The Air Bicycle
The most famous exhibit in the centre is a bicycle. It sits on a single steel cable strung across the atrium about twenty metres above the lobby floor, and for a small extra ticket you can pedal it from one side to the other and back, looking down past your feet at the people below. Beneath the bicycle hangs a heavy counterweight, and it is this that makes the ride possible: with the mass hanging well below the cable, the combined centre of gravity of rider and machine is under the wire, and the bicycle rights itself however much you wobble. The ride is slow, steady and, for most people, at least a little frightening.
The exhibit is a lesson in balance made unforgettable. The principle is the same as a tightrope walker's long pole, which lowers the walker's centre of gravity, and the same as a keel on a sailing boat. Look at the bicycle before you ride: the counterweight is a ball of steel on a rigid rod, the wheels are grooved to sit on the cable, and there is a harness and a safety line as well, because physics is trustworthy but visitors like reassurance. Watch a rider stop in the middle and lean deliberately to one side; the bicycle swings and then returns to vertical.
Sky bicycles of this kind exist in a few science centres around the world, but this one, crossing an open atrium rather than a single hall, is the highest and most visible, and it has been the centre's signature since the building opened. There is a height and weight limit and children ride only above a certain age, and on weekends the tickets for the day can sell out by early afternoon. Even if you do not ride, find a place on the balcony and watch the faces of those who do.
Did You Know? The counterweight under the bicycle keeps the centre of gravity below the cable, so the harder you try to tip it, the more firmly it swings back upright.
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