Motorcyclist booked for 205mph on Honda RC51

On September 19 this year, Minnesota (USA) motorcyclist Samuel Armstrong Tilley set what is believed to be a world record for speeding on public roads. No doubt people have gone faster on public roads, but Tilley had the misfortune to do so without noticing the police plane above him, and was officially clocked at 205.11mph by a handheld stopwatch. The ticket has made news around the world, with many people proclaiming the speeding ticket must have been a mistake as motorcycles simply don't go that fast.

Tilley topped the previous highest known speed recorded in a traffic infringement, set by New Yorker Dr. William Faenza in a 1997 Lamborghini Diablo at 182 mph in a 55 mph zone.

With so many experts casting an opinion on the fine, and all of them stating that the ticket had to be a mistake on the basis that motorcycles simply don't go that fast, we're weighing in with an opinion too.

Firstly, Tilley's bike was a 2003 Honda RC51 motorcycle which the highway patrolman who pulled him over has gone on record as stating was "highly modified."

Tilley claims the bike only had a set of aftermarket mufflers fitted. In standard form, the bike makes 128 bhp and if the bike had only had exhaust mods, it would certainly not be putting out any more than 135bhp and would struggle to reach 160mph.

We don't know for sure what level of internal modifications had been performed on the bike but we DO believe that an RC51 is capable of being modified to run 205 mph.

The RC51 is the bike which won the 2002 World Superbike Championship in the hands of Colin Edwards. Superbikes are based on roadbikes, and can be modified according to a strict set of rules. Honda actually sells all the bits to take a standard RC51 to superbikes specs, though we suspect they keep a few horsepower up their sleeve for the likes of Edwards' factory machine.

Just for the record, the array of HRC-designed racing engine components available from a Honda showroom includes crankshaft, cylinder heads, valve train, camshafts, drive gears, pistons, connecting rods, clutch, generator, radiators, exhaust system, ECU and much more. If you are deemed to be the right class of racer, you can also buy a production version of the race bike, which sold for US$107,000 in 2002.

Estimates of the horsepower output of Edwards' 2002 title winning machine vary from 180 bhp to nearly 200 bhp, and the race versions over-the-counter are believed to be in the 175bhp area - enough to push the bike past 200mph.

...continued