Posted on 06/02/2014 9:02:32 PM PDT by kingattax
The average motorcycle you see zipping down the freeway beside you doesn’t always hit its top speed, and for good reason. There are speed limits on roads around the world to protect motorcycle riders and other drivers alike.
When you read a vehicle’s speed capacity, it usually is a theoretical figure that may never be attained under real driving conditions.
The actual clocked speed is generally a bit lower, though still impressive enough to make your hair part just from reading it.
However, certain superbikes are designed to hit breathtaking speeds on the racetrack while leaving the fragile human body exposed to potentially deadly crashes. An old saying states that “speed kills.” The following nine superbikes are some of the fastest and deadliest superbikes in the world. They are also some of the most beautiful, well designed and undeniably cool vehicles to ever grace a track.
Some of these are still in production, while others have passed on into motorcycle history and are fondly remembered by those who knew and drove them. Either way, each of these may truly be classified as a legend in the world of high-speed machines.
(Excerpt) Read more at exotictoys.com ...
PING
Owning motorcycle, including sportbikes, I have to say speed is not the danger. Sportbikes tend to attract young innexperienced idiots.
“the Hayabusa features a six-speed transmission powering a 4 stroke, four-cylinder, liquid-cooled engine.”
Hmmmm.
Hooligan ping.
Speed does not kill.
Those sudden stops on the other hand.......
Apparently in idiot bloggerville transmissions power engines.
Flying down the road on a two wheeler with a plastic brain bucket on your head while the rest of your body is exposed to all manner of trauma if you get into a collision with all the other vehicles that have more than 4 times the combined mass of you and your vehicle is the danger.
Bikes NEVER win when the tangle with cars and trucks...
Thanks.
Around this neck of the woods, there are two or perhaps three speed demons on motorcycles. I cringe every-time hear one of them begin their run because before this summer is over expect at a minimum of one death from the antics I hear and witness once or twice a week.
By any other name, these are crotch-rockets.
I always wanted a really hot motorcycle...until I actually rode on a bike. I went two blocks on the back of my buddy’s Honda Rebel (stop laughing, dangit!) at just under 30 mph, and decided that was all the motorcycle riding I wanted in this life.
“Dangerous” Superbikes
Bulls#it
A Honda Dream will kill you just as dead, maybe more easily.
In any case, none of the bikes listed should be ridden by anyone who isn’t relatively familiar with motorcycles, just like the Dodge Viper or Bugatti Veyron shouldn’t be driven by just any schmoe.
Even at my age I still ride the old ‘86 4 speed chain drive Sportster. it will “walk the dog” if I need it to. If you realize there are plenty of idiots out there despite dealing with a lawyer who will hurt you given the opportunity you will be a lot safer. You have to ride like you mean it, every time.
*grim giggle*
Currently saving up for a Harley Davidson. Going to get back into riding in a year or two as a reward for surviving something even more dangerous than motorcycles - having kids. In a couple of years we'll be "empty nesters" and I intend to tour some of the national parks out west. At a much more sedate and legal pace.
Gonna take another swing at this idiot:
Apart from making blatant mistakes like having the Hayabusa’s transmission powering its engine, he’s also managed to confuse kilometers per hour and miles per hour. The Hayabusa will go 298 *kph*, because that’s just under the voluntary 300kph limit the hyperbike makers agreed to, to end the horsepower wars. Even a heavily modified Hayabusa won’t do much more than 220 *mph*, as proven by numerous Bonneville runs.
Ditto the ZX11, which can barely do 180 *mph*, and even heavily modified barely touched 220mph.
This blogger is likely a lib, because he falls prey to the same superficial nonsense the anti-gun crowd does, by focusing on aspects of their target that only *seem* scary. The author provides no justification for labeling bikes like the R1 and the BMW 1000RR “deadly” other than their apparent high speeds, and utterly unrelated aspects of the bike like single-sided swingarms and multi-outlet exhaust. He includes nothing to define the relative deadliness of each bike, i.e. the number of riders that have died on each bike. By that measure, the R1 is probably the deadliest on his list, closely followed by the Hayabusa and ZX11, by dint of those bikes being among the most popular in the “squid” culture, with way too many inexperienced riders buying them because they’re “cool”. The GSXR would also deserve mention by being in that same category.
Oddly enough, he includes several bikes that simply aren’t available to the ordinary rider. The Tomahawk was only ridden a couple of times. Leno has one, and he rode it a very short distance. Based on his comments, it’s way too heavy to be useful, and handles like a pig.
The Y2K is a novelty bike. Actual rider tests of it showed that it too suffered from poor handling due to the long wheelbase. It’s also heavy, and the turbine motor takes a while to get spun up compared to a normal piston-engine bike, so acceleration is only modest.
Funnily enough, the author had to reach all the way back to the old Blackbird to fill out his roster, despite that bike never really grabbing the headlines the way its competitors the ZX11 and the Hayabusa did. The Blackbird really ended up being a slightly sharper brother to the sport-touring ST1100, rather than a balls-to-the-wall hyperbike. And he completely ignores the new Kawasaki ZX-14 (unless that was on the broken “10 of 11” page in his slideshow), which just edges the Hayabusa in brutality.
And I just dug into the page source since “10 of 11” doesn’t show up, and it looks like he’s picked the Buell 1190 for his final “deadly” bike. Which is laughable, because the 1190 is first of all a race bike, and second of all hardly in the same class as even the R1. If you’re going to include race bikes, why not include the last iteration of the old Suzuki RG500 with carbon-carbon brakes? The Suzuki factory riders’ instructions for braking into corners was “wait until you see God, then hit the brake”.
What I see in those bikes is not danger, but jail time for speeding. I used to push 130 mph from time to time on my Triumph Rocket 3 until I decided it was not worth the risk of going to jail. I have not done over 100 mph since and usually just stay at 80 on the freeway.
A 20 hp scooter can kill you just as easily as a superbike. The left turners do not discriminate.
8.3 liter V10 putting out 500 hp - in a motorbike. Good grief. Dodge Tomahawk - is that thing a Viper engine?
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