Thread approved

Please use this thread for general discussion with relevance.

Surefire topic for some pop-corn stuffs.

Considering normal cars and bikes sold in India excluding super bikes/cars.

One must keep something in mind.

1. Street racing is no no.
2. Most of the time when you think you are racing against someone, the other party may not be racing you.
3. On street, its almost impossible for cars to catch a two wheeler, be it bike or scooter by virtue of being smaller. For that matter even three wheelers will be difficult.
4. On the highway, most cars will smoke two wheelers considering most cars will do 150+, while most bikes are below 120. One may say the Ninja 250 can hit 150+, but then some cars like skoda can go 200+
5. In acceleration, bikes generally has the advantage due to power-to-weight ratio, however a vast majority of the bikes are less than 150 cc, so most cars will beat bikes again. I own a Ford Ikon 1.6 and ZmaR. My car will smoke my bike any day except on the street.

In India, cars technology has rapidly advanced. Its only recently that better technology is slowly making its presence in the two wheeler market.

this was in my mind always and harishk has put it forward for discussion...
We can think of out doing cars(only those cheap hatchbacks) only with our so called performance bikes(150 to 220) also you might never know whether car guy is racing too...
It reminds me a ride to mysore when i overtook all the cars on my way like i was king of that road(with a big grin in my helmet) doing 130s and suddenly a civic passed by me in blink of my eye as if i was stand still... Its hard for bikers to keep up with cars if driver in car is capable of and decides so...

But bike has "MORE ADRENALINE PER KMPH" than a car and thats why i ride one... Fast ofcourse:-)

This is totally an abstract question; cars & motorcycles have their own performance, what is the objective of this question?

Dumber in VTec = smart biker in P150 & Smart driver in 800 = dumber in N250!!!

What about acceleration? Couldn't get the objective of this question either; again abstract.

Yes

How are Bikes compared to Cars, when it comes to Performance?
Bikes perform better. But again by performance if you say acceleration: its bikes; if its top speed: then its cars

Can a bike compete with a car at the highway on long commuting?
No, cars are just better on the highway. If its an empty stretch then a car will most likely outdo a bike. Although the biker will already be gleefully satisfied at the initial defeat of the car till 100kmph


How about Acceleration, Cars too claim a good 0-100 Sprint?
Bikes are in most cases better. I would have generalised it but I would like to avoid being flamed.


All of my experience comes from riding my Hero Karizma ZMR and driving the Honda City. I feel both of them make a good testing bed for reference. I don't have other choices either.

In the end however I would like to add that despite their differences and similarities, a bike is always more fun to be with than a car. Purely my opinion.

This is not a question about feasibility or probability. This is simply put forward as a question of capability and the mechanics behind it. Period.

Given a stretch of road and putting a car and a bike to test, cars always win at the end of the finish line. That about answers the question.

Production cars vs production bikes, performance cars vs performance bikes, race tuned cars vs race tuned bikes. Cars win hands down on a stretch and bikes win on a short run. That is it!

Yes within city, bikes beat cars, yes with initial acceleration bikes beat similar cars etc., If its about ego massage, you could get plenty of opportunities to say you are better than the car. But if you put both to a brutal test, machine to machine, not putting the drivers and environment in the equation cars do out perform a bikes.

Top Speeds:

Even the slowest car, Maruti 800 does a 140 kmph top, so we can safely forget beating most of the cars at cruisability and top speeds.
Unless its a 250cc we ride.

0-60 kmph:
As for 0-60, its an area where bikes rule!
A P180 ug3 will do it in 4.8, Karizma in 4.7. RTR 180 in 4.5~. P220 in some 3.9~. Most 150cc bikes in 5.5 seconds.
Most good cars can't do it within 6 seconds. And some don't even have tachometer for correct shifting.

0-100:
The new Alto has 5 speed gearbox with 1000cc engine, and will do 0-100 in 13.3 seconds. The older did in 20 secs.
So, in 0-100 both have a decent chance... Bike or car, anyone could win. Depends.

Overall (Just one incident):
I remember when I was going to Jaipur on highway, a Tata Nano owner was pushing his car like anything, and he overtook me without horn!
I felt offended and with a pillion too, I then "comfortably" showed the Nano owner what my Pulsar 180 is made of! I overtook him properly with horn, and then never saw him again, despite his apparent best efforts!

So, as of now, Nano can't compete even with most 150cc bikes, whether top end or acceleration. Just reach 100 kmph, stay there, and Nano is done for!

The question is very subjective... unless you are comparing Cars or bikes with relative power-to-weight ratio..

Yes, this is the key to comparison; But again, I'm not sure what is to be discussed.

Errr... I suppose i can make a statement saying Cars are better with no rationale and we'd have a lot more fun that way

I guess 'Performance', 'Acceleration...' has already been discussed. Apart from all that, I feel it's like comparing Oranges and Apples !
Like many members have quoted here earlier :

"Four Wheels Move the Body, Two Wheels Move the Soul" !

Cheers !!

Tell me honestly, the jeezy feeling that you get between your legs when you pop that front wheel on your 2 wheeler, do get the same feeling on your four wheeler as well ?

Wow! Now that's some real world Driver vs Rider thread.

As a matter of fact,a bike scores ahead of any car in terms of day to day commuting and performance. A biker can unleash all his horses on a small stretch of road but a driver cannot. Anyway,here are my views/answers to your question.

How are Bikes compared to Cars, when it comes to Performance?

Cars are evenly matched to bikes. Leaving the bare-basics like Alto/M800 aside any hatchback can beat the tar out of our desi-bikes(save for N250R and CBR250R). But on a short-blast,drag race and 0-100kph dash a bike will always rule the roost ahead of cars. Personally have tried these things. A Skoda can sure as hell beat a RTR180 but most of the car drivers really s**k at gear-shifting!

Can a bike compete with a car at the highway on long commuting?

Never.

I have been to Chandigarh only yesterday.We were 7 guys in total.That meant one car(Zen;2002 make) and a bike (RTR 180).NH1 highway is one of the best in the country.The car was constantly doing 140kph whereas the bike was cruising at 110-115 and sometimes to 120-125kph.I can tell you how difficult was to keep up with that 9 year old Zen.Also,the biker is on the limit at 120-125 kph,a small bump can toss and break many of his internals whereas a car driver is safe inside his cage and 120-130kph comes as smooth as silk.

How about Acceleration, Cars too claim a good 0-100 Sprint?

Are you sure the Alto is that quick.Even with new K10 transplant I don't think it hits 100kph as fast as most of the performance bikes do.

Anyway,0-100kph can be anyone's race! Most of the budget cars touch 0-100 in over-15 seconds of time.While most of our bikes do the same numbers just below the 15 second mark. If you take the 118PS VTec motor or expensive and powerful sedans like the Magnum,Laura TSi or Cruze,they can munch us all before 100kph.Albeit,that will again depend on the driver.

After 100kph,it's car's territory unless you are astride a 250cc motor. Any of the other bike can not match or pace up as briskly as any of the cars post 100kph.

To answer your question directly - No. I am motorcycle fanboy, therefore my replies will be biased.

However, on a non-personal note, i decided to put something together for the benefit of argument...

The thread starter decided to limit the discussion to Mass sold automobile segment in the Indian Market (such as till 250cc bikes and Honda City and similar cars in terms of Cars). We have to try and compare Apples to Apples which is quite a feat, given such limitations, to keep my biker side from getting all biased on my opinions, here's what comes up...

Honda City

118PS/6600 = 86.79 kW
146Nm/4800 = 146Nm
Weight - 1100kg
P-W ratio = 0.0789 kW/kg
top speed - 170kmph
0-60k - 4.83s


Pulsar 150 Dtsi

15.06 @ 9000 (Ps @ RPM) = 11.08kW
12.5 @ 6500 (Nm @ RPM) = 12.5Nm
Weight - 143kg
Top Speed - 113kph
0-60k - 5.6s
P-W Ratio - 0.7748 kW/kg

I had taken the liberty to convert the metric power output units to kW for the benefit of keeping the unit of measurements constant. All figures were obtained from vendor sites and performance figures may not be accurate.

I had chosen to compare the Honda city with a P150 because they have a close power-to-weight ratio. As you can clearly see, a stock Honda City has the performance ability to better a P150 on almost all benchmarks. Real life scenarios quite naturally depend on driver/rider expertise and conditions.

However, if you take a slightly higher performing bike such as the Apache 180 RTR, the chances are quite slim for the Honda... Here's the data

Apache 180 RTR

17.3bhp@8500 = 12.9 kW
1.58kgm @6500 = 15.5 Nm
Weight - 137kg
P-W ratio - 0.094
Top Speed - 125kph
0-60k - 4.2s

The RTR could quite easily give the Honda a run for its money till 100k on any given day, having only had 30cc higher than the P150. But, this is not a fair comparison. As a matter of fact any comparison between a car and a bike is not quite fair in my thoughts, but that's only my own personal opinion.