Dana successfully defended her MSc Thesis titled Effects of Assistance Level and Familiarization on Elderly Riding a Balance Assist Bicycle on July 15, 2026.

Dana investigated whether elderly riders felt comfortable riding our balance assist bicycle and whether the assistance had any effect on motion. She did this by having three groups of elderly riders test the bicycle that were unaware of the assistance strength level: off, low, or high. The subjects were only told that the bicycle had something akin to power steering in a car, but not that it had a stabilizing effect. Secondly, she tested if the comfort changed the longer the subjects road the bicycle by having them get familiar with the bicycle over a long period of riding in one day. Interestingly, she did not confirm the findings we had in [Alizadehsaravi2023], i.e. that the balance assist reduced steering and rolling motions. She also found that the 31 elderly subjects' comfort opinion over time improved for all levels of assistance but it was not apparent that subjects gave differing comfort opinions for different assistance levels, possibly pointing towards the riders' inability to detect the assistance. This study has given us another set of clues to understand if balance assist really assists and whether riders will accept it. Elderly riders will likely accept the system but our confidence it objectively helps has not grown.

Dana was profiled by the TU Delft communications team in the online article:

How do older people experience a bike that helps them keep their balance?

Dana was supervised by Jules Ronné and Jason K. Moore with early support from Felix Dauer at Bosch eBike Systems. Everyone at the bicycle lab is very proud of Dana and wishes her the best with her next endeavors.

[Alizadehsaravi2023]

Alizadehsaravi, L., & Moore, J. K. (2023). Bicycle balance assist system reduces roll and steering motion for young and older bicyclists during real-life safety challenges. PeerJ, 11, e16206. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16206