Off Balance.

Today I visited John to discuss holes in the road and the Midlothian Access Forum; it was an interesting discussion that diversified into beekeeping, family news and many related topics. As promised, he had a shot on the barrer (I do my best to educate, a "barrer" is what barrer-boys call their trikes) and he managed to cover nearly a yard before running over his own right foot - on several occasions. He also managed to avoid (just) scraping his car which can be seen behind him (again on several occasions).

The problem is that John is a very competent bike rider and, like me, also used to  race a bit.
In general, a bike and its rider are in line and the front wheel is steered so that the line joining the two contact points with the ground is underneath the centre of gravity (allowing for centrifugal force due to deviating from a straight course). The rider's instinct is to keep the bike upright.
A trike, on the other hand, remains perpendicular to the road surface what-ever its angle and the tyro, if he is used to a bike, steers in an attempt to return the machine to the vertical - but it doesn't work! The result is the contorted posture (of both man and machine) seen here; he was actually attempting to travel in a straight line. Somewhere along the way his helmet was knocked askew and some of the facial expressions produced were (what's the word I'm looking for, um) interesting.