Or, what’s a comfortable speed to ride a bike at on the motorway?
Compare it to a car, say. I often drive down from Scotland to NW England at 80-90mph. The motorways are quiet in this part of the UK and 80-90 feels comfortable. Plenty of other drivers are going this speed, and the car is happy ticking over - it doesn’t feel like you’re tear-arsing around. 90 + starts feeling excessively fast, to me, and less comfortable.
On a motorbike, can you sit on the motorway at 100mph, say, for a couple of hours? Is this comfortable, or is it a white-knuckle roller-coaster that will leave you exhausted? Just wondering what it’s like riding a bike at high speed for extended periods of time.
Varies from bike to bike, but my old K100RT was perfectly happy two-up at well over 100mph. It does depend on the traffic (and how attached you are to your licence) though. Based on the other evening, 140 in the dark feels insanely quick even if I weren’t expecting the police to flash me any second. :eek: 80 - 90 however is rock-solid on a BMW F800S.
My boyfriend has an Aprillia and he usually goes around 90kmph on the bike. On the highway he goes up to 120-130kmph. (As a passenger I find the former comfortable and the latter a little bit scary depending on what kind of road we’re on.)
ETA: I’m sure he goes faster when I’m not on the bike.
If you happen to have an old Kawasaki Z1000, you get stretched outwards by the wide bars, it feels like you are a blanket on a washing line in a gale.
Trail bikes are not nice as speed, you are usually at their limit in terms of speed, wide bards, you are sat upright, lots of vibration, narrow tyres - it can feel pretty precarious, especially if you have semi-trail tyres on.Street trallies are a differant matter, most of those can handle it fine, but then most of them are not suited to true trail riding at all, such as the Triumph Tiger.
Get yourself on a tourer, like the big Kawsaki Z1300, Honda ST 1300 and you dont feel much at all, these are real licence losers because they are so deceptive in their speed.
In short, it depends upon the bike, and the road, narrow bendy roads will feel faster, and dodgy road surfaces feel faster than they are.
When you are chugging along at 140, it is alleged that you come up on slower vehicles rather quickly and you really need your wits about you
The scariest part I have ever experienced was passing an eighteen-wheeler or an inter-city bus, and that was going only about 80-85 with the other vehicle doing around 70-75, the wind buffeting is first trying to push you off the road and then sucks you in.
On my 05 Buell XB12R, 100 on the freeway feels absolutely normal, just cruising along in fifth . . . Now the noise is the only thing that bothers me. Usually, I put out the passenger pegs, rest my feet on them and almost lay down on the bike . . .
Now, the 00 R6 I had, 100 was like going 50 in a car, just wishing to go faster . . .
Wind isn’t so much an issue if you know how to deal with it. Crosswind is the only thing that bothers me.
My next two-wheeler is absolutely going to be a Burgman. I love my Vulcan, but it’s not what I originally wanted.
Speaking of which, I’ve only hit 80 on my Vulcan 900. It can probably go faster, but the vibration was making me uneasy (mild, but I was a new rider), and without a windshield I had to constantly battle the wind. Still, the bike handled 80 at a constant rate for over an hour without any major trouble beyond the vibration.
You’re in luck, I’ve heard the newer Burggies are even better than mine (2005). I hope you also don’t like a lot of noise, its the quietest big ride around. I have never loved a bike more.
I’ve a friend who does “iron-butt” rallies here in the old US of A. I think they do 10K miles in 10 days… something such as that. Anyway, he says the guys who win aren’t trying to drive as fast as they can, because it wears them out quicker. He says the mental concentration necessary to ride faster, combined with the quickly changing wind and road conditions at higher speeds, has a stressful effect on you over a long time. The key to success is proper planning so you don’t have to ride fast to make up time.
IMHO, I find that riding a bit more-spirited helps keep me focused better than when I putter-along at a leisurely pace. But i’m no iron-butter.
I’ve got a Victory Hammer and the bike is barely trying at 115 mph but it scared the crap out of me. I weight over 420 at the time and I thought I was going to be blown off. If I had some flaring or a less up right riding position I don’t think it would have been as bad.
I’ve gotten my Vulcan 900 Custon to over 100 Granted, that’s according to the speedometer, which are notoriously inaccurate, so in all likelihood, probably just under 100.
I don’t recall the ride being too rough, though the wind is annoying–no windshield on my baby, so I tend to keep the speeds down overall.
The problem with riding a too fast of a pace for hours, or days on end, is that you can’t keep that kind of concentration up. Plus it puts you in a lot more danger, it’s more physically demanding, and it kills the gas mileage. All things you don’t want when trying to ride around the US for 11 days. Yes for a bit high speed riding keeps you focused, but I wouldn’t try it for too long.
I think the fastest I’ve ever done is ~120, not all that fun really, plus it didn’t feel like the bike liked going that fast.
A lot of it depends on the bike, primarily depending on the weight and whether or not there’s a fairing. My bikes up to 550 cc tended to be battered around by wind & grooves on the road; above that size, they had a bit more inertia and were more stable. Also, my unfaired bikes sucked ass at high speeds. On an old Honda Nighthawk 700s*, if I lowered my head a bit, the wind blast would go over my head and things would be okay; sitting upright, the wind would hit me right in the middle of my helmet. My current bike, a BMW K75S, has a slightly better sport fairing, so I can avoid the wind blast by just slumping a little. My first bike had an aftermarket full fairing on it. It frankly had difficulty even getting to 60, but even at those speeds, the fairing produced a large pocket of calm air. In fact, the lack of wind was sort of a detraction from the experience.
I’ve never owned a sport-bike, but riding on a friend’s ancient GSXR 750 was like I was on a jet plane. The seating position forced me to keep my head low because of the position and size of the handlebars, so I didn’t notice any wind.
That being said, I love motoring around twisty roads at relaxed speeds; anything where I have to lean over too much, and I start having visions of losing traction and getting off. So … on such roads, I’m the guy calmly riding at speeds that don’t require that I lean more than, say, 35 degrees. On the highway, however, I can cruise for hours at 70 mph. In both cases, I’ll have between a slight smile and a wide grin on my face. When I go up to 95, the BMW is still quite stable, but I start fearing things too much and don’t enjoy it.
There’s another thread recently regarding living with fear; I’m always afraid, but it’s okay. Too high a speed, and the fear-to-fun ratio gets too high. I generally have a rule of thumb: 10 mph above the posted speed limit for cars, and 20 mph above the speed limit for bikes. Those are the speeds at which there’s a good balance (for me) between fun and fear.
There were a lot of bikes from Honda called some variation of Nighthawk or Hawk; this one was the mostly-standard-looking bike with shaft drive. It was the perfect bike for me except for not having lockable saddlebags and ABS, which the BMW has.
MASSIVELY dependant on the bike. I’ve been scared and freezing to death after 10 minutes @ 50mph on a 125 honda bandit (I think).
On the other hand, 130mph on a decent bike is fine.
MOST IMPORTANT are decent leathers/helmet.
And motorway journeys longer than a couple of hours are pretty unpleasant without a break on a bike.
P.S. You’re probably aware of this already, but Scotland => NW England implies M74. What you may not be aware is that for the majority of the M74s length from Douglas to Lockerbie (ish) there is a marvellous parallel road, where a) There are no scummy D&G camera vans b) No traffic c) Essentially infinite sightlines.
I forget the exact number but it’s something like the B7046 although the very northernmost bit before it meets the A70 is something different; that part used to be a dual carrigeway in fact but they shut the northernbound part and single carrigewayed it.
Anway, that is definitely the way to go. And forget 80mph, try 180mph.
(in suitable car. Not legal advice).
Just where are all you guys riding so fast without getting busted by the fuzz (unless you’re leaving out this detail)? Certainly you don’t all go to Nevada or Death Valley and race around on their virtually deserted highways, but those are the only places I can think of where one might get away with such high speeds.
100 on mine feels like you’re doing about 60mph. If I didn’t have to worry about other things, I could comfortable cruise at 140 all day long. I’ve got an 05 Yamaha FZ6.
Granted, that’s according to the speedometer, which are notoriously inaccurate, so in all likelihood, probably just under 100.