agree. If you just want to maximize your speed, safety and comfort - this is an other thing entirely. Especially when 'riding it anyway' to full adaptation may take years, thousands of miles and even never actually happen. (There are multiple examples of that, but we don't seem them here due to classic survivorship bias).
BTW! You said it yourself that you'll never use narrow bars like one Larry uses - because 'it will never work in the mountains'. And what if a steering damper would allow you to use narrow bars, and achieve higher speeds on flats while retaining full control on bad roads and high-speed downhills? That is a testable hypothesis, actually.
DavidCH
In thought; expanding the paradigm of traversity
Do you really want to faster than Jason? Good LuckIndeed, steering damping as applied to MBB has nothing to do with preventing tank slappers (and not just because you, technically, cannot have one due to lack of a tank
Would you recommend a one-handed person to 'man up and ride it anyway - it will go away'? Riding MBB, especially with narrow bars, is kinda like riding one-handed when it comes to level of control over the front end, I suspect. I think this is just psycology at work - "we are not handicappped, therefore we should not use 'steering aids'" Well, if you enjoy a challenge, I agree. If you just want to maximize your speed, safety and comfort - this is an other thing entirely. Especially when 'riding it anyway' to full adaptation may take years, thousands of miles and even never actually happen. (There are multiple examples of that, but we don't seem them here due to classic survivorship bias).
BTW! You said it yourself that you'll never use narrow bars like one Larry uses - because 'it will never work in the mountains'. And what if a steering damper would allow you to use narrow bars, and achieve higher speeds on flats while retaining full control on bad roads and high-speed downhills? That is a testable hypothesis, actually.
Balor
Zen MBB Master
Let's not turn this thread into "Jason appreciation club", ok? I don't think he really needs it.
Anyway, let me remind that:
a. I don't have a Cruzbike - I have a DIY MBB that is not exactly similar and is not exactly very well-designed. Actually, now I have two, if you count my prototype reverse-angle one, but you cannot ride it in proper reclined position yet. That will change any day now.
b. I am genetically clumsy.
So, my judgements may not apply to everyone.
YET, the above mentioned prototype shows that my assessments are correct - 'negative angle' that gets ride of both flops (actually, makes them contribute to self-stabilisation instead) makes the bike behave wonderfully, and combined with short boom makes the bike behave exactly like DF bike... better, in fact - at least, when pedaling bolt upright. Adding remote control (or very long tiller bars) is underway, I'll test them both, but each solution is a compromise, that may or may not outweight the benefits, hence I'm cautious about promoting superiority of this design (unlike, say, Bob Walton who has no such reservations). And that is despite it having quite a bit MORE pedal feedback than my other MBB!
But you don't actually need to make a 'funny front end' to make MBB 'behave nicely' and make it much more accessible (which means more sales - where's harm in that?!), that can be also done with finely tuned 'anti-flop' spring and a steering damper.
Anyway, let me remind that:
a. I don't have a Cruzbike - I have a DIY MBB that is not exactly similar and is not exactly very well-designed. Actually, now I have two, if you count my prototype reverse-angle one, but you cannot ride it in proper reclined position yet. That will change any day now.
b. I am genetically clumsy.
So, my judgements may not apply to everyone.
YET, the above mentioned prototype shows that my assessments are correct - 'negative angle' that gets ride of both flops (actually, makes them contribute to self-stabilisation instead) makes the bike behave wonderfully, and combined with short boom makes the bike behave exactly like DF bike... better, in fact - at least, when pedaling bolt upright. Adding remote control (or very long tiller bars) is underway, I'll test them both, but each solution is a compromise, that may or may not outweight the benefits, hence I'm cautious about promoting superiority of this design (unlike, say, Bob Walton who has no such reservations
). And that is despite it having quite a bit MORE pedal feedback than my other MBB!But you don't actually need to make a 'funny front end' to make MBB 'behave nicely' and make it much more accessible (which means more sales - where's harm in that?!), that can be also done with finely tuned 'anti-flop' spring and a steering damper.
