Sportsbike vs car, race

This ones doing the rounds.

It's an OK video, but far from the best thing I have ever seen - I don't know why this one is so popular ?

every forum i go on that has to do with a car or a bike has this video on it

Yes, it has blown up for some reason...even showing up on crossover blogs

I thought it was kinda cool...but not my style of riding or bike.

https://www.fireblades.org/forums/gen...tml#post980886

Top Gear This Sunday.

This Sunday's show will feature a BMW S1000RR racing against a £150,000 Ariel Atom V8 around the BBC show's famous test track.
The BMW S1000RR was completely standard but ridden by British Superbike EVO class champion Steve Brogan. The 185bhp, 999cc inline four-cylinder superbike had ABS, traction control and anti-wheelie though, being a racer, Brogan switched it all off.

From MCN who reckon its a close run thing, well worth watching. I've no doubt it will be on YouTube for you colonials!

I'll watch that tonight, it could be interesting - although I reckon the car will get it.

TBH it's pretty irrelevant anyway, IMHO at least.

Its extremely relevant, Des. Those fingers on Top Gear have resolutley denied the exsistance of bikes. They did a 'race' from one end of London to the other, one on the tube, one in a speedboat down the Thames and one... on a pushbike! The tube won (HaHa) the pushbike not far behind, a rev and go 50cc would have tramped all over them. But no, the obvious method of travelling congested cities was completely ignored.
This is a very influential show, young lads see image after image of high power, extremely expensive supercars dangled before them, in their impressionable minds, this is cool. Once they see a few of two wheels hyper offerings, they might just be persuaded to take a look.

I guess I meant to me, the result is irrelevant. I don't really care how sports bikes compare against cars costing 10x more. They are 2 very different things. I think riding a bike will almost always be more exciting though.

You may have a point in drumming up a bit of interest in motorcycling.

I agree it'll be entertaining to see how the 2 compare, and a lot of people will have asked the question so there is some value in finding the result, out of curiosity if nothing else. That Ariel Atom will take some beating!

However, I don't think that there are many car vs bike races out there (Dakar rally maybe?). And in the real world, on the road, bikes may be quicker in some cases, cars in others.

Hammond and May ride bikes themselves don't they? And they did that Vietnam special on bikes which was entertaining. Clarkson has even been around Monaco on a Ducati, I think.

I saw the London one either on Friday or yesterday, and I did wonder why they didn't use a motorcycle. That's where the benefits of a bike would be most pronounced. IIRC, Hammond on the pushbike won, then Clarkson in the boat, then the Stig on public transport.... and then May in the car. They should have included a powered 2-wheeler.

Well, it was a bit blink and you'll miss it in terms of the S100RR. No real info provided on the bike, some brief edited footage of the 'race' and of course the car came out on top.

That Ariel Atom looks like a good bit of kit - it looked like a 4 wheel version of the Aprilia RSV Factory from a few years ago, with the gold frame. The 3.0 V8 is apparently made from 2 motorcycle engines, although they did not say which one.

Hi Des
The Atom is made up of two 'busas on a custom crankcase, so basically its TWO kinds of bikes that are the fastest things around the Top gear track!
The main point to note is that the £13000 bike was about 100ths of a second behind the 'car' (although how anything that looks like its already been stripped out can be called a car is a bit beyond me). That means a £13000 bike is faster than the best £1m supercars! That should make an impression. (Pity it wasnt a 'blade doing it).

A few links associated with the title of the thread. I have posted one of these before but for the life of me I can't find it. I am not really a ducati fan but these seem a bit more realistic.

Thanks - I suspected Busa engines, but couldn't find anything out about them. They seem to be popular for all kinds of stuff.

Normally Top Gear bang on about the comparitive price of the vehicles, but in this case I don't think it was mentioned. They should have put the BMW time up on the board too. They've let us down.

The Atom is probably less practical than a bike too!

I don't know what Ariel Atom car you guys are talking about? The Ariel Atom that Jeremy Clarkson drove on Top Gear uses a 2.0 liter Honda i-Vtec car engine, 245bhp. http://www.arielmotor.co.uk/

however, their is an Ariel "Inspired" V8 that someone built on their own--(its on Youtube), but it's not built buy the Ariel Atom company.