The Michigan State Police’s Precision Driving Unit tests cars, trucks and motorcycles for U. S. law inforcement agencies since 1974. Last month they performed their annual independent performance testing on four potential Police bikes: the BMW R1200RTP, 2011 Kawasaki Concours 14 Police ABS (Kawasaki’s first dedicated police bike since ending production of the Kz1000), Harley-Davidson Road King and Electra Glide. The test included acceleration, braking times and lap speeds around a course. Curious about the results? Hit the jump
Summary of acceleration testing
It’s not really a surprise that the two heavy Harleys finished last in the acceleration test. The Kawasaki Concours, which uses a detuned version of the ZX-14’s engine, was able to reach 100mph from a standing start in 9.70 seconds. On the other hand, that took the Electra Glide nearly half a minute, which can make a difference in the real world. The Unit measured the deceleration, too, which showed that weight is a key factor: the heaviest bike was the Electra Glide with its 864 lbs, while the BMW R1200RPT was the lightest (650lbs).
Deceleration rates
But the most illustrative numbers are not the acceleration times or the braking distances, but the lap times. Measured on Michigan’s Grattan Raceway, these times shows a total of five laps on the circuit. Four different officers rode each bike, then the times for each bike were averaged to remove any rider preference. The difference between the first and the last bike was 31 seconds, which sounds pretty significant. The comprehensive tests proved that Harleys are too heavy and slow. This could be the first step to putting motorcycle police officers on safer machines. Besides, it would be nice if these tests could force Harley to be more innovative.
Lap times
