Car vs. Bike

[Gritboy]

From what I've heard, Porsche's are notoriously challenging to drive until you learn how THEY work/handle, so I'm guessing an experience rider and experience driver of each machine even the playing field. Mind you, my grandmother can hit and accelerator and go straight "real fast" in her big V8 just fine.

[Buzglyd]

The main difference is on the street. In a car you're more likely to push it into that blind corner where on a bike you might back off a bit.



Don't want to come across a stick you know....

[robb_millett]

One of the very first "car vs bike" articles written ocured in the middle to late 1970s, and was in Car and Driver, though itr might have been the long out-of-print Cycle magazine... which none of you fricken PUPS will remember...but which still resides partially in my aging memory cells.



anyway, the car was a corvette, and the bike was a KZ1000 if I recall correctly. the KZ1000 got CREAMED in everything but acceleration.



then another carbversus bike article occured sometime in the 1980s, between a corvette and a Yamaha FZ1000. the FZ CREAMED the corvette, even around the racetrack, in laptimes. than came that Viper vs biek thing in C&D, and then a bit later than that , CW (or was it Motorcyclist?) published another CvsB articel between a Corvette Z06 and a CBR900RR...or maybe it was an FZ1? I forget,, anyway the Bike came away havning bested the Z06...



now, this is all well and good on the street, where, my friends, racing is meaningless, except for the retrograde apes who are compelled to posture for dominance...some of whom even post here.



But, on the track, if you compare the top level bikes (motoGP) to the top level cars (F1, say, or maybe Lemans Sports Prototypes) the bikes lose to the cars on the order of 5-10 seconds a lap, on the same track, because they just can't generate the same incredible levels of grip.



what does this all mean?



Nothing.



...except that it's among the many topics that are rejuvenated and resurrected amongst the moto- and auto-jouranlism community, AD-*****-NAUSEUM, which blockheads will by turns argue about, justify their supposed dominance, and support with marginally rationalized logic.

[ksquid]

Yep good point. I have been in scrap with two cars so far a Honda S2000 and a Corvette Convertible Z5 (the last generation). I could definitely could catch and pass them on the straights but as you said I would slow way up on the curves. The S2000 had more corner speed but the Vette as expected drover better out of the corners.. Both drivers looked surprised when I could pull along side them on the straights.

[ksquid]

Yep I think everyone on her knows that a Formula 1 car is the fastest thing on the planet around a "proper" race track. You can't beat all that contact patch and power to weight ratio of the F1 car. I think the matchup of the stock sports car vs a stock sportsbike is closer due to the fact that the sports stock bike is closer to the MotoGP bike than is the sportscar to the F1 car.

[ymsamhi]

I have always wanted them to do a "Car vs. Bike" with what you are likely to run into in the mountains. Or by best selling or even demographic. In the Uk it would be like a 599 Hornet vs. VW Golf or something. In deals gap it would be some guy on his CBR vs. a guy in a pickup or a young kid in a Acura. Low Rider HD vs. Suburban dads Tahoe.

[anrajala]

It was Csaba Csere against Cycle World´s executive editor Brian Catterson (imagine Fonzie with puffy face and ´70s hairstyle). The Viper "dropped the rod" after three laps. What does that mean? Connecting rod through the block? Push rod gone astray?



- cruiz-euro

[P-Ratt]

Heck yeah!

CBR600RR vs Accord

EX250 VS Buick Century

[bboule]

It's not the contact patch or weight that give the F1 car it's incredible corner speed. The bike isn't doing all that bad on either of those factors.



It's the aerodynamic forces the F1 car can take advantage of. That's what sets true race cars apart from street cars and makes it retarded when the car guys say "But an F1 car."



Without downforce the car is in a lot of trouble if the bike is well ridden. I still think that Schwantz article is the most objective as they gave telemetry. There was also an article in Speed magazine that gave telemetry, and the bike creamed all the streetable cars in that example too.



And the reason a street car isn't ever going to corner like an open wheel race car is simple.. Downforce is lift, lift creates induced drag. Induced drag makes open wheel race cars return fuel economy that just can't work on the street. (1mpg at speed?)

[Dangerousdave_2]

A humble suggestion: NEVER, EVER race a car unless you can dispatch them quickly. If you fall in a corner with him right on your ass, you are a dead man.