Whenever you see any of the motorcycle output ratings, there are two main things; Power and Torque. Now one has to understand the difference between the two to completely understand the concept we are going to talk about here. So first of all we are going to see the difference and then we will be discussing the reason why I love motorcycles with a lot of torque.
Power is the rate at which the energy from the engine is transferred to the wheel. And torque is the moving component; i.e. it has the load carrying capacity. So consider any bike you got. When you ride the bike you can notice that when you start your bike from stationary position, the amount of pick-up that your bike has to offer is a lot more than when you are at higher speeds and trying to accelerate more. Secondly in case of power you can notice that once you have reached higher RPMs, the bike goes into a stagnate position where it cannot accelerate any further. That is the highest power the bike can make.RELATED ARTICLE: Difference Between Power & Torque Explained
So to put things in perspective, Power is related to the RPM of the bike and Torque is related to the moving capacity of the bike. So a bike with more torque will provide much better acceleration than a bike with less torque. Also a bike with more power will reach higher speeds than a bike with less power and also reach the same speed as that with less power at lesser RPM as well. So this is how the relationship between power and torque works.
Now coming to the point as to why torquier bikes are better. Well there is a good reason why I love bikes with high torque and I am not saying that because I am heavy. But jokes apart the reason why torquey engines are fun is because they can pick up speed really easily. All it takes is a small twist in the throttle to take the bike from 0 to 50 in no time. Also bikes with high torque are more fun to ride because with them overtaking is a breeze. When you know your bike can catch speed in a jiffy, you know that all you need to do is twist the throttle a little and you can overtake any vehicle very easily.Also with high torque bikes the engines of the bikes are also less stressed since they do not have to work overtime to get the kind of push required as compared to other bikes with less torque. They easy to get off the line and your bike will have good low end and mid end grunt. That makes tackling any kind of terrain a blast because you know whatever might be the condition, your bike is going to go. No amount of steep slopes or bad roads is going to stop you now.
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There is one fun thing to do which I wouldn’t really recommend to anyone; bikes with high torque are fun to go off at traffic signals. There is a very different kind of satisfaction when you move away from the traffic leaving them behind while you ride on and know that you are neither thrashing the engine nor unnecessarily stressing it. Also one has to know that it is the torque that is everything for a bike. The power figures are just there for the sake of it; it is the torque that gets the bike moving and that’s it. All power can do it get you to higher top speed, but what use would that be if there is no torque to get the bike moving from stop at all? Hence one has to understand this part first.
So this is why I love bikes with loads of torque in them. They accelerate fast, move through traffic quickly and no matter how the terrain, they work pretty flawlessly. They are a breeze to ride in the city as well as on the highways. So remember whenever you get your bike, keep an eye out on the torque figure rather than the power. Because higher the torque, more the fun.
By: Pratik Patole