Motorcycles and fuel economy: the good, the bad and the ugly

 

I've been looking at a few posts on reeky and ukrm about fuel economy
recently. I was wondering whether one can point to bikes which are
particularly fuel-efficient.

OK, OK, bike engines are astonishingly efficient in themselves, and I
know from experience that if one rides a modern superbike at gentle
(say 80mph max) speeds, you can eke out an astonishing mpg figure.
Quite a few Kawasakis seem to manage this trick. In fact, even the old
air-cooled ones did it, too.

And the Harley (and BMW airhead) fraternity have often trumpeted
amazing fuel consumption figures, omitting to acknowledge that at
60mph or below, anything will sip fuel. At Chimay, I encountered a
Brit with the same model of Triumph Trophy 1200 as mine, who claimed
50mpg-plus. As the Trophy Twelve was one of the most fuel-inefficient
bikes of all time (rivalled my Kawasaki H1 triple sometimes), I
concluded he never exceeded 55mph. So it's not just a Harley/Beemer
phenomenon.

And yes, low-powered singles are easy on fuel, but then they don't go
very fast, do they?

It's easy to identify the thirsty bikes - most two-strokes, including
any Kawasaki triple, Trophy Twelves, Honda CBR1000s seemed to be a bit
iffy, Bandit 12s, later model detoxed BMW airheads, Suzuki TL1000S,
Honda's Firestorm and Varadero.... but it's not so easy to pinpoint
the opposite. BMW's F800 seems to be amazingly frugal, and my own
K1100LT is surprisingly good. I remember the fuel-injected Moto Guzzi
Calfironia as being a fuel-sipper, too.

Any other candidates? And what sort of car engine tech might help?
Diesels, obviously. Anything else? Engines not tuned to perform at
their best at 10,000rpm and above?

 

noticias news:c39c4380-b25a-4510-8abf-


http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/


http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/overview/6-BMW/1043-F_800.html?powerunit=2
4.53 l/100km averaged by 53 users. That's only 0.4 more than my 250 scooter.


http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/overview/6-BMW/807-K_1100.html?powerunit=2
5.35 l/100km by 30 assorted flavours of K1100. Certainly good.

My personal best was 3.3l/100km cruising at legal speeds on a GPZ500S

 


That's a nifty site. Is there any way of getting it to display in
miles per (US or Imperial) gallon, or just it does do litres per 100km?

 

noticias news:9c3a0cc4-f851-4085-81b9-


That's a nifty site. Is there any way of getting it to display in

I knew sir would appreciate.

miles per (US or Imperial) gallon, or just it does do litres per 100km?

http://www.eforecourt.com/l_100km_mpg_convert.htm

Shamelessly stealing the formula (from the page source code), you can
convert between from both units by simply dividing a constant by the input
fuel economy "x"-

US liquid gallon
answer = (235.2146 / x);

Imperial gallon
answer = (282.481 / x);

Which seems ok, as the conversion factor is 100*(litres in a
gallon)/(kilometers in a mile), and using 4.5 and 1.6 is near those two
contants.

 

TOG@Toil wrote:


I got > 50mpg from the Busa when I took it to Derbyshire a while back

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Gyp
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