In the purest sense of words, you are perfectly right. The ambiguity exists as I have used just words to explain a concept that begs for a diagram. With a figure, one can point arrows for different forces and their resultants. Pure words have their limitations. Centrifugal force is the virtual opposite of centripetal force. And centrifugal force will not make the stone escape on a tangent when the string breaks. It will be the stone's inertia produced by its mass and its 'linear' velocity (as you've rightly stated). Getting all these subtleties into the text would ahve made it all the more confusing and so I took the visualization-inspired short-cut by saying that the 'centrifugal force tends to make the stone go on a tangent' because thats what it 'looks' like.

And you're spot on about Tony Foale. I have the book and few could be so detailed and lucid on the subject. The Ner-a-Car and his experiments with Trail and Rake on the BMW R75/5 are a case in point. There's this useful link that has a lot of his papers and articles.

Tony Foale Designs, numerous articles of motorcycle chassis design.

OF

Thank you for the clarification. All these virtual forces etc. are a good recipe for a not-so-virtual headache, when it comes to understanding and correlating them..

when in RIGHT SPEED & RIGHT POSE, you never fall (unless there is gravel/oil slick/ sand/etc.)

Well, that's the reason why I am not confident about cornering fast into those turns where I cannot see clearly.

!