Why are cars faster than motorcycles?

[waggy]

If you go that fast and a bee got you, you deserved it. I want to punch guys who ride sport bikes in shorts and tees right in the throat.

I never ever felt like the wind was going to blow me off a bike. I suppose it depends on what you ride.

.

/this

I get irritated at the "squids" or "bro" riders. Those guys that ride in flp flops and tank tops. they have a helmet..but its bolted to the side of the bike.

if you are not going to ride in gear don't ride.

Also i laugh when a newb starts ona 600cc sports bike. hell i seen a thread where a newb was talking about getting 1000cc busa. lol

 

[MongGrel]

Yeah I know, it was a joke start to begin with.

:thumbsup:

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

It's world class foolish to ride that fast on the street.

If you want to say that riding that fast is foolish I'm not going to argue. Rock climbing, sky diving too. Being "on the street"? As far as those I rode with no more than anywhere else.

he reality is that at that speed, you might as well be wearing a tee shirt and flip flops, cause if you go down, you're not getting up again.

If you are wearing appropriate riding gear and slide out at normal speed you may or may not have a bad ending. If you are going relatively slow and dress in tees and flip flops you will get hurt. There's no "maybe". You saw someone go down and get badly hurt. That's awful, really. I've been on tracks and watched races and see people slide then get up. Sore for sure, but no hole in the ground for them.

Risk free? No. Motorsports carry implicit dangers. Would I advise anyone to do what I've done or seen done? No. That's not for me to encourage, however I took the same precautions I would have on the track as far as armor goes. I rode with people who took things very seriously. Not everyone does.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Agreed habula, you would never go that speed on a normal road for more than a few moments. Most of my 100+ were either late at night doing 1/4 or 1/2 mile runs with some buddies or on a highway that was wide and empty.
Yes the wind was harsh but there was no way it was going to blow you off the bike.

 

[justoh]

You guys make biking sound quite exciting. I was moved reading some of your comments. But cars are faster.

 

[jagec]

Stability and aero. Beating a fast bike on the highway is just about taking to the speed that the rider starts to experience tremendous wind resistance and would be sucked off the bike if one ripple of clothing stuck up. Theres also the issue of keeping the front tire down on the bike.

It's all technical issues not raw power or weight.

As for minimum power to stay in the same zipcode as a bike, I can take on 600s with 624rwhp. Liter bikes require twin turbos and 850+ rwhp.

But it's mostly rider aero. Bikes hit a top speed brick wall because of the exposed rider no matter how tight they tuck in. But they will pretty much always take the launch and 0-60 from you. Even with slicks on the car and enough power, streets are too dirty to hook.

Best post in the thread.

I ride a "slow" bike...DL650. It's still faster than just about any car on the road at quasi-legal speeds.

I test-rode a Triumph Tiger 1050 once. MAN, that bike has an intoxicating engine. But after I got onto the back roads and into the upper part of the tach, and then glanced down and realized that I was into the triple digits, I had to turn it down. I'd get into too much trouble on a bike like that. At least with sport bikes, they're gutless at low-to-mid revs. This bike had the most linear power curve I've ever felt.

 

[NFS4]

This will murder anything on the road with two or four wheels.

 

[mnewsham]

You guys make biking sound quite exciting. I was moved reading some of your comments. But cars are faster.

 

[mnewsham]

murder anything on the road with two or four wheels.

Koenigsegg I'm sure would like to disagree with that.

 

[Triumph]

This will murder anything on the road with two or four wheels.

I love the P1 but even now, cars like it and the Koenigsegg and the new Porsche 918 are just knocking on the door of what a literbike will do, both in acceleration and on the track. I used to think that cars had the edge in lap times when curves are included, but a detailed discussion on vwvortex a few months ago changed my mind. The motorcycle record on the Nurburgring is 7m10s, which is faster than almost every car on the list except the 918. If you look at the lap times of your average motorcycle organization on tracks that also have car times, the motorcycle times will on average be faster - that's with regular humans not professional racers. On tracks that professional races occur with both motorcycles and cars, like Laguna Seca, the motorcycle times are usually faster than all but the most aerodynamic cars like F1 or closed cockpit prototypes (F1 is simply leaps and bounds faster than anything on a road course, i'd never argue that). Funny thing is, even fully race prepped motorcycles are not that much faster than their stock counterparts. At the Isle of Man TT last year, John McGuinness set the records for both the superstock and outright categories. The difference was only 4 seconds, over a 37 mile course. I think the only modifications that can be made to the superstock bikes are tires, minor suspension and brakes, and obvious safety mods. But 4 seconds over 37 miles is almost nothing. Insane what a stock bike can do nowadays.

 

[Arkaign]

That cycle time was bridge to gantry, which works out to around 7:25 or so compared to official ring times. It was also a heavily modded bike with someone spending a year working on the time. Gtr with race tires (to be equal with bike setup) is still faster. Bike is more fun, but there is a massive gap between 710 and 725.

 

[Triumph]

That cycle time was bridge to gantry, which works out to around 7:25 or so compared to official ring times. It was also a heavily modded bike with someone spending a year working on the time. Gtr with race tires (to be equal with bike setup) is still faster. Bike is more fun, but there is a massive gap between 710 and 725.

i thought bridge to gantry is the most recognized time due to changes at the track over the years?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

This will murder anything on the road with two or four wheels.

So it's an electric car? There's like the biggest USB connection on the back that I've ever seen.

OK.
The fastest land vehicle is a car.

According to the land speed record rules a car has 4 wheels. This has 4 wheels. /Finis.

It's occurred to me that saying "doing 150 on a motorcycle is crazy because what happens if you have an accident" isn't really the point. If you crash a car at 150 into a barrier you are screwed too.

 

[Murloc]

in road driving a motorcycle will always be faster than a car because acceleration is all that matters and very high speeds are usually not reached.

It's occurred to me that saying "doing 150 on a motorcycle is crazy because what happens if you have an accident" isn't really the point. If you crash a car at 150 into a barrier you are screwed too.

well but at much lower speeds, with a bike you can be hit something and be thrown on a guard rail or a taut cable, or against a hard thing, and die. In a car none of this happens if it's strong enough and has airbags.
Of course over a certain speed it doesn't make any difference anymore, for certain kinds of collisions, you get killed regardless.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Ferrari vs Ducati

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Drive from Mankato to International Falls, in January.

A car will get you there faster because you don't have to stop every 20 minutes to warm up.

 

[Arkaign]

Hah, this makes the Ferrari and even the Veyron look absolutely GLACIALLY slow :

http://youtu.be/gZ7snULupqE?t=2m55s

That's the rub with bikes. They're about as fast stock as they're going to get in terms of track vehicles, there's very little that can be improved. For drag racing, you can stretch them and put bars on them, but that defeats their use for anything else.

Bikes are by FAR the best value for speed though. An Alpha would simply embarrass the bike on something like the Ring though (it would also handily crush the 918). Best estimate I saw was something in the 6:38 range for the 9, not even the 12.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Here's the deal with the OP's question and it comes down to one thing, grip. A motorcycle has a much better power to weight ratio so they are very quick to accelerate.

Most stock literbikes (literbike=1000cc sport bike) will easily post a quarter mile run of 10 seconds flat (or less) at almost 150mph. They run out of top speed around 180-185mph though due to aerodynamics and drag.

Braking and cornering they pay a penalty because of lack of grip. Their tires have a curved profile so they can lean in a corner and maintain an even contact patch but that contact patch is tiny compared to a car. When that contact patch is trying to deal with acceleration, cornering forces and braking force all at the same time it is a recipe for disaster which is why you want to do your braking before you get into a turn and keep steady on the throttle during the turn and then accelerate out of the turn.

Many riders run into trouble with this because they go in too fast and then try to make corrections mid corner and then exceed the grip of the tires. When you exceed the grip of the tires on a motorcycle, you crash.

Bikes are very challenging to ride fast and very rewarding when you get it right, much more rewarding than a car IMO, but you pay a much higher price when you get it wrong.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Any half decent bike, particularly any sport bike is going to have higher to much higher power to weight ratio and will thus out accelerate most any car. Cars, on the other hand have an advantage in turns where aero downforce permits them upwards of 5g's cornering acceleration while the highest performance bikes would be lucky to see 1.3 g's. And, cars are more aerodynamic than bikes making them faster at top speed.

Put any motorcycle with any engine and ridden by the best racer in the world on a road course with an F1 race car and its likely the bike will be lapped within 5 laps.

BTW, I've owned many bikes.


Brian

 

[waggy]

So it's an electric car? There's like the biggest USB connection on the back that I've ever seen.

GOD DAMNIT> Now every time i look at that pic all i can see is a huge USB connector and picture the owner putting it in and it now working so he flips it...:biggrin:

 

[Jaskalas]

only true for cheaper bikes, if you spend over $10k you can get a bike to hit 180+Mph no problem, try buying a car that will do that for that cheap.

180+ on a bike = road kill.

It's occurred to me that saying "doing 150 on a motorcycle is crazy because what happens if you have an accident" isn't really the point. If you crash a car at 150 into a barrier you are screwed too.

There are hard impacts, sure. There are also other incidents.

 

[madoka]

This will murder anything on the road with two or four wheels.

It's really fast for a production car, but I wouldn't say it's faster than "anything on the road."

McLaren P1:

0 to 300 km/h (186 mph) in 16.5 seconds
1/4 mile in 9.8 seconds at 152 mph

Alpha Omega GT-R:

0 to 300 km/h (186 mph) in 7.98 Seconds
1/4 mile in 7.984 @ 186.14 mph

 

[norseamd]

might as well buy this

 

[Gillbot]

 

[Fenixgoon]

your average bike will be faster than your average car, yes.

but at the end of a day, the best car in the world will outperform the best bike in the world.

also, cute joke. i was really expecting this to turn into plane vs treadmill 😛