MPG question - how is this possible?

 Ex-Aero 750 - 52mpg around town and if I babied it, 60mpg. Highway:
35-40mpg. Granted, it had a big azz windshield and lowers.

That's a dif of 12-25mpg between intown and highway riding.

VTX1800 (with equally big azz windshield and huge lowers) - 32-33mpg
around town (no matter how I ride - easy or hard) and up to 34-35mpg
on the highway. A difference of only 2-3mpg.

Keep in mind I'm also factoring in 100+miles on the highway at a time
(gotta fill up at that point), not just 12 mile jaunts to save time.

So, what's the deal? Why do I not see a bigger discrepancy between
interstate riding and local? Or conservative local and crazy local?
I'm not complaining about the MPG since it's 50%-75% better than I get
with my truck. I'm just curious as to how a vehicle can be so
consistent no matter how or where it's ridden.

With my truck, I see 19 around town and 25-27 on the highway, whch
makes more sense than my VTX. And when you consider I saw much larger
discrepancies on every other bike I've owned, well, it just seems
weird.

Mileage seems right on the VTX since I've measured distances to work
and such with every other of my vehicles.

Greg

 oasysco wrote:


What's the capacity of the cooling system, around a gallon?

If so, it's not really liquid cooled, the cooling system just stabilizes the
temperature and the FI system may waste fuel just to keep the engine cool
by internal evaporation.

--
Message posted via MotorcycleKB.com
http://www.motorcyclekb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/bike/200707/1

 wrote:

I think the capacity is WAY less than a gallon. I have what looks like
a quart jug (maybe 1.5qts) the guy at the honda parts counter said I
needed to replace all my coolant.

OK, and there was osme discussion on VTXOA about wasted gas in the fI
unit, though i can't recall the context.

I'm not really so concered about the MPG as curious why there is so
little variation between hiway and local riding, hard or easy riding,
whereas with ym other bikes there was a huge dif between hiway/local,
easy/hard riding.

How can my VTX be so 'efficient" as to use (nearly) the same gallon of
gas to turn the wheel  no matter what kind of riding you do or where
you do it?

*Or* - and here's what I don't know - are all these big engine bikes
like that - very little diffrence in mpg, no matter how you ride?

Greg


MotorcycleKB.comhttp://www.motorcyclekb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/bike/200707/1

 Albrecht via MotorcycleKB.com wrote:

You do spout some incredibly stupid stuff sometimes.

Why would a 1 gallon capacity cooling system mean it was
"not really liquid cooled"?  I'd guess that most bike cooling
systems hold about a gallon or less.  My 4 cylinder 1000cc
bike's cooling system holds 3.1l, about 0.8 US gallon, and it's
definitely a true liquid cooled bike (although it does have
an oil cooler too).

Honda has to meet emissions regulations that force the mixture
to be kept on the lean side, there's no room nowadays for your
fantasy of a wasted fuel cooling system, except possibly in a
limp-home mode due to cooling system failure.

--
'01 SV650S  '99 EX250-F13  '98 ZG1000-A13
OMF #7

 Mark Olson wrote:

Heh, even an amateur like me can sort of see that just because the
brochure says liquid-cooled, doesn't mean it's so.  Personally, I prefer
the precision above.  Maybe I'm in the minority, but I find some of the
jargon around various technical fields such as the bike world rather
counter-productive.  Surely liquid-cooled in practice ultimately means
air-cooled, via the radiator, eg., if there weren't one of those to
increase the area under air, would the engine be any cooler?  I'd think
same goes for "oil-cooling".

p