"Modern cars are too powerful for UK roads"

FeeFoo – Member
…Anyone who thinks utilitarianism an ‘interesting’ car is the way to a rewarding life needs shooting. (It’d be the intellectually kindest thing to do)
beautifully put

It’s as beautifully put as, “no, you are!” Well done.

If you’re happy in your modest car, good luck to ya. Some of us prefer summink a bit more fun, that’s all.
Not too hard to understand, is it?

Have you ever tried to sync your phone to your computer? Imagine trying to sync a Ford to a Toyota? Sounds like a recipe for death on a stick.

Make sure things are engineered to aviation standards or whatever.
It won’t be perfect. There will still be crashes.

But there will be a lot less than there are now.

Yet you do have a problem with people writing “modern cars are too powerful”! Despite the fact that nobody has written that (in the way clearly implied by your OP) before this thread, and despite the premise in the OP that modern cars aren’t any faster being wrong. Though of course pointing that out is pedantry.

No, I don’t think anybody is having a problem understanding that some people like having fun in cars on public roads.

jimjam – Member
Sounds like we need to ban any bike over 25cc.
It would make sense.
But first they would have to catch us…

Shouldn’t be a problem, having the police waiting outside A&E should catch quite a few 😉

It’s a bit like skiers. Good skiers ski faster and have less accidents than poor skiers skiing slowly

That’s certainly true and you could probably say the same thing for mountain bikers too. I’m a lot better at skiing than I am at mountain biking and rarely crash while skiing despite going a lot faster (in relative terms) than I do on my bike. I’ve crashed on the bike numerous times despite being relatively slow. I’m simply not as good at it and have less experience.

As for driving, I haven’t crashed in 30 years despite having access to lots of powerful cars and covering maybe 600,000 miles. Make of that what you will. Maybe I’m just not driving fast enough or could do with another couple of hundred horsepower?

One thing is for sure, car’s would be seriously boring if some people on here had their way.

Bikers don’t need a chip on their shoulder. They have have the only vehicles capable of being driven properly fast on interesting roads.

This is a good perspective on bike v car

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=25255

The gist is that cars are much easier to drive fast than bikes and with much less risk too. Only time I’ve ever had a bike come past me in a quick car is in a straight-line on the motorway. When it comes to “interesting” roads very few bikers have either the skill or balls to keep up with a quick modern car, let alone pass it.

The car versus bike thing is an odd one, ultimately the fastest car is quicker than the fastest bike…

….but your chances of encountering a Zonda, Veyron, Enzo etc on the road are slim, they are very expensive and quite rare.
Fast motorbikes are common as muck though…and cheap.

In all my years of riding bikes I’ve never ‘played’ with a car driver and come off second best…I’m no riding God either, I ride in jeans so don’t do the hanging off, crazy lean angles thing.

Most people consider a quick car to be something like an Impreza, an M3 etc and most drivers can’t get the most out of these cars… even a well driven example is easy enough to sit behind until the next straight and then a bike is past in the blink of an eye.

Remember you’re talking about machines with a 0-60 of 3 secs, 0-100 in 6 secs, 0-150 in 10 secs and a 10 second 1/4 mile….with Japanese reliability, cheap road tax, 40mpg and a brand new price usually cheaper than most small hatchbacks…. bikes are awesome and the ability to filter through traffic adds a ‘real world’ example of why a bike is usually faster in everyday situations.

“Have you checked the sales figures? The Horribly powerful Golf R sold about 1000 units in four years. I can’t find an exact figure for total numbers of Golfs sold in the same time period but it’ll be in the hundreds of thousands. People obsess about scary cars and get their knickers in a twist because faster cars make better newspaper articles and tv programmes.”

There’s going to be more Golf R’s around due to the cheap leases £240 a month. I’ve ordered one mainly to hand the M Sport/ S Line diesel boys and the fat RRS/Q7/X5 boys their arse when they get too big for their boots.

I ride a slow bike, can still get from A to B faster than any car in the cluttered south of england. This despite cars often coming past me on dual track roads, they soon get stuck behind a car struggling to do 50 in a national.

Deviant – cracking post at the top of the previous page.

Northwind – Member

That sounds like a ****ing terrible idea to me tbh. Do I want to be knocked off my bike by someone doing 40 or 35? Well I’d rather not be knocked off tbh. Nope, just accept it, 40 or 35.

nicely put, and i agree with you, it would be a little like admitting defeat.

but it (lower and stricter limits) would be easy to implement. Achieving a world where no-one crashes is a bit harder.

i’m off out on my road bike in a bit, i’d rather the people who might drive into me were doing 40 or less, than ‘whatever they feel like’ – which is the case at the moment.

+1 for Deviant

Nice to hear the view from the sharp end.

TBH I’ve reached the conclusion that we’ve lost the plot on driving and gone mad with stupid road layouts/roundabouts/speed cameras all the supposed safety features when in fact we should be looking at making drivers more capable at driving and more aware of what they are doing and the consequences of their actions.

In all my years of riding bikes I’ve never ‘played’ with a car driver and come off second best…I’m no riding God either, I ride in jeans so don’t do the hanging off, crazy lean angles thing.

Well tbh I always cut MC’ers some slack as they don’t come off the best if it goes pete tong.

No, I don’t think anybody is having a problem understanding that some people like having fun in cars on public roads.

I’m guessing the subtext to this is, “don’t have fun on public roads”.
I think it’s the definition of fun you may be having a problem understanding.

In all my years of riding bikes I’ve never ‘played’ with a car driver and come off second best

Well good for you but I hope you stay alive. It’s thanks to reckless motor bike riders who keep killing themselves that most of the good driving roads in the peaks are now limited to 50mph with average speed cameras everywhere. Effectively it’s spoiled the road for people like me who like a good swift drive but without going mental.

So Daveky you’ve ordered a Golf R to hand other drivers their arse’s?

I’m an advocate of fast cars, swift driving, making progress, having fun and driving as quickly as conditions will allow (with a good margin for error or other drivers error) but I can’t condone racing on a public road. Along with the biker above it’s this sort of behaviour that gives a bad name for all people who often drive quicker than the posted limit and could eventually lead to speed limits being reduced for all of us once the PC and Health and Safety brigade get their teeth into the problem.

deviant – Member

The car versus bike thing is an odd one, ultimately the fastest car is quicker than the fastest bike…

….but your chances of encountering a Zonda, Veyron, Enzo etc on the road are slim, they are very expensive and quite rare.
Fast motorbikes are common as muck though…and cheap.

In all my years of riding bikes I’ve never ‘played’ with a car driver and come off second best…I’m no riding God either, I ride in jeans so don’t do the hanging off, crazy lean angles thing.

Most people consider a quick car to be something like an Impreza, an M3 etc and most drivers can’t get the most out of these cars… even a well driven example is easy enough to sit behind until the next straight and then a bike is past in the blink of an eye.

A few points come to mind. First off, whilst something like a Panigale might have the power to weight ratio of a hypercar it’s through one driven wheel. Trying to hustle something like an Agera R along a back road would be hard enough, never mind if it had half the grip or twice the power again.
Any rider who’s talented enough to exploit a bike like that will more than likely be transporting it around in the back of van to race tracks or road circuits. Put Mr. Midlife Crisis weekend rider on a Panigale or a Ninja H2 and ask him to keep up with a STI, GTR or Carrera 4s on a mountain road and he’s gonna drop it sharpish. Throw in a skiff of rain and forget it, well the biker won’t even have left the house so it’s not really an issue.

Plenty of examples on here (quite a few just on this page) where “fun” clearly involves driving fast.
But why don’t you give us yours?

It’s strange that you talk about bikers (i.e. the human element) but cars (the mechanical element) as if all car drivers have consummate driving skills.

Put Mr. Midlife Crisis weekend rider on a Panigale or a Ninja H2 and ask him to keep up with a STI, GTR or Carrera 4s on a mountain road and he’s gonna drop it sharpis

Bollocks a halfway quick bike would easy keep up with those cars on a mountain road unless the car driver was going crazy and having no regard for other road users. Keeping it sensible whilst going pretty quick is easy on a bike in comparison to a car. The would have easy enough poke between 0-70 mph to keep up.

Not in my experience.

Have you ridden bikes much?
Which mountain roads have you flown down/up in a manner to quick for a sports bike to keep up? What were you driving?

Let’s just say after a very cheeky overtake (I had slowed to let an old lady in a micra turn off the road) and some choice hand gestures I caught and re passed a Ninja ZX, GSXR-1000 and a KTM 950 supermoto. All within the speed limit on a winding country road. You won’t know the road unless you’re familiar with Co. Donegal?

Hero! No way would any car pass those bikes within the speed limit if they were trying. Maybe they just thought you were a cock and let you get past before you killed them.

Plenty of examples on here (quite a few just on this page) where “fun” clearly involves driving fast.
But why don’t you give us yours?

I already did a few pages back.
A bit of overtaking, a bit of pointless accelerating, etc.
Not necessary, not making up time, just for the fun of it. I know there are people who I’ve overtaken, who are one or two cars back at the next set of lights or roundabout smugly saying to themselves, “humph, didn’t get you very far did it?”.

They miss the point. Do you?

Caught and passed a GSXR thou’ within the speed limit?

For a race to be a race both parties need to know that it’s a race 🙂

Jimjam do you drive a Veyron?

anagallis_arvensis

Maybe they just thought you were a cock and let you get past before you killed them.

Yeah. I was being the cock, politely waiting for an elderly woman to make her way along at her pace while three bikes with race cans swarm around the back of me. They were on their way back from a bike show, acting like ****.

Hero! No way would any car pass those bikes within the speed limit if they were trying.

The road was greasy. Even full blown WRC cars struggle to top 120mph on it in the dry so breaking the speed limit on it in a normal road car is difficult. You might hit 80 for a split second before you’d be one the brakes. I was surprised at how quick they were through the corners but as soon as the corners opened up the car had them. It was easy to pass them since their collective balls shriveled pretty quickly.

anagallis_arvensis

Jimjam do you drive a Veyron?

No, just a bland looking family estate car. Most people don’t even know what brand it is, no badges, no stickers. No outward signs that would lead anyone to suspect anything.

So now we have Jimjam and Daveky clearly stating they race on public roads.

On narrow, winding roads bikes are quicker:
Bike versus car Manx[/url]

When cycling I’m rarely if ever put in danger by bikers despite having a home on one of their favourite peg-grinding roads.

Edukator

On narrow, winding roads bikes are quicker:
Bike versus car Manx

So a near stock, and relatively ordinary road car against works bikes?

Now check out the stage times and average speeds for group n and full works Subarus; a bit quicker but still in the same ball park. The bike is 16mph faster around the Manx circuit, that is an enormous difference.

Links? At any rate an Impreza won’t have the grunt or gearing to set a fast lap on that course, it’s not exactly a winding road.

jimjam – Member
The road was greasy. Even full blown WRC cars struggle to top 120mph on it in the dry so breaking the speed limit on it a normal road car is difficult. I was surprised at how quick they were through the corners but as soon as the corners opened up the car had them. It was easy to pass them since their collective balls shriveled pretty quickly.

It sounds like they were enjoying themselves on the corners but slackening off for the straights. A well known (to bikers) method of retaining your licence while enjoying a powerful bike. The fun is over when the corner “opens up”. They were probably letting the mobile chicane past for some more fun at the next corner, or what I used to do, let the radar trap bait go first.

No need, been there, done that. You do realise that the electric bike record around the TT couse is faster than the Higgins car record.

#I won’t edit but Jimjam has again if my post seems a bit odd.

epicyclo –

It sounds like they were enjoying themselves on the corners but slackening off for the straights. A well known (to bikers) method of retaining your licence while enjoying a powerful bike. The fun is over when the corner “opens up”. They were probably letting the mobile chicane past for some more fun at the next corner, or what I used to do, let the radar trap bait go first.

Yeah I guess you’ve got a deeper insight than someone who was there, even though you only have a brief summation you read on the internet and I’ve deliebrately neglected to add some key facts.

jimjam – Member
Yeah I guess you’ve got a deeper insight than someone who was there, even though you only have a brief summation you read on the internet and I’ve deliebrately neglected to add some key facts.

No. Just a very familiar scenario.

Turkey up your arse on the straights where you’re trying to keep close enough to legal to avoid radar or cameras, let him past, zap him on the corner, button down for the straight again, inflamed turkey comes howling past, repeat next corner and ad infinitum for more fun until turkey self combusts.

They were playing with you. Don’t believe me? Ask any biker. 🙂

They were more interested in the view and riding safely than beating you if you overtook them, Jimjam. Stock bikes are nearly as fast as race bikes. The stock record is within seconds of the superbike record on the TT couse and the stock bikes are less modified than Higgin’s car. Watch to the end:

Everyone knows a GSXR Thou is quicker than 98% of cars stuff on the road in a straight line – why would the rider risk their licence / life trying to hold off someone in an estate with a point to prove?

If it was me I also wouldn’t be keen to race some random with a death wish.

Hooning on a greasy road? Nice work.

🙂

Fantastic ,some of you guys really do deserve an A for effort. I just hope you work in the creative industries since you can so easily imagine being quicker than a car you know nothing about, on a road you’ve never seen, in conditions you have no information about. 🙂
And just for reference when I said they were quick through the corners I meant quicker than I expected, but not blistering.

jimjam – Member
…And just for reference when I said they were quick through the corners I meant quicker than I expected, but not blistering.

When the cat plays with the mouse, it doesn’t kill it straight away.

Or maybe they were on 125s.