I have sat in front of me the current issue of BIKE, a motorcycle mag. And they’ve run a downhill race between an 170bhp Yamaha R1 and a Welsh bloke on a road push-bike, DOWN the Alpe d’Huez, for 14km.

I’ll read the whole thing later, but anyone like to speculate on the result? 🙂

Good article isn’t it?

Not giving the result away, but very interesting indeed.

Would liked to have seen some speed telemetry figures, but you can’t have everything!

Be interesting to how a recumbent trike/Windcheetah type vehicle would fare on the same stretch……..

I’d put my money on the road push-bike, lots less weight to slow down and turn.
Sportsbikes are a handful on that type of road.

Rusty, it seems they’ve made it as fair a fight as possible, yes, I just had a quick scan through it. Nasty crash! 😯

I reckon the R1. I know the tour riders corner quick than the press bikes but some “welsh bloke” ain’t Cancellara and an R1 is going to be loads quicker than a fully loaded up press bike

If the welsh bloke is any good (or just a bit mental 😯 ) my money would be on him!

Clearly the motorbike won or people wouldn’t be speculating on what would have happened if the roadie had more of an aero advantage.

Welsh bloke = Howie Sylvester. MX rider, MTBer, 8 years road riding. Maybe not the fastest rider, no, but he ain’t hanging about.

The top section has to be faster on a motorbike as there are long ish straights to get speed up where you could still apply power, and the pedal bike would be out of gears.

I bet it was reasonably close, but motor bike for sure IMO.

Well, the R1 won by 28 seconds, and they made him stick to the speed limit through the villages too, and gave the cyclist a rolling start, but the result doesn’t speak for the article, as they were all clearly more impressed by the cyclist/bike than the R1. It’s a good article IMO.

Why don’t the cycle mags ever run anything like this?
How come the best cycling article I’ve read this year is in a motorbike mag?

It depends if the roadie rides in the middle of the road, 3 abreast, with his mates, so that the motorbike can’t overtake.

Not the ‘Bike’ article, but a link here.

Why don’t the cycle mags ever run anything like this?

they do. there was DHer v moto trials v moto enduro article in an MTB mag. Forgotten all the details though!

Ah so he would have tranced him if it was a proper race then. The cyclist would have been able to go twice as fast at least through the villages.

The cyclist would have been able to go twice as fast at least through the villages.

No, only the motorbike was restriced to the limit. Appartently there’s a lot of speed traps there. They said the villages were too flat for the cyclist to go much over the limit anyway.

Alpe d’Huez is quite open and while there are 21 hairpins the rest of the road is straight, fast and it isn’t that steep, so a cyclist wouldn’t be able to pick up a great deal of speed.

I think there are several downhills where a road bike would be able to stay close to a motorbike, something like the Glandon descent where it is narrower, twisty and lots of corners where more speed can be carried on a road bike.

Haven’t seen the article and not overly familiar with that particular road but a more suitable motorcycle (ie a fraction of the power but better chuckability) could easily take 28 seconds off the R1 time I should think.

I wouldn’t have picked an R1, maybe a supermotad or (to even it up) a 125 2-stroke Aprilia.

All I can say is thank heavens they’re not putting engines on bicycles. Us superbike riders will really be in trouble the day that happens.

Singletrack: The Electric Future

😆

Some stupid woman pulled out on Kevevs yesterday when we were tooling down off Sychnant Pass. Stupid, stupid idiot. She even looked straight at the bloke doing 30mph+ before she pulled out!!!

I don’t think she’s heard language like what she did, too often.

could easily take 28 seconds off the R1 time

28 seconds? Thats very precise!

I know I’ve overtaken cars coming down alpine decents and my Dad has overtaken both cars and motorbikes. Not superbikes, more ‘street’ bikes, with a more upright position. And of course they werent trying to get down as fast as possible. But it does show that (as the above race does as well) its a lot closer than people might think.