Which 'sickle out there is the fastest?
When you suggest an answer, please qualify what you mean by fastest: top speed, rolling start (at what speeds), standing acceleration, cornering, or what have you.
I will suggest the 502 Boss Hoss as the fastest at rolling starts of any speed over 40 mph.
Do you mean production?
I hear the highest top speed on a production bike was recorded by the Hayabusa (sp?).
With non production custom or modified bikes… who the hell knows…
To my knowledge, the fastest production bike is indeed the Suzuki Hayabusa. Top speed is more than 300 km/h, and it accelerates in 7.6 seconds. To two hundred km/h.
This link is a bit old, but this jet turbine bike is now in production. http://www.motorcyclecity.com/turbine.htm
How about the fastest production motorcycle that is currently out on the streets here in America…
The Boss Hoss will very quickly pull away from a Hayabusa from a rolling start at any speed above 40 mph up to about 200 mph.
kferr wrote:
Bah humbug. That “jet turbine” engine is just a gas turbine engine used for providing torgue to the drive wheels. It’s less like a “jet” than a “turboprop”.
What I wanna know is, are there any two-wheeled vehicles powered by a jet thrust engine, like the Thrust SSC?
Production bike ? Racing bike ? One-of-a-kind RATO-powered roller-skate Wile E. Coyote contraption ?
The Boss Hoss is an impressive piece of machinery and it can undoubtedly be pushed to very high speeds - if you have the nerve, the grip on the bars (no fairing) and a looong, straight stretch to brake afterwards. Let’s be honest, you wouldn’t buy the Boss for top speed - I’ve been looking for test links, but no luck.
Two sportbikes, reliably and repeatedly tested above 300 km/h in stock condition are:
The Kawasaki 1200 Ninja, probably the first bike to bust the 300 km/h barrier in stock trim every time.
The Suzuki Hayabusa, which supposedly did the same, but topped out a tad below (we’re still talking 290-295 or so here) in at least some tests. It’s named a “sport tourer” by a few magazines now - i.e., “fast but heavy” or, in other words, great for the autobahn but not the racetrack.
Honda Blackbird probably takes third, and certainly is s sport tourer. The cads are even rumoured to have made it comfortable!
BTW, the Japanese motor companies have decided to restrict top speed to 300 km/h from 2001 - probably a good move.
S. Norman
Motorcycles are so fast nowadays that they tend to be given standing quarter mile ratings, the manufacturers are rather coy since they fear legislation to limit the absolute horsepower of them.
The current latest big thing is the Suzuki GSXR1000 which is even faster off the mark than the Yamaha YZF-R1(this might be true but we are waiting for the shootout of the 2001 versions)
We are talking here of machines that weigh in the region of 175Kilos - less than last years 600cc machines but with an excess of 150bhp at the rear wheel.
They are geared for tremendous accelaration doing a standing quarter in around 9 secs.
Other machines such as the Suzuki GSX1300 Hayabusa and the Kawasaki ZX 1200 have higher top speeds but take longer to get there.
There are specialist versions of the Yam YZF-R1 with over 200bhp at the rear wheel but you need around $45000 to get them and really they are custom tuned bikes.
The Boss Hoss cannot even begin to compete, the power/weight ratio is too far against them (yes it has lots of power but it is incredibly heavy too) and they are hardly production bikes, relatively speaking only a few will be sold this year.
There are even faster versions of the Yam YZF-R1 about with around 200bhp at the rear wheel but you’d need around $45000 to even think about buying one and putting that sort of power down through one tyre is intimidating to say the least(basically the power is largely inacessable)
Even the 500cc Grand Prix 2strokes which are at the absolute peak of motorcycle engineering do not provide this sort of power(more like 180bhp at the rear wheel) since agility and useability on the track are all important - there is no track that has a long enough straight to reach 200mph before having to slam on the anchors for turn 1.
Why is rear wheel power important ? The Japs love to quote engine power but not all of it actually makes its way to the rear wheel, so an engine yielding 150bhp may ‘only’ kick out 140 or slightly less when it reaches the rear wheel due to various losses.
In absolute terms then you would have to be looking at supercharged drag bikes which can prodice in excess of 600bhp, there is a version of the Honda F6C(Valkyrie) which is available as a road bike with around 300-350bhp for some immense sum of money, just don’t ask it to go round corners.
Jeezus H. Kee-ryst, you guys is scarin’ the sheeyit outa me.
Slight hijack:
What would happen (besides the obvious answer, “die”) to a rider to dumps a bike at 300kmph? Is there any hope at all of survival, or is it quarter-mile of raspberry jam time?
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- What about off-road motorcycles? I heard what seemed like a ridiculous top speed for these things from someone, but I couldn’t find hardly any mentions of measured speeds of off-road bikes anywhere on the net. On some long races such at Baja2000 the average speed of the winning motorcycle (winning vehicle, actually) was about 56 MPH. I seem to recall that the fastest desert bikes could only go about 120 mph or so all out, but found no numbers mentioned. Most online motorcycle mags don’t even list off-road bikes’ engine or drive power output; instead they just give descriptions of how it “feels”. (Hmph - and they call themselves motor journalists) - Anybody got any ideas, say for a 250 2-cycle in particular? - MC
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tracer is right, I should have said gas turbine, not jet turbine. I couldn’t find anything on jet thrust bikes, but here’s a link to a rocket thrust bike: http://www.motionpixels.co.uk/challenger/website/html_docs/home.html
MC (and what a fitting name for this thread):
- although it’s definitely not an off-roader, I’ve ridden the Aprilia RS250 race replica (250 2-stroke) at 220 km/h (135 mph), the engine running around 12800 RPM… Sweet, sweet bike.
But aren’t off-roaders like the Boss Hoss in this respect (Spiny succumbs to a barrage dented tanks and used tires, hurled by infuriated off-road riders) - there’s a top speed, but it takes a suicide candidate to ride at it ?
Snorman
Try some of the following if you want to read about real motorcycle nutters,
http://www.ireland.com/sports/other/2000/1122/other8.ht
These guys have to put up with all the usual privations of charging across deserts at over 80mph for several thousand miles(10000Km), on bikes, plus there is the ever present threat of armed conflict, thirst, remote medical facilities, bandits.
Here is one bike that may be used on those dirt trails,
http://www.motorcycle.com/mo/mcktm/00lc8.html
and here are lots more,