Motorcycle Speed Record

This morning in the shower I was idly wondering what the record was for motorcycles.  Of course these are not stock production motorcycles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_land-speed_record
These are:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_production_motorcycles#

Motorcycles and speed - my youth come to life.

Coincidentally, I became acquainted with Denis Manning about thirty years ago through a mutual friend. Denis and I traded some labor and he built me a great set of pipes for my bike. Worked and sounded terrific; I loved them. The cops were not as happy with them as I was.

I noticed the Brough Superior on the maker's list. For a bit of trivia, T.E. Lawrence died from an accident on his Brough Superior. No Arabs involved.

Sadly, last year when I got my driver's license renewed, I dropped the motorcycle license. Never go to renew your license when you are feeling like shit.

I know bikes will out-accelerate any 4-wheel vehicle (is this right?) due to the power-to-weight ratio, but I got to idly wondering about top speed. ISTR that the land speed record for rocket cars is a shade under 800 mph, at which speed EVERYTHING becomes unstable. It seems to me, from a physics standpoint, that a bike might be more stable at high speeds.

But I couldn't imagine a bike, not even a purpose-built land speed racer 2-wheel vehicle, traveling at 800 mph. Sure enough the record is nearer 400 mph.

Production bikes -- with limited aerodynamics -- are half that.

Several of my coworkers at my last job were sport bike enthusiasts, and one had gotten a ticket for going 175 on a deserted Arizona highway in the middle of a the night.  He'd been afraid he would automatically lose his license for felony reckless endangerment, but the motorcycle cop who stopped him was mostly just impressed, and wrote him up for misdemeanor unspecified "excessive speed" without mentioning his radar reading.

_Howard wrote:

Coincidentally, I became acquainted with Denis Manning about thirty years ago through a mutual friend.

In the photo, the BUB is sitting on a stand on the trailer, rather than sitting on its own wheels. Is this because, without tiedowns, there was no way to secure it in the upright position?

It needs a kickstand

There are a number of production motorcycles that will turn in a sub-3-second zero-to-sixty time (which is almost 1 g-force) but it turns out there are a couple of 4-wheel exotics that'll beat even that.

A top fuel dragster can do 0-100 in 0.86 seconds.

This equates to a g-force of almost 6 g, or 39 m/s/s.  For comparison, the space shuttle takes eight seconds to reach 100 mph. It accelerates at 5.5 meters per second per second, for a sustained survivable g force of about 3g.  A top performing model rocket can accelerate (for one second) at 90 m/sec/sec.

Gravitational acceleration (1 g) is 9.8 m/s/s.

Quote :

Putting this all into perspective:

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged & ready to launch down a quarter-mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line & pass the dragster at an honest 200 MPH. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.

The dragster launches & starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums & within 3 seconds the dragster catches & passes you.
He beats you to the finish line, a quarter-mile away from where you just passed him. Think about it - from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 MPH & not only cau ght, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race!

That's acceleration !

NoCoPilot wrote:

I know bikes will out-accelerate any 4-wheel vehicle (is this right?) due to the power-to-weight ratio,

Generally true, but certainly not always. It depends on the bike and the car.
For a period in the seventies, you could own - for less than a thousand bucks - the fastest-accelerating production vehicle in the world: a three-cylinder, two-stroke rice rocket.

NoCoPilot wrote:

It seems to me, from a physics standpoint, that a bike might be more stable at high speeds.

A bike is more stable at high speed that it is at low speed. But when you get to extreme high speeds, bikes - like four-wheel vehicles - are very difficult to control, unless built for that specific purpose.

NoCoPilot wrote:

That's acceleration !

Yeah. Amazing what one can do with seven or eight thousand horsepower.

I can't imagine enduring six gravities.

Nine will knock you out. I think 10-12 is fatal.

[Edit]Turns out fatal is considered 50-75g. One test pilot, John Stapp, survived momentary 46g forces in 1954.

Every time the subject of being subjected to major Gs come up, I remember this guy from seeing the film on TV when I was a kid. 500 mph. 40 Gs when stopping! No space suit. No helmet. Not even eye protection!

Shortly after getting out of the service, I was offered the job of maintaining the instrumentation on the rocket sled. Probably should have taken it, but really, really didn't cherish the idea of living in Alamogordo.

_Howard wrote:

I remember this guy from seeing the film on TV when I was a kid. 500 mph. 40 Gs when stopping! No space suit. No helmet. Not even eye protection.

The very same John Stapp I just mentioned.  Mr. Human Crash Test Dummy. Nicknamed "Buster."