John Denker mentions several references in his reply; the Physics Today
reference is nice, and is accessible without a subscription (I believe),
under a collection of classic papers:
If you have access to Bloomfield's How Things Work, he has a section on
Bicycles that discusses most if not all of the things you might need to
discuss this better with your student. In the third edition, it is Section
4.1. This was the first place I learned about these issues.
--
regards
-Krishna
Krishna Chowdary
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Bucknell University