What say you, bikers of the SDMB?
Heck, I’ve driven at 185.
[sub]kilometers[/sub]
I read a story on this the other day that went something like this:
This speed was measured by an aircraft by timing the bike between two known points on a stopwatch. An error of 1/2 second on the watch would put the speed around 185, which is more within that bike’s range.
Link.
The biker’s speed was measured from an airplane with a stopwatch, hardly the most precise way to measure speed.
The bike was supposedly an RC51, an absolutely kick-ass track bike but not specifically made for top speed. Honda’s claimed top speed is a relatively modest 170 MPH. Any bike can be modified, of course, but it’s going to be hard to add another 35 MPH at the top end - especially on a bike that’s basically in race trim already. Not much weight to trim off, not that easy to get more horsepower out of an engine that’s already tuned.
A 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa would go about 190 MPH out of the box, and with some non-trivial modifications, I could see it breaking 205 MPH. But I can’t imagine an RC51 doing that.
Well, lets look into the uncertainties. Rate = distance / time.
The motorcycle was clocked between two marks 1/4 mile apart. The time taken was 4.39 seconds.
I’m guessing the marks were surveyed, and very accurate.
Lets say the cop started the stopwatch .1 seconds after the cycle passed the 1st mark and .1 seconds before it passed the second. That is .25 miles in 4.59 seconds which is still 196 MPH
Even with a .4 second “itchy trigger finger” is 188 MPH
Heck, even a 1 second ITF results in 167 MPH
Lets say from the angle from plane the cycle only traveled 20% less than 1/4 of a mile and the cop had a .5 secnod ITF thats is still 147 MPH
conclusion: Even with wide error bars, he was going very fast, EASILY 50MPH over the limit (and 75MPH very likely)
Brian
I suppose that’s the strength of the system; the slower the vehicle is travelling, the smaller the error margin; in terms of what happens next, it doesn’t actually matter much whether the police caught you going 185 or 200 mph.
It seems like the patrolman had to inadvertently click the “stop” button way ahead of time, possibly because he was excited to see something going really fast. Maybe he clicked it again as the rider crossed the 1/4 mile mark (this explanation would depend on the stopwatch having separate Start and Stop buttons).
How much do you want to bet that the rider beats the ticket, based on the idea that we really can’t say how long he took to travel 1/4 mile? I mean, it’s demonstrably off by at least a half-second, which means it’s a completely invalid reading.
Reminds me of the recent case in England where the police rather unfairly charged someone for speeding. Unfairly because it was for travelling at a speed the car was scientifically proven to be incapable of travelling at :smack:
I’d be surprised if the driver beat the ticket.
We used to hand out speeding tickets before we ever had radar guns. In general if a police officer says it is clear and obvious you are going over the speed limit, you’re probably going to have a hard time beating that speeding ticket.
And it’s easy to argue that an experienced police officer can easily tell the difference between a vehicle going perhaps a few miles over the speed limit and one going over one hundred miles over the speed limit.
As for the bike speed, I read this article on CNN and a bike enthusiast said this model bike could only break 200 with modifications.
I found this at motorcycle.com. bolding mine.
The thread has all kinds of theories as well.
And what I quoted is a quote from this thread.
This bike was never capable of bettering 190 even when in full race trim and with Colin Edwards riding it on his way to the world superbike title.
That machine was a full factory works job and was valued at well over $200k.
The road going machine has around 135 BHP, and this can be taken up to perhaps 150BHP without having to worry too much about reliability, this is still not enoguh to reach 200mph.
If it was given extremely tall gearing, and a very long and straight run, slightly downhill, it might reach 190, but I’d doubt it.
Story is patently untrue, all the rider need to is to go to court and ask the prosecution to provide evidence that this machine is capable of this speed.
The citation will read that the rider was speeding by doing the speed recorded by the officer of 205 mph, once that fallacy is destroyed, due to measuring errors, his credibility will be destroyed too.
There are bikes capable of that speed, the electronic limiters would have to be taken out but the Suzuki GSX1300R or the Kawaski ZX1200 might be capable, but at this speed wind drag is a serious problem.
Didn’t read mack’s link, so I don’t know if this has been discussed.
What kind of aircraft was the officer flying? In California, I’ve seen Cessna 185s. Now, I’ve never flown a 185, but I think its top speed is somewhere around 140 mph. A headwind will reduce the groundspeed (although the airspeed would remain the same). Let’s say the motorcycle passed the timing mark and the observer started the stopwatch when the aircraft, the motorcycle and the mark were precisely in line. It’s easy to establish an accurate start time. But if the motorcycle was going significantly faster than the aircraft (which may not have been flying at its maximum airspeed, and which may have had a headwind that reduced its groundspeed), then the observer would be looking at an angle when the motorcycle passed the end mark. It could be argued that the angle between the observer and the end mark caused the observer to see the motorcycle pass the mark before it actually did, and thus the elapsed time would have been less.
Still, the guy was speeding by a significant amount.
Could the motorcycle in question have attained a speed of 205 MPH if it was being driven on a steep downhill slope?
The guy who got the ticket went to court and had expert witnesses testify that the car was incapable of attaining the speed he was charged with driving at. IIRC he got the charge dropped but still had to pay the court costs :smack:
Too excited or too worried the motorcycle would outrace him? Seriously…I don’t know what the police were flying but I would guess something like a Cessna Skyhawk which maxes out at around 140mph. A Cessna Stationair (more muscular than the Skyhawk) tops out at something like 170mph. Chances are that the motorcycle driver was outracing the police plane. :eek:
I got an outrageous ticket once - I was at a stop light, and the light went green and I accelerated a little hard then braked for a corner. A cop pulled me over, and gave me a ticket for going 70 mph in a 30 zone. In fact, I had just accelerated hard up to 30 then backed off (I was 18 and feeling my oats, but I didn’t drive recklessly). Anyway, I went back and measured the distance from the stop light to the corner, and it was something like 300 ft. I got the performance specs for my car, and took it to court and tried to explain that it was flatly impossible for my car to accelerate to seventy miles per hour and decelerate back to zero again in 300 ft. In fact, my car needed something like 160 ft just to brake from 60-0, leaving me about 140 ft to accelerate to 60. 70-0 was probably closer to 200 ft, leaving me 100 ft maybe to accelerate to 70. A Porsche 916 could do 0-60 in about 160 ft. Not possible in a '67 Camaro with street tires without a racing start. Not even close.
It didn’t work. Judges look unfavorably at 18 year olds with an attitude and what the judge sees as a bunch of games designed to avoid a ticket. He just wasn’t going to listen to it. Had I been 40 years old as I am now, with a lawyer to represent my position, it would have been a different matter.