(logo whooshing)
- Motorcycles are too fast and it's making me sick.
Today we're gonna talk about some of the fastest motorcycles
that for some reason, any 16 year old kid
can just go out and buy.
I'm joined by my esteemed sentience colleague,
The Mono-list.
(static electric sound)
Hi, I'm James
and this is the show where we put random crap on trial.
The D-List.
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- I can smell him to this day.
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- We all know that bikes today are fast,
but they've been fast for like a hundred years, okay.
In 1924, the fastest production motorcycle
was a British bike called the Bruff spelt Brough.
The Brough Superior SS 100.
Now at the time they called it the Rolls Royce
of motorcycles because it costs a whopping 170 quid.
This blindly hauled made around 50 Hertz purse
and put down at top speed of 110 miles per hour.
Do you know what hospitals were like in 1924?
It was mostly saws and yet people were somehow totally okay
with going that fast.
Fast forward to 1949,
i.e the future back then penicillin was finally invented.
And so was the Vincent Black Lightning,
Great frickin name, possibly the best name on this list,
but you're gonna see a lot of cool names on this list.
So I don't know, it's only the second one.
The Black Lightning had a twin push-rod engine,
they cranked out 70 ponies and because it was super light,
it could hit 150 miles per hour instead of land speed record
at Bonneville and to reduce drag,
this is how the guy did it, that's right.
It's laying down perpendicular riding, but you know,
what's even crazier.
It would take another 35 years for another bike to touch
that sideways speed record.
That means we're not even gonna mention the BSA Rocket 3
Ducati 900 SS, or even the Laverda Jota.
The first motorcycle to threaten the Black Lightning's
record was the 1984 Honda VF 1000R.
My math teacher in high school,
had one of these and he tried to sell it to me.
And in hindsight, I think that was wildly inappropriate.
This bike was the showcase of all of Honda's race
winning technology at the time and had a 16 valve V4 engine,
whiny straight cut gears in a 80s fairing.
A fairing is a motorcycles brassiere
and a brassiere is a lady's top underpants.
All at all, it made 122 horsepower.
That is a lot for a vehicle smaller than a horse,
but unlike the Black Lightning, the VF 1000R was heavy.
It weighed over 600 pounds or two nolans
and that's before you even put a dude on it,
that's the third nolan.
So it maxed out at 150 miles per hour
tied the record, still stands,
but not for long because Kawasaki thought that a 35 year old
British hog shouldn't be faster than a modern Japanese
sports bike.
Enter
(whooshing sound)
The Ninja.
The GPZ 900R A.K.A
The Ninja 900 debuted the same year as the VF 1000R,
but it blew it out of fricking water with a 908 CC inline
for the put down 115 Hertz purz no,
that's not quite as many Hertz purz as the Honda had,
but the Ninja didn't weigh 600 pounds.
Number one rule 'bout
being a ninja don't weigh 600 pounds,
unless you're Beverly Hills Ninja or Panda Ninja.
Everything about this crotch rocket was revolutionary.
Also a little Mr. Thomas Cruise drove one in a little movie
called "Top Gun" not the airplanes.
So how fast did the Ninja go?
I don't know, maybe 158 miles per hour.
We're only talking about four motorcycles so far guys.
There's a bunch more! Stay tuned,
but that record wouldn't last long,
The Ninja kicked off a good old fashioned speed war
and things were about to get nuclear.
(fire exploding)
Just two years later,
Suzuki came along and dropped the GSXR 1100,
I'm talking, The GSXR, baby.
This bike is notoriously uncomfortable to ride
because Suzuki sacrificed all of the comfy stuff
in order to make it faster, lighter, and easier
to rip through the canyons.
It also had Suzuki advanced cooling system
or SACS for short, it made more power than The Ninja.
It was also a hundred pounds lighter allowing it
to hit a top speed of 160 miles per hour.
But just one year later,
Honda stepped back into the arena with the CBR 1000 F
A.K.A, The Hurricane.
This big, bad hog of a heftor was heavier
than the Ninja and the GSXR,
had more comfortable upright riding position,
and it had a reputation for being bland in comparison,
but it still managed to rip its way to the top
of the leaderboard, the top speed of 164 miles per hour.
They always want to talk about you when you're on top.
Ask me, I know.
Now I think we can all agree that that is legitimately
fast as heck but sport bikes were starting to get attention
from a little place that I'd like to call the fricking
Government.
The motorcycle safety act of 1987 claim that these street
bikes were the moral equivalent of selling drugs
the adolescence.
Feds were trying to shut the speed part down,
but the Gods of Speed had other plans
And this bill failed and thus bikes got faster.
The 1988 Kawasaki TomCat ZX-10,
165 miles per hour.
1989 Yamaha FCR 1000 EXUP,
a 172 miles per hour.
1990 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-11,
176 miles per hour.
And that's where the record stood for another six years.
Remember how it took 35 years to beat that old speed record
bike manufacturers in the '80s with absolutely bonkers.
But the '90s,
the '90s were about to get even more bonkers
with the introduction of the Honda CBR 1100 XX,
better known as the Super Black Bird.
They called it the Blackbird after the Sr-71,
the world's fastest plane at the time.
Do you think that planes need to chill out?
Let me know in the comments.
Now this bike made 162 horsepower,
but it's still weighed less than 500 pounds.
It had a reputation for getting hot and making the rider
uncomfortable,
but nobody ever said going fast was a cakewalk.
And also I like how the being hot is the uncomfortable part
about going a million miles an hour on a fricking 500 pound
bike, between the fighter jet aerodynamics
and the insane power to rate ratio,
The Black Bird hit a top speed of 178 miles per hour.
That's really fast.
But its about to get smoked,
cause 178 miles per hour apparently is for babies
according to Suzuki.
So they released the most iconic, fast bike of all time,
I'm talking about the Hayabusa.
Do you know what a Hayabusa is?
It's Japanese for Peregrine, Falcon,
A bird that eats blackbirds
and the 'Busa did just that.
The 1300 CC engine made 175 horsepower.
It only weighed 475 pounds.
Bridgestone had to make special tires because it went too
fast for regular tires.
I don't wanna know how they found that out.
How fast did it go?
How fast?
Well, I'll tell you how fast,
194 completely unnecessary miles per hour.
Now that stock, people tune them to go even faster.
People fricking turbo charge these things,
[Groaning] WHO! YOURE NUTS!!
but the 'Busa was the last bike to hit speeds like that
for a while.
Thanks to a little thing called a gentleman's agreement.
Just like how Japanese car makers didn't produce cars
with more than 276 horsepower in the '80s and '90s,
basically a bunch of company guys got together and decided
to limit the top speeds of their motorcycles in the 2000's.
Nobody knows exactly why this agreement happened,
but there was a lot of fear that the government would try
and crack down on sport bikes,
like they tried to do in 1987.
They decided that 300 kilometers per hour
or 186.4 miles per hour should be the limit
because anything more than that would be too dangerous.
187 that's way too fast, slow down 186.4,
now that's sensible.
So when the 2000 Hayabusa came out,
it went 8 miles per hour, slower than the 1999 model.
Same deal with the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12R,
even though it was rumored to go over
200 miles per hour before the agreement happened, 186.4.
So just like that.
The great speed war came to an end
and there's nothing left to talk about.
JK! It didn't!
You see, this agreement was between gentlemen
but the biker life ain't about being gentle.
Ridin' hogs is about breakin' rules!
2007 was the year when rules would be broken.
Firstly, Wild Hogs came out. It's my favorite movie.
I seen it 58 times.
Secondly, the Italian motorcycle manufacturer, MV Agusta,
released the F4 R 312.
Up until this point,
Italian companies didn't really care about outright speed.
Up until this point,
Italian companies had always been more focused on hand
and track performance,
but the F4 R despite being an absolute track weapon
also happened to be extremely fast,
so fast that they named it after its top speed
of 312 kilometers per hour.
What is that in English?
194 miles per hour.
Realistically, the speed limited Japanese bikes
could smoke the F4, but on paper,
it was the fastest production motorcycle in the world
and MV Agusta wasn't the only company to break
this gentleman's agreement.
Couple of years later, a little Italian firm
going by name Ducati released a little bitty old bike
called the Panigale R.
It was a homologated race bike with over 200 horsepower.
And it only weighed 364 pounds with the race exhaust
that came with the bike.
It can hit a top speed of 202 miles per hour.
That's right, boys and girls we are in the 200's.
Sorry gentlemen, there's a new king on the list.
Looks like speed is back on the menu.
We're done ordering appetizers, double entrees,
and a pancake for the table.
For our next course, I'd like to introduce you
to the first electric motorcycle on this list.
The lightning LS 218.
I should also mention that this is the first American
company on this list.
This freedom machine has a 200 Hertz per electric motor
that can zip zap zoop, all the way to 218 miles per hour.
And again, I'd like to remind you,
you don't need a special permit to buy or operate
a motorcycle like this.
You can just go online and order one.
No questions asked.
The same motorcycle license,
that lets you buy a Honda Grom,
will allow you to ride this electric thing with wheels
218 miles per hour.
Is 218 miles per hour even that fast?
You're telling me that since 1949,
we've only gained 68 miles per hour.
That's like one mile per hour away from being hilarious.
Well guess what you freaking sickos,
if speed is what you want then here you go.
I have a few bikes they're even faster.
I hope you're happy because these next couple of bikes
are perverted!
In 2015,& Kawasaki released the Ninja H2
compared to the Ninja from the 20th century,
this thing is lighter, stiffer, more comfortable
And it has a fricking supercharge of a top speed, 186.4.
Yes, that's right.
The gentleman's agreement still stands with most
of the Japanese manufacturers even to this day.
So why am I even mentioning this bike?
Well, because Kawasaki made one with an R at the end of it.
And R as we all know, stands for Race.
It makes 310 horsepower,
more than a Moto GP bike.
Kawasaki makes owners swear
that they'll only drive it on the track,
even though it's street legal and there's absolutely
no warranty available for it.
However Kawasaki will sell you this motorcycle
that hits a maximum velocity.
You guys ready?
249 miles per hour on a bicycle.
That's number two, we got another one left
and it's way faster.
Remember how the first bike on this list was the Rolls Royce
of motorcycles.
Well this final bike literally has a Rolls Royce engine,
but not from a car from fricking worldly birds.
It's got Rolls-Royce helicopter engine in it guys.
Allow me to introduce the MTT 420RR,
A street legal turbine engine motorcycle.
Alright, turbine engines aren't really used
in cars or motorcycles for pretty good reasons.
They're very impractical,
but you know what else is impractical?
A 420 horsepower jet bike that costs
a quarter of a million dollars and runs on kerosene.
How fast is it?
I don't even want to tell you because it makes me more.
It makes me absolutely sick,
but unfortunately I have no choice
if I don't finish the episode.
I am in breach of contract with Max
and he'll sue the pants off me and I need my pants.
This ridiculous bike apparently
has a top speed of 273 miles per hour.
Why?
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Nice.
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If you like motorcycles, checkout Bumper 2 Bumper,
Jeremiah loves them and he's made a bunch of videos on them.
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They're my favorite ones so far.
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I love you.