fastest bike from 0-180mph

(Not a car VS bike thread, just an interesting observation)

A while back Cycle world conducted a test to see which of the latest crop of Superbikes would be fastest from 0-180mph. ( 0-180mph = 17.21 secs ZX10R)

The ZX10R came out top, even beating a modified Hennesy Ford GT. Also note 100-150mph times and the 150mph to 180mph time.

As an interesting comparisson, a Bugatti Veyron's 'claimed' figures are a little faster from 0-180mph, but in actual tests conducted by Road & Track, times perhaps are a tad slower from 0-180mph compared to a ZX10R. Of course the test conditions for both are different so to reallly compare tests would have to done at the same time. Bugatti 0-171 in 16.4 second (not eactly 0-180)

Bugatti accleration download from ROAD AND TRACK)
http://www.roadandtrack.com/assets/download/0-200_Data.pdf.pdf )

Cycle world figures
http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/9826/graphom8.jpg


I don't know which is more impressive, a £9000 bike being as quick as a Veyron, or a 1900kg car being as quick as a bike, and ultimatley faster with a long enough road.

The road going version of the Ducati Desmocedici was tested by MCN at 0-180mph in 16 seconds!! WOW

PS

Veyron 0-200pmh in 24 seconds!!!

My bike is awsomely fast, 0-150mph in about 16 seconds, but would be left high and dry by the above!!

 

It's an interesting comparison. Not having ridden a motorbike, would it be mostly sheer fear when accelerating at that rate or is it a much more enjoyable experience than I can comprehend? In comparison to the luxury of a car per-se.

 

Having ridden many bikes, including a ZX10R (05 model) I would say that scary probably is not the best way to describe the acceleration. I guess maybe because I have been riding for 9 years as I am well use to a bikes performance. When I was 19 I owned a 30bhp 125, and my first big bike experience was a 99 R1. I managed to redline 2nd gear, and it was exilerating rather than scary, but it depends on the person I guess. People that have never ridden a perfromance motorcycle often assume that 2 wheels equals instability, but a bike become's more stable the faster they go due to the gyroscopic force of the spinning wheels, where some cars become skittish and need constent steering corrections to keep them tracking in a straight line. An exampleof this would be when Auto Express compared a Hayabusa with an XJ220 at Bruntingthorpe. Kevin Ash, Motorcycle journalist who driven the car and bike at 180mph + commented on the bike being comppletely stable @ 180mph, so much so that you could taken your hands off of the handle bars (if you had the balls) and the bike would still keep going in the designated direction, where the XJ220 needed allot of concentration and steering wheel input corrections to keep straight.

Superbikes are really no compromise machines, where even some of the most radical sportscars need to take in to account other things like comfort/saftey etc. A Superbike is designed to go fast with very little compromise, and is very good at doing it. Even under hard acceleration, where wheelies are likely to happen, they are very easy to control, with engines that are very linear and accurate to throttle imput. Infact, bikes over the past few years alhough they have become more powerful, have become allot easier to ride compared to bikes in the late 90s and early 2000s




I recommend all of you speed lovers that have not experienced a bike a full throttle to at least try once.

 

Accelerating is fun!
Constant running at very high speed is scary. Doing over 180mph is 'scary', but I'm not used to it. Doing 150 or so, no problem.
The 'fear' factor increases as you accelerate, and your experience of the speeds you run at measures your 'fear' generally.

 

What's a Hyabusa's 0-180 time? Are the 1000 bikes really that much lighter to make them quicker?

 

here ya go : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Hayabusa

 

Ah, the Hyabusa isn't a superbike, thus not being included in the test...

Anyways, I'm surprised the new version is supposedly slower to 180 than the old version. You'd figure the bigger power would help, plus better aerodynamics.

EDIT: Snap, it gained 65 pounds in 2008! When you only weigh 485 to being with, gaining 65 is ridiculous.

Btw I'm totally crashing the motorcycle party in here. My dad has a Burgman 400 though...

 

The thing with guys that ride fast, especially that ride fast on the streets or the highways, is that they will underestimate the reaction distance. Note that I said distance, not time. Further, by underestimating the reaction distance, their sight line is not being carried far enough ahead.

A rider needs to know EVERYTHING that is within 2 seconds, from any direction. If something will overtake you or cross you, that's just as important as something you overtake. By the time it's that close you should already have known it was there and been watching it four a bit. If it's within 2 seconds of hitting you and you don't know it's there, you may only have 2 seconds to live!

That rider should have a very good idea of what's going on out to four seconds. You might pick something up out there you haven't seen yet, but now you know it, and you evaluate it. (2 seconds is too late to evaluate, you should have already acted on something in that distance.)

Once in a while, every few seconds, you need to check out to about 12 seconds' distance. That car on the side road, is he gonna stay there or run the stop? The oncoming car, is it gonna turn left across you?

Given all of that, it doesn't take too much arithmetic to figure out that 2 seconds at 35mph is about a hundred feet. 12 Seconds is over 2 football fields. Managable, even by the least gifted among us. But at 150mph, 2 seconds covers 440 feet and 12 seconds is a half mile. So if you're at 150mph and within a football field of something that surprises you, you're probably gonna die, and whoever's is whatever you hit stands a good chance of going with you. So even if you have legendary reflexes, that car that comes out of the blind side street more than a football field away is inside your minimum stopping distance. Motorcycles cannot steer while hard on the brakes. To avoid, you can't be slowing down. To slow down, you can't be avoiding. Many riders learn this the wrong way. Nor can a motorcycle "panic stop" the same way a car can. Maximum traction is less than a car, because of the tiny contact patch, and locking up a tire on a bike means getting off of it, at whatever speed it happens to be going at that moment.

The problem is that the rider is actually quite comfortable on the bike at 130 or 150 miles per hour. You tuck out of the wind, and you probably need earplugs to keep your hearing safe in the wind noise, but the bike is stable and well-behaved, and it's not really frightening at all, on a track. In the real world, it's pretty scary. Speed by itself is not scary. Changing speed very rapidly can be.

The acceleration is something you work up to and learn. I had my FJR for months before I'd ever twisted it wide open. Even then I didn't redline it for a long time. Not enough empty space here, too many trees along the road for Bambi to jump out of and get revenge. (There's nothing quite like a deer strike on a motorcycle!)

All that said, the feel of high performance on two wheels is exhilerating, like nothing else out there.

 

Tha Hayabus's time is in the link in the 1st post

 

I find that I gain logic if my acceleration levels off. Blasting all the way to 150? Awesome! Chilling at 150? Im going to hit something and die so I better slow down.

 

I agree 100% with this, it's very easy to not realise how fast you're going when you cruise at a certain speed for a while, less experienced riders find this out quick as do drivers.

My friend wrote his car off the other week because he was going to fast to make a turn and not paying enough attention, usually he races alot around the roads and I'm much more comfortable being a passenger to him when he drives like a maniac to when he drives normally.

I used to sometimes not realise my own speed during my first year of riding but now I'm very adept to it so it's not been a personal problem for a while.

 

This!



Okay, yeh I know, it's not fair, but I proved a point!