raptorduck

I own a red '05 Yamaha R1 and while I always knew my RS4 was not in its league in acceleration, I have always wondered how badly my R1 could spank my RS4.

Last night I got a once in a lifetime opportunity to see for myself. I was comming home on a closed expressway with 4 lanes each way and a barrier in between. It has traffic lights about every 1/2 - 1 mile, but the only way to get onto it is at those lights. I drove up to a light and a new blue R1 pulled up next to me. He saw me checking his bike out and when the light turned he just bolted like a batt out of hell. Now I was not expecting that so I did not respond. Since it was just him and me on that side of the road, I decided I would go for it at the next light. I pressed the sport button and waited at the light and when it turned we both went for it.

I got an advantage at what was probably the 0-30 range, but then he quickly caught me and by the time I hit 60 he was way ahead, and after that he was just long gone and already beginning to brake for the next light. At the next light we went for it again. This time I got a better take off had a bigger advantage at 0-30 or so. Again after that, he was gone.

None of this surprised me. What did surprise me was just how far ahead he was by the time I hit my max speed before I had to brake for the next light, he was already stopped at it. Visually it was amazing to see how far ahead he got. It was not even close to 60 and beyond that, well, he was difficult to spot at night, he was so far ahead.

Now I know my R1 can go 0-60 in under 2.5 and to 100 in about 5 flat and that it can do the quarter mile in the high 8's or low 9's, but DAMN!, seeing what that means visually was amazing. Suddenly my RS4 felt inadequately slow and uninspired.

The most amazing thing is that it would have been much worse if I was on the R1, because I raced Yamahas for 6 years and would have clutchless shifted, which he did not. Props to that rider for reminding me that everything is relative. Einstein strikes once again.

edwardschmedward

...of course I never revved it over 7k...I don't have the stomach for that kind of activity...on two wheels at least!

McGyver

Lick my chops, "S" button on, ESP disengaged, heater off, baa-bye. . .

ESFO

The S4 really is the fastest car eVar...<ul><li><a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/s4b6/msgs/276681.phtml">S4 vs. R1</a></li></ul>

daveak05

What's the 0-60 time of R1? Under 3 seconds ??

You should NOT have been beating him even up to 30 mph.

raptorduck

No matter how good the driver. It is just silly to suggest otherwise. Even with a pretender as a rider, 180bhp on 400lbs or so just can't be beat by any car, save a Bugati Veyron.

I have gone against the best cars (Viper's, Porsche turbo's, Ferrari 430's, Jetta's) on my R1 and it has never been close in the straights, although some talented drivers have made it more fun and close in the mountain twisties. A professional driver in a supercar should beat an R1 in the mountain twisties though, like a Formula 1 driver would beat a MotoGP racer on the same race track.

Many car magazines test supercars on the some of the same tracks I have raced 600cc R6's (which only had 115hp) on and I have yet to see lap times faster than I did, and I am NOT claiming to be Valentino Rossi either. I won 8 championships in my motorcycle racing career, but that was not at the top level in the sport and there were a LOT of guys much faster than I.

Heavily modded supercars (Vipers etc) have bested stock Hayabusa's and R1's in a drag race. But I doubt a modded S4 would. It all comes down to HP and while a car always has better take off traction than a bike in a drag race, you would still need about 1200 HP on a 3500lb S4 to best an R1 in a 1/4 mile drag race.

daveak05

the law says that a vehicle can not occupy 2 lanes at once. A bike doesn't, its 2 wheels cannot be in both lanes at the same time. Look it up in any DMV manual. Now, when some oaf rider whacks your mirror going by, I might sympathize with you.

daveak05

Say what? You never rev your R1 over 7k??

raptorduck

Take off traction for a bike is much worse than a car. The guy I went against was no expert rider, but then again I am FAR from an expert driver, so we were evenly matched in our skills I expect.

An ideal take off for him would have been to pull the revs up to 8k and slip the clutch to a first grab and roll it hard to full out. Too hard and he wheelies. And your contact patch is small compared to a car. An R1 can hit 106mph in 1st, so my advantage was not due to his shifting I would think. So my 0-30 advantage was due to his more complicated take off and longer time before the clutch is fully out and he can get enough grip to let it loose.

Clearly, neither of us had professional take offs. I did this on my R1 vs a Viper once from a dead start and he was never ahead if I recall, though I recall him being even to me at first for a bit.

With the average motorcycle rider, I would expect an average driver to out sprint him to 30 no matter what the specs for the bike say it can do, simply because of the extra complications of sprinting from a dead stop on a bike. Once it gets going in the torque sweet spot though and has traction, power to weight ratios take over and the bike should be gone.

daveak05

When I was the bike in your scenario, no car beat me even to 30. Instantly they were well back...this taking off from a light on an expressway. On the bike you're 1-2-3 at 11k+ RPM, just like that...no car has a chance. Even my 86 Honda VFR 750 with a 0-60 time of 2.7 seconds beat everything...and that was the weakest of the 3 bikes I owned.

No, no, where are you getting "pull the revs to 8k" for a sportbike??? Should be at least 11-12k, each gear, depending on redline.

Also, there's nothing to the idea of the bikes clutch being a factor. There should be no sloppiness there at all. If there was with that rider, then he was indeed a poor rider.

Finally, I really don't understand these "complications" sprinting from a dead stop for a bike. It's simply not an issue. For a car it is.