Motorcycles BS Thread 2.0

That’s good info and a quite a bit of ownership time

 

I had stumbled onto it when picking it up bur forgot how I got there. Honestly, I don't ever use trip meters and having it available as I roll the normal menus is nice. I'll have to check it out though.

 

i dont have anything with high miles tbh well that i know of!

the bolt has 5400 miles on it (bought with 4300 miles 4/21/24),

the klx when the original speedo worked it was at 10,500 (bought with 8k miles 12/31/21) buuuut it broke like two years ago and i swapped it to a vapor trail tech so i have zero clue what its at now!

 

Not use trip meters? I'd be lost without them! Most bikes I've had during my riding life have not had a fuel gauge so the only way I had to keep track of fuel was my trip meter. Even now with the FJR having a fuel gauge and a low fuel warning light I still use the trip meters. That bike has the low fuel warning light come on when I still have over 1.6 gallons left! That's at least 40-60 more miles of riding before I actually need to stop for gas.

 

i use to use it on the klx since it has no gas gauge but since swapping to the vapor i have no clue where its at! so i just wait until it sputters then throw it on reserve lmao

the bolt i always fuel up at 100 miles on the trip since thats when the fuel light comes on. unsure how far i can go with that i havent reallllly wanted to test it out haha

 

That's why I like and use the trip meter. Fill the tank, reset the trip meter, then go ride. When you stop for fuel the next time reset the trip meter and again and divide the miles by gallons pumped in and figure out your real fuel mileage. Once you know this you'll have a much better idea on how far you can really go on a tank of gas. Obviously how you're riding and the speeds and roads taken will cause this to vary somewhat but after a few tanks you should be able to narrow it down and know what you can expect.

I've been experimenting lately with the windscreen height on my FJRs and the affect it has on my fuel economy. If I ride with the screen in the full up position, usually in colder weather, I can expect 40-42 mpg. Now that it's warmer out I've been riding with it down several inches and just wearing ear plugs to lessen wind noise. With the windscreen down I'm not seeing 45-46 mpg on the same style of riding, blend of highway and 2-lane roads. Where I was having the low fuel light come on around 210 miles earlier this week it didn't come on until over 240 miles.

 

Fair, but the Super Tenere actually has a range meter and current/average fuel economy. It's kinda spoiled me. I also don't just ride for hours on end. I stop after an hour or so to limber up and if there's corn free fuel around I will top up.

 

I'm such a casual rider that I'm not likely to run more than 200 miles before filling up. Though on my Carl's Jr. run two days ago I had a hellacious tailwind that had the bike saying it was getting 65-70 MPG at 80 MPH. It said I had over 400 miles of range at that point. LOL

 

yup its great to use tbh. i like using it on the bolt since i have the gf on the back and it uses more fuel so id rather keep an eye on my fuel instead of running out and hearing it from her saying i told you to fill up haha

 

so after looking it up the bolt seeeems to go 170miles on a tank now this doesnt include with a passenger it seems and also would depend on the riding style you are doing thou. but i guess i can get a bit more then filling up at 100 miles each time haha

 

Funny you mention that about the g/f. The first few trips Dianne took with me on the FJR, she can see the instruments over my shoulder and and noted the fuel light blinking and commented how I needed to stop for gas. I told her, quite calmly, that I can go a minimum of 40 miles with that happening and more likely up to 60. She was not having this as she has some anxiety issues about stuff like that. To appease her I stopped shortly after and refilled, then showed her the math and how far we could have gone. She's now better about it but maintains that if we ever do run out she is NOT helping push and it's going to cost me more than just the fuel cost. LOL.

 

I love riding the bike. I hate doing math. With a fuel gauge and a range computer I don't have to let the thing I hate touch the thing I love.

 

haha same here! she will see the fuel light and tap my shoulder and point at it and ill go its fine we are not at 100 miles yet! (yelling over the wind not at her lol) and would keep going but as we got closer she would say hey we should fill up now so i will to keep her calm since she also gets anxiety about it as well. she also told me she wont help me push the bike either if i run it out of gas lmao.

 

My riding buddy has really bad range anxiety because he has been stranded (in cars) multiple times in his life. To help with that I bought a one gallon Armadillo gas bag from Giant Loop that I'll carry on my bike when we ride together. Being a GL product, it's not cheap. However, I think it's the best solution to a gas can while on a bike for a few reason.

1. It can be strapped down however/wherever you can get it to sit securely. No special racks or mounts required.
2. When it's empty you can roll it up so it takes very little space and weighs next to nothing.
3. The nozzle. Due to some creative definitions/labelling they don't have to use the stupid "safety/no spill" nozzles that make you spill more fuel than you get in the tank. It's an old fashioned flexible nozzle with a screen.

 

so its a bag of gas lol idk why but it sounds squishy

 

Yeah +1 to that, Got used to using the trip meters on my 919 cus all it had was a reserve light. So trip A and B get reset at a fuel fill up, and if I hit reserve, trip B gets reset while on the move so I know how many miles I have gone on reserve. Sometimes I will use trip B as a "total trip miles" but thats typically when I have known planned gas stops on a pre determined route where im not worried about having to hit reserve.

Yeaaaaah, unless you are very steady cruising the range/current/avg fuel numbers are all over the place. Realistically you get ~200mi of normal riding out of the super tenere before you get a flashing "im on reserve" fuel bar (which like @BkerChuck mentioned theres still quite a bit of fuel in the tank at this point). And the way the Super Tenere's tank is shaped and pump is designed it can damn near suck fuel down to the last drop.

 

Those range meters are all over the place. But they do give you something to look at.
I can head up the canyon to the top around 50ish miles and it states range of 280ish miles. On the way down, I can go another 450 miles
Ultimately for that 100 mile trip it uses about 1.5 gallons.

Miles on the bikes, 26k on the Dyna, and 2068 on the Versys .
My Sportster that I sold had over 100K on it, and two engine rebuilds.
That thing had such a small tank, 100 miles was the safe range between fillups.
When I rode it from FoCo to Laramie in the summer and it would start to rain, if I was past the halfway point, had to tough it out and make it to Laramie to refill and head back

 

I don't trust those range/current/avg numbers in the Tacoma and I certainly don't trust them on my bike. LOL. I used to have an old Ford F100 that didn't have a trip meter and the gas gauge didn't work. I learned a long time ago to keep pretty accurate figures on my fuel mileage in all of my vehicles. The last tank in the 2014 FJR the screen told me I had gotten 49mpg which I knew did NOT happen. I did manage around 46 but that 3 mpg difference on a 6.6 gallon tank would have had me running out of fuel almost 20 miles ahead of what the computer thought.

A lot of my riding is different than what most of you guys do. When doing a long distance rally or any Iron Butt ride you're "on the clock" so you want to minimize stopped time as much as possible. I tend to run until I absolutely must get fuel to keep that stopped time to a minimum and so I pretty much do that all of the time so I have the most accurate data possible on just how far I can push it without having to "push it".

 

ive always found the ones in cars/trucks pretty accurate tbh lol i ran my 19 civic si down low on gas a few times haha. 1.5 miles before it was out of gas whoooops! the ranger i use to have was extremely accurate tbh a bit more then my civic was. now idk about bikes thou haha i feel those wouldnt be as accurate thooou

 

Totally understand your logic here. That's the proper way to do it if you are wanting to do the on the clock rides. As a filthy casual, I just start looking for a fuel stop when I hit half a tank.