If the bike was moving at 180km/h the tyre would be moving at the same speed at its normal radius. If that radius increased by a third (due to delamination) you could be looking at a piece of rubber being flung around at a fair bit over 200km/h. I would hazard a guess that even a 4-5mm stainless steel plate would be wrecked by that?
The bit of tyre that is in contact with the road moves at 0km / hour ( it is in contact with the road ).
The hub travels at the speed of the bike.
The bit of tyre at the top is traveling at twice the speed of the bike.
If there is a bit of rubber attached to the tyre by a length of cord it is going faster.
I am sure that a bit of rubber would go through a lot of steel under those conditions.
An under inflated tyre would fragment rapidly at that speed.
That's correct, I'm impressed that a doctor understands this!

Most people that I've tried to explain this to don't believe me

The tyre actually rotates around the instantaneous point of zero velocity which is the contact point on the tar, the axle is moving (rotating around that point of zero velocity) forwards at the speed of the vehicle, and the top of the (unburst) tyre is actually doing twice the speed of the car in the forward direction (being twice the distance of the axle from the point of rotation).
Of course if the tyre delaminates then any bits extending out further go proportionally faster depending on how far they extend out from the point of rotation.
So yes this gets ugly fast!
Which is why you see photo's of those wrecked cars.
I recon a pillion could easily be killed by a delaminating tyre at high speed, before the bike even crashes.
Very glad that wasnt the case here.
