50+ mpg?

2383 Views 25 Replies 18 Participants Last post by Big-Brice, Feb 13, 2015

VHinch

Discussion Starter · Jan 29, 2015

Still getting a good feel for my bike and it's fuel range, so I've been diligently checking my fuel mileage, and I'm for 3 consecutive tanks where the only riding I did was my work commute, I'm averaging right at 54 mpg. My commute is right at 30 miles, and it's all two lane back roads, so I'm probably averaging between 35-40 mph at most. Even at that though, I wasn't expecting my mileage to be quite that high. Is that normal?

On two tanks of all weekend riding where I'm more apt to open up and run more like 50-60 mph, I'm averaging right at 45 mpg. That's more in line with what I expected overall. Any thoughts? Is the higher commute mileage just do to the low mph thus low RPM ride?

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jwinker

· #9 · Jan 30, 2015

At > 20mph and < 40mph, you'll get 50+mpg. Easy.

You need to take your bike on a real ride. 100 miles + outside the city at 55mph+. You'll get GOOD mileage, but not 50+mpg. For your first trip, you should be able to get 100 miles per tank pretty easily. It will get you accustomed to flipping to reserve. It will also give you a broader scale of how far you can go once you flip to reserve.

It's also less-accurate to judge your average fuel consumption based on .943 and .920 gallons of gas at fill-up rather than 2.5013 and 2.4918 gallons. I'm not saying you've done this, but you if it doesn't match up to your 100 mile experience, don't be surprised.

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jwinker

· #11 · Jan 30, 2015

VHinch said:
I've tried to be as consistent as possible with when I fill up for this exact reason. I've been stopping between 115-135 miles, so I've been checking mileage at between 2.1 and 2.5 gallons each time.

Good! You're on the right track!

So, this is just my personal advice, not gospel...

Try to set your benchmark at 60mph for 1 hour. You should be able to make it 2 hours on one tank of gas, including reserve, or 120 miles. Plan a 250 mile trip, or essentially 3 fill-ups, one very close to home. Fill & ride 120, ride about 10 miles more, turn around and come home. Did you hit reserve? When?

Repeat this process in each direction you can, then average all of them. At 50mph, I found my mileage to be about 50mpg, but at 70mph, I found my mileage to be about 40mpg. I suspect you're going to find the same.

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