Comments on: Why are motorbikes so slow around corners?

By: Rider

Rider — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:16:24 +0000

Julian,
Obviously you were following not a fast person. Search on some bike forums. I am sure may ppl will come forward just to show you your ‘way home’. If u’re so good, then be it, go on the track and race,show your guts mate. Sounds like you were trying that ‘trick’ often, making riders do street like racing?? Is that responsible for a 44 yr old guy? Remember there are many ‘Sunday cage drivers’; there are many ‘Sunday bike riders … see my point?
Last thing, just to let you know, if we’re riding fast, we’ll chose roads with minimum traffic, for the safety sake, and as many corners over 60 km/hr as possible… not on straights.
Julian, you are a ‘funny’ guy, you really are
PD.

By: jon

jon — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:50:12 +0000

all of the above comments seem to make no sense until you have personally ridden a bike. you seem to have good credentials knowing about and driving cars, so why not the same for a bike? get out there and see for yourself

By: Random

Random — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:32:16 +0000

A motorcycle should easily outbrake and out accelerate most cars.
Most cars should be able to out corner a motorcycle.

Now factor in that most riders on the street/public road are not going to use (or are not capable of using) maximum traction (braking, acceleration, not to mention cornering traction), it should be obvious when ridden “normally” a car should easily be able to keep up with a motorcycle.

The Rider may “feel” like he/she’s going “fast”, but the car filling their side view mirrors (assuming they bother to use them) should be a wakeup/reality check for them. However, ego’s being larger than common sense, most riders claim to be “fast” and claim to be “faster” than cars.

I personally don’t claim to be fast. I ride for the enjoyment, at the speed I feel is prudent yet enjoyable. If anyone wants to pass, I slow down and wave them over where/when safe to do so (car, truck or motorcycle). If folks would just leave their ego’s @ the home doorstep, the (motoring) world would be a much better place!

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:07:19 +0000

Yeah, I ride, and I drive.

Personally, through the hills, where so many of our rider mates get killed each year, some at fault, some not at fault, I am always a little reluctant to push “hard”. I tell my wife I love her and promise to come home every time I go out, I have to keep it.

In Adelaide, there are quite a few car drivers happy to cross the lines regardless of whether they can see the next corner or not, you only have to run wide to avoid a head on once or twice, and it kinda pulls the “fast” right out of you.

That said there are a lot of terrible riders too. I’m not claiming to be great, but I try and stay smooth, and I stick to my lane. And that said, when you only have 6 square inches of contact patch total, you have to be really selective on public roads. Your lines have to be solid, a bit of gravel, some spilled diesel or fluid, which seems to happen a lot in the hills, and it can be all over. So I just don’t try to push that hard.

And remember, if you are catching up and passing riders, your skill and machine are obviously in better sync than theirs. But what about the ones you just don’t catch? I promise that even though I’m not one of them, there are plenty of them around.

By: coast_rider

coast_rider — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:29:02 +0000

I do both, i ride a cbr600f4i and drive a 5speed vt commodore. i ride to work everyday. with riding the same roads everyday i know i can get more corner speed out of my f4i, then what i can get out of my vt. say i can get 130k/h out of my vt around a cirtain cnr i can hit that same cnr at 155k/h. and feel like i can get more out of my bike. I don’t know? Maybe i’m a bad driver. lol. saying that on a road i dont know i feel more comfortable pushing the limits in my car. have a look on youtube ( mogo R1 / ripperton ) its not me, but this guy can ride. my only advice would be buy a bike, or even ride a friends bike and see what it feels like. just don’t think that you will cnr at the same as you do in your car. you will still get rush. have fun…. i’m out….

By: K7 750

K7 750 — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:27:12 +0000

Personnally, I think you just haven’t seen any half decent riders. I don’t know anyone in a car that could stick with my friends on their bikes (I can’t even stay with them on my bike!). While I’m slower then them, I haven’t had any car keep up with me through the tight twisty roads like on the Great Ocean Road.

On tight roads like the those down to the south coast, I’ve never seen a car keep up with my mates. I’ve only done that road once on my current bike and that was the day after I got it, so still running it in, nervous as hell, and it was wet, I was crawling, but now when I do that road, it’s totally different.

By: shane "popi"

shane "popi" — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:29:14 +0000

hey there i have to agree with the comments i have been reading i have a gt250 comet and s5 rotary the amount of nervous poshies on there big bikes that cant ride is sad to see feathering their throttles round the twisties 20km slower than the speed limit i thought the hills was about getting the most out of your machines and finding the limits. The amount of big bikes i have disposed of by pushing the boundrys on my 2000thou korean dunger and 50$ jacket is incredable i thought i was a good rider and having a ball along the way because i can push the bike to the limit not at 45% like you over shooting giants that call me out then the next bloke because he heard of a good rider. Im not good their bad and they still wanna run thru the godsland. The same thought i have with cars rotary’s and other little squirters can enjoy the boundry’s alot further than heavy cars it is about having fun not trying to pull ya 2tonne barge up at the next twisty with ya brakes smelling if yas can’t hit the limits then why buy them. I would like to hear from other people that think the same…….

By: ben

ben — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:45:30 +0000

It’s already been mentioned here but the biker is the key, not the bike. And 99% of road riders have no idea how to ride a bike quickly, even though they may own an R1 or something similar. You just need to see how quickly the racers can travel at the Isle of man TT to realise the potential of a bike skillfully ridden on undulating, bumpy and cambered roads. Most sports cars would be left with brakes on fire before completing one lap of the circuit, assuming the suspension could cope with the large number of jumps on the course.

Personally I like bikes and cars, but they are completely different beasts and comparing them is a useless keyboard warrior type exercise.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:43:16 +0000

I think it’s just that Australian road bike riders are mostly wimps. When I lived in Sydney years ago I ran a Yamaha LC that many looked down on because it was “only a 350″. However I can’t recall being passed by any 750 or 1100 anywhere but a straight. My fellow kiwi mate (an awesome rider) currently lives in WA and runs a Honda 900 Hornet and regularly cleans up every “better handling” super sport bikehe sees on the local roads. What Adrian said about bikes being 90% rider is so true. That’s why when people bleated about Valentino Rossi winning because he had the “best” Honda, he switched to the “inferior” Yamaha and won the championship again (and again).

By: Brett

Brett — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:34:52 +0000

Don’t forget Dan, your speedo should be reading much higher as you are leaned over quite a bit in turn 1 and turn 2. I agree many bike riders are on their pesonal limit but may be way off the bikes limit. That being said, I have been around on QR on my race bike many times and the one time I went around on my road bike with sacked out suspension I was apexing turn 2 about 30km/hr slower and filled with the fear of God while hanging on for dear life.

Slow corners (<100km/hr) are a big pain in the butt for a bike, as gyroscopic forces at high speed can hold the bike up for quite a while during a front end slide giving you a little chance to sort things out, where at slow speeds you just fall over.

I think bikes have had the power, tyre and suspension advantage for so long greating the perception that two wheels are better than four and now many lower end cars are finally getting some decent rubber and suspension the differences are less pronounced

just my 2c…