--- title: Creating a Custom Motorcycle System for Unreal Engine 5 description: A technical artist recounts a year spent building a custom motorcycle physics system in Unreal Engine 5 for his narrative-driven game, after finding Chaos... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/creating-a-custom-motorcycle-system-for-unreal-engine-5-g18ip0j1p twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Creating a Custom Motorcycle System for Unreal Engine 5 | daily.dev og:description: A technical artist recounts a year spent building a custom motorcycle physics system in Unreal Engine 5 for his narrative-driven game, after finding Chaos... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/creating-a-custom-motorcycle-system-for-unreal-engine-5-g18ip0j1p og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/G18IP0j1P.png og:image:alt: Creating a Custom Motorcycle System for Unreal Engine 5 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Creating a Custom Motorcycle System for Unreal Engine 5 **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 12 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A technical artist recounts a year spent building a custom motorcycle physics system in Unreal Engine 5 for his narrative-driven game, after finding Chaos Vehicles too general-purpose for a two-wheeled machine. He explains motorcycle-specific physics concepts like capsize mode, self-stabilization above 25-30 km/h, and the myth of gyroscopic stabilization, treats bike and rider as one mechanical system, borrows collision-anticipation ideas from self-driving car research, and designs non-riding states like falling, sliding, and picking the bike up off the ground. He shares lessons on tooling, failure states, and debugging invisible physics, and concludes that a custom system was only worth it because the motorcycle functions as a second main character in the story. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### At what speed does a motorcycle become self-stabilizing without rider input? A motorcycle enters a self-stabilizing range starting at roughly 7-8 meters per second, which is about 25-30 km/h. Below that speed it falls over regardless of rider action, a mode called capsize in motorcycle dynamics literature. Above that threshold, taking your hands off the bars after a sideways push lets the bike straighten itself out with no rider input, driven by steering geometry, mass distribution, and tire behavior rather than gyroscopic effect. _daily.dev surfaces deep dives like this for developers modeling real-world vehicle dynamics in game engines._ ### Why did Chaos Vehicles in Unreal Engine 5 not work well for a motorcycle simulation? Chaos Vehicles is built around a four-wheeled model where weight distribution gives character rather than determining whether the vehicle falls over, so it required stacking hacks for gyroscopic effect, tire behavior, and suspension response on a motorcycle. The resulting bugs came from interactions between those hacks rather than the underlying physics, which led to writing a custom collision resolution and physics core from scratch over about a year. _Developers weighing built-in engine physics against a custom core can track these tradeoffs on daily.dev._ ### Does the gyroscopic effect of a spinning front wheel keep a motorcycle upright? No, the gyroscopic effect is not the main reason a moving motorcycle stays upright, and it is negligible at low speed. A 2011 paper in Science described a bicycle built with its gyroscopic moment canceled out and negative trail that still straightened itself after a push, showing that stability instead comes from steering geometry, mass distribution, and tire behavior working together. _daily.dev helps developers researching vehicle physics separate myths from mechanics before implementing them._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Bodycam's Update To Feature New Self-Balancing Ragdoll System](https://daily.dev/posts/bodycam-s-update-to-feature-new-self-balancing-ragdoll-system-1uwzb5h0n) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Explosive Real-Time Car Crash Simulation In UE5](https://daily.dev/posts/explosive-real-time-car-crash-simulation-in-ue5-gqa5ypx85) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A Physics Engine with Incremental Rollback • Easel](https://daily.dev/posts/a-physics-engine-with-incremental-rollback-easel-smqrkuh1s) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#unreal-engine](https://daily.dev/tags/unreal-engine) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/creating-a-custom-motorcycle-system-for-unreal-engine-5-g18ip0j1p) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Creating a Custom Motorcycle System for Unreal Engine 5","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/creating-a-custom-motorcycle-system-for-unreal-engine-5-g18ip0j1p","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/creating-a-custom-motorcycle-system-for-unreal-engine-5-g18ip0j1p"},"datePublished":"2026-08-24T05:05:31.037Z","dateModified":"2026-08-24T05:05:58.989Z","description":"A technical artist recounts a year spent building a custom motorcycle physics system in Unreal Engine 5 for his narrative-driven game, after finding Chaos...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a21b0c43f12d92024755567ea790ba2c?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a21b0c43f12d92024755567ea790ba2c?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"80 LEVEL","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"80 LEVEL","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/78eebcd76c154e6bbfd565fed7dc4093","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/creating-a-custom-motorcycle-system-for-unreal-engine-5-g18ip0j1p","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"unreal-engine","timeRequired":"PT12M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"80 LEVEL","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Creating a Custom Motorcycle System for Unreal Engine 5"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/creating-a-custom-motorcycle-system-for-unreal-engine-5-g18ip0j1p#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"At what speed does a motorcycle become self-stabilizing without rider input?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"A motorcycle enters a self-stabilizing range starting at roughly 7-8 meters per second, which is about 25-30 km/h. Below that speed it falls over regardless of rider action, a mode called capsize in motorcycle dynamics literature. Above that threshold, taking your hands off the bars after a sideways push lets the bike straighten itself out with no rider input, driven by steering geometry, mass distribution, and tire behavior rather than gyroscopic effect. daily.dev surfaces deep dives like this for developers modeling real-world vehicle dynamics in game engines."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Why did Chaos Vehicles in Unreal Engine 5 not work well for a motorcycle simulation?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Chaos Vehicles is built around a four-wheeled model where weight distribution gives character rather than determining whether the vehicle falls over, so it required stacking hacks for gyroscopic effect, tire behavior, and suspension response on a motorcycle. The resulting bugs came from interactions between those hacks rather than the underlying physics, which led to writing a custom collision resolution and physics core from scratch over about a year. Developers weighing built-in engine physics against a custom core can track these tradeoffs on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Does the gyroscopic effect of a spinning front wheel keep a motorcycle upright?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No, the gyroscopic effect is not the main reason a moving motorcycle stays upright, and it is negligible at low speed. A 2011 paper in Science described a bicycle built with its gyroscopic moment canceled out and negative trail that still straightened itself after a push, showing that stability instead comes from steering geometry, mass distribution, and tire behavior working together. daily.dev helps developers researching vehicle physics separate myths from mechanics before implementing them."}}]} ```