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Re: Read Something Interesting
For years my friends and I use to drag our sport bikes off to secluded high altitude mountain roads for a weekend of racing, dragging knees, etc.
We all had noticed that even though the bikes were dramatically slower on the low end (about 20% less hp in many cases) many times the top speed would actually be slightly faster. We all reached the conclusion that since sport bikes are terribly unaerodynamic (about the same drag coefficient as the average p/u) the lessened air density/ resistance more than offset the hp loss.
You also notice that at very high speeds the wind does not knock you around nearly as much when you are at high altitude when your doing 170 on a sport bike.
At one time I tried explaining this to the COPSD people to help explain why their 1/4 mile times at altitude w/ a turbocharged diesel were not any slower than at low altitude but I was pretty much scoffed at. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bleh.gif[/img]
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