San Francisco company Gyrobike is hoping to revolutionize how children learn to ride bikes with a new stabilizer wheel, the Gyrowheel. The Gyrowheel's patented technology adds stability to bicycles, particularly when traveling at slow speed. By using the stabilizer wheel, children experience a faster, safer, easier and more fun way to learn to ride a bike with no need for bike training wheels.
Gyrobike was founded in 2007 around the stabilizer wheel technology developed by four engineering students at Dartmouth College: Nathan Sigworth, Augusta Niles, Deborah Sperling and Hannah Murnen. The technology works by sensing that the bike is starting to wobble or tip and re-centers the bike underneath the rider's weight. Inside of the stabilizer wheel is a disk that spins independently of the wheel itself. Running on battery power, the disk creates a force when turned on called gyroscopic precession that stabilizes the bike
Gyroscopes are spinning wheels that exhibit a special property called precession. When a force is applied to the top of the gyroscope (such as a rider tipping), the gyroscope simply turns or precesses in the direction of the fall. Normal bike wheels do this naturally at higher speeds, which is why it is so much easier to stabilize your bike once you get going.
The Gyrowheel simply replaces the existing front wheel on a kid's bike and can be installed quickly with a basic wrench. The wheel has three stability settings, which you can gradually decrease as your child's riding improves. The Company has even published tips for teaching your child how to ride using the stabilizer wheel. Your children will supposedly feel 6-8 times more stability when using the Gyrowheel than through riding without.
The 12 inch version of the Gyrowheel costs $99.95 and is available for order today from the online shop. The Company plans to release a 16 inch version shortly as well as an adult version in the future.