Speaking as someone who was an insurance agent in the mid aughts, the answer was . . . kinda. I worked for Progressive, which was one of the top motorcycle insurers in the American market, and we would indeed write a policy for even scary fast bikes. And they were pretty affordable… for liability.
Add med pay or worse, comprehensive and/or collision, and the premium for a annual policy for the 18-26 market was to the tune of 7-8 grand.
Or as I told someone who was shopping and had to buy comp/coll to get the financing “If you lay one of those down at anything other than a crawl, it’s a total loss. And if you’re driving it at a crawl, I feel sorry for you and the bike.”
For a vague comparison, a 26-36 year old on a cruiser, even with comp and collision, was something like 7-8 hundred a year (max), barring serious issues with past driving record of course.
Woah. I pay like $100/year on my Husky 300, a bike that will almost certainly crash often, although I don’t do trivial claims. When I rode sportbikes (ahem) years ago, it was a few hundred bucks. I will say that I’ve never made a motorcycle claim, although I learned State Farm covers safety equipment and if I take a digger and clunk my noggin I might claim my $600 helmet!
Not surprising, again, IIRC there were plenty of policies out there that hit the policy minimum ($75 annual) at the time, especially for liability. A huge part of it was that the numbers showed that outside a small percentage of outliers, the miles per year on most cruisers were incredibly small compared to your average commuter, as were the losses.
And again, minor losses on a cruiser would almost always be under the Deductible or go completely unreported as you yourself did.
But the moment someone started asking me about a katana or the like, I just closed my eyes, especially if they were financing it.
My Ninja 300 and Yamaha R6 (rocket on wheels) both insured by Progressive for less than $130 a year for liability and comprehensive (no collision, because I’m already screwed and a bike isn’t going to hurt a cager in the slightest). Another motorcycle will cost me ~$400, and that’s purely because the last two were stolen in less than a year after purchase. EDIT: To be fair, I’ve been insured for decades and never found at fault for a single accident. I’m the exact type of person an insurance company WANTS to be riding these death machines.
Needless to say, I’m not replacing the R6 until I have a garage. Bastards are bold around here.
ALSO EDIT: To answer the original question: a bike will win in the straight line and maneuvering through traffic (between cars). Once the turning and braking start, notsomuch. Even sport bikes struggle to get more than 1G of acceleration in any direction. Liter superbikes with their ridiculous hp/weight ratio (just under .5hp/lb for a stock track R1) lap roughly similar to a GT3 car (~.2hp/lb).
Good point, in that while COMP coverage was disproportionately expensive compared to the cost of such coverage on a car (partly because people can and do steal bikes by picking them up and tossing them in a pickup while barely stopping), it was the collision that was killing the policy. To the tune of up to 80% of the total cost. Back to what I said to the buyers, “if you lay it down, it’s a total loss.”
It did hurt to see a kid want a Katana in 2004ish, and quote them that price, and then quote them a Shadow for under a grand a year, and hear their heart break though.
Okay, enough with the sidetrack. Just wanted to answer the specific question.
I have a Kawasaki KLR-650. My insurance (liability only - the bike’s only worth a couple thousand bucks) was $113 last year.
Part of the reason it’s so cheap is that most people only ride 3-5 months of the year, a crash on a bike typically doesn’t damage other property or people as much as a car will so liability risk is lower, and most bikes aren’t ridden very far per year compared to cars. I also have a clean driving record.
There are a couple of crazy people in our neighborhood with fast sport bikes, and you can hear them racing around on the streets at night in summer. Every time I hear one of those bikes screaming by at super high revs, I just know that one of these times it will be followed by a large BANG. I’m sure those idiots are hitting at least 80-100 mph on city streets, judging by the doppler shift.
The Vulcan 900 only makes about 40 HP and weighs well over 500 pounds. It’ll get smoked by a '22 Mustang GT.
I own a '17 Vulcan S with the 650cc parallel twin making 61 HP. It is just a bit over 500 pounds. My 650 will smoke the 900, and will hang with a '22 GT to about 80 MPH.
The issue with air cooled V-twins is that they can’t make a lot of power, but they make huge torque. For
example, the H-D 114ci or 1800cc oil-air cooled V-twin only makes about 90 HP. My Vulcan 650 is faster than most of them, and the '22 GT will smoke them
Now something like the Ducati X-Diavel S, making 150+ HP or even the new H-D Sportster S with 125 HP, and both under 500 pounds will smoke the '22 GT. Both have 1200cc liquid cooled V twins.
Just talking about cruiser styled bikes, as per the Vulcan 900 example, not naked and RR bikes.
Also, do they perform differently at those speeds?
I remember racing my mom’s Datsun (yeah, I am old). It was a putzy car. Top speed maybe 110 mph.
Around 90 mph the air coming under the car started to make it float. Steering got really spongy. Nothing bad happened but I remember telling my brain to never do that again. It was scary…it felt like I was a tiny bit away from a terrible crash.
So, while a vehicle can in theory go 197 mph can they really go that fast without killing the driver/rider unless they have purpose built spoilers to keep it on the ground?
My '22 Husky TX300 makes +/-50 HP at 220# (which coincidentally is what I weigh, too). Pretty sure I could evade the police if fences didn’t stop me… Guardrails I could get over.
You’d have to ask someone who’s actually been there for a factual report. The most I’ve ever done on a bike is about 125 MPH. My guess is that gyroscopic effects from fast-spinning wheels would likely make the steering pretty stiff.
There are any number of videos on YouTube showing people taking superbikes up to their top speed. Couldn’t tell you how they handle at that speed, but the riders mostly live to tell the tale.
Anyone who takes any vehicle over 150 mph on a public road is suicidal or stupid. These are not controlled environments. At 190 mph, the tiniest of potholes or an animal in the road or a blown semi tire or a patch of oil or any number of other issues means that you die. Going that speed on a bike requires top-end safety gear and a controlled road course that’s kept clean and free of obstacles.
The other thing I see all the time is people on sport bikes in summer wearing T-shirts, shorts, and runners. I’m a firm believer in ATGATT - All the gear, all the time. I’d rather not leave my skin on the road if I drop the bike.
I was driving down to New York one year, many moons ago when I was young and foolish and had no travel health insurance. it was getting late, so rather than stop I thought I’d push on in the night. I was doing about 80 down the New York State Thruway, near Albany at 3AM getting drowsy. I switched to the passing lane on the deserted road, because the outside lane went thump-thump-thump.
At 80 or 90 mph I see flash past me in the other side of the lane, a complete tire on rim lying on its side. I slowed down, switched to the more heavily travelled lane, and stopped at the next rest stop for a loooong cup of coffee. I’ve hit tire debris in an automobile in the years since then, and it doesn’t do much more than a dent or a cracked plastic.
I had an over 10 year old CX500 at one time. The insurance was almost as much as the bike was worth, a few hundred dollars. I mentioned this to the agent, and he said “yes, but if you hit someone, no matter what the vehicle costs they’re just as dead or injured.”
The good news about that helmet is had the rider been helmetless, he’d have been dead before he slid to a stop. IMO the horror is being left alive but badly brain-damaged.
Back in college I was knocked off my bike at ~70mph by some road debris I didn’t see coming. Full face helmet, leather pro-quality MC jacket, leather sorta-cowboy boots, nylon day-pack backpack, no gloves.
Ended up with not a scratch on the helmet, some scuffing on the jacket, mostly protected by the utterly destroyed backpack, and the ankles worn through on the outboard side of both boots. The socks were just starting to abrade when I stopped sliding / rolling. Ended up with one shallow road rash scuff on the heel of one hand. About the size of a US quarter. Now 40+ years later if you know just where to look you can sorta see slightly different skin texture / color.
It’s good to be a good rider. It’s far more important to be a very, very lucky rider.
You always hear about those films they showed in the 50s for Driver’s Ed that highlighted the horrors of driving accidents. I’ve been ATGATT since I saw a foot “degloved” by a footpeg in a moto accident. I still wince when I see someone riding in a tank top and sandals.
[quote=“Whack-a-Mole, post:54, topic:977613”]
The one image that always comes to my mind about wearing a motorcycle helmet is this (imagine that person with no helmet):[/quote]
Is there a story behind the damage to this helmet? Apart from some scuffs on the right side, the big ground-down area looks like a clean, fixed-angle grind, almost like someone put it in a jig and held it against a belt sander. It’s also in an odd position: I’m trying to imagine a posture for the rider that would put his helmet in contact with the road at that angle, and with the observed direction of abrasion (i.e. from top of helmet to rear, not from side-to-side).
I’ve seen that image before. I believe it was damaged part of a test for a magazine article. Almost certainly belt sanded. If you’ve ever seen a helmet from a real accident, the damage is all over as the rider will bounce around and tumble.
Nitpick, Mustang GT 2.3L is an oxymoron. The Mustang GT has a 5.0L Coyote V8 with 450 HP. The 2.3L is a turbo 4-cylinder, you can get a Mustang with one but not a Mustang GT.
Otherwise torque gets you off the line, horsepower gives you top speed, weight and wind resistance are big factors.
