I can’t wrap my head around how such a small engine can produce the same amount of speed that a car can, especially when a larger engine in a smaller car can still be really slow.
In: Engineering
It’s all about something called power-to-weight ratio. Let’s use an example to explain:
The R1200GS, BMW’s best selling motorcycle, has Approximately 100 horsepower and weighs 450 pounds. This produces a horsepower/pounds ratio of 0.22. This means for every pound of motorcycle, there is 0.22 horsepower available to move that pound.
In contrast, a car (in this case a mazda 3) usually has around 150hp, but weighs 2,800 pounds. This produces a horsepower/pounds ratio of 0.054. That means for every pound of car, there is only 0.054 horsepower to move it.
In summary, the engines on motorcycles have more power per pound than cars, and that means the motorcycle engine can move the motorcycle faster because it doesn’t have to work as hard.
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