Bike thief

[BMAD]

You are brought to a crime scene. You are told that a thief just made off with a bag full of diamonds, escaping on a bicycle. You come across the following pair of bicycle tracks in the snow, no doubt made by the fleeing thief. But which way did the thief go?

Edited June 5, 2016 by BMAD

[CaptainEd]

Spoiler

( 1 ) the front wheel curves more tightly, so the line that is higher on the right end represents the front wheel

( 2 ) the back wheel curvature is further to the left than the corresponding curves in the front wheel--this implies to me that travel is left to right, as the back wheel curving ought to lag the front wheel.

We have to assume that this is merely an excerpt of the trail. The back wheel would not catch up to the front wheel in reality.

So, the thief rode from left to right

 

Edited June 7, 2016 by CaptainEd

[phaze]

Spoiler

I think it is from left to right but think that the blue is the front wheel for the following reasons

* The front wheel does the turning and has a more dramatic turning circle whilst the back wheel will always point at the front wheel. Therefore blue is the front wheel which could be confirmed if I could figure out if the black track crosses the blue one (my eyesight may be good, but not that good) 

* when a curve occurs the blue track it occurs slightly to the right of a lesser curve in the black track (thus it looks left to right)

 

Edit: See also https://www.rain.org/~mkummel/stumpers/09mar01a.html

 

 

Edited June 7, 2016 by phaze

[CaptainEd]

@Phaze: on my laptop, the two lines are the same color. I think you are seeing the same relationship between curves that I am seeing. Is the blue line the one which is on top of the picture at the right hand side?

[phaze]

yes