Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 11:05 am
Tossing out two more opinions.
1) You should always find the petcock on any new bike you get on, and practice switching it, before you go riding. The first time I ran out (this was at about 250 miles total real riding) I was doing 70MPH on an interstate and hadn't practiced switching to reserve... so I coasted to the side of the road, put the kickstand down, got off, switched to reserve, got on, and tried to start the bike... after a bunch of cranking it started... and promptly died as soon as I tried to go again. After a few repeats I realized that, in my flusterment at being on a gore point on an interstate with traffic roaring by, I had the kick-stand down and each time I let out the clutch the interlock killed the bike.
2) You should run the bike to the reserve and hit the trip ODO when the bike starts to stumble. I know, the normal advice is to hit the trip when you refill... but if you hit it when the bike stumbles you'll do two things that are "better". First, it will tell you how many miles you've gone on reserve (you only have about 20 miles of reserve... it would suck if you forgot exactly what mile you switched to reserve and tried to go 24)... and second....
Second is a little harder to explain. If you reset the trip when you switch to reserve, and don't reset it when you fill, then when you hit reserve a second time you'll be able to calculate your mileage even if you don't fill exactly the same amount each time.
E.g. let's say reserve leaves .2 gallons in the tank, and the tank holds 2 gallons total. You switch to reserve and reset the trip... then some time later you fill the tank, putting in 1.9 gallons of fuel. After riding a while the bike starts stumbling again so you switch to reserve again. The trip odo reads 114.9 before you reset it... that means you got 60.47MPG for that fill-up. But this time you are short of cash so you put in $5 worth, 1.655 gallons (not a complete fill-up)... and go 102.5 miles before it stumbles again... giving you 61.93MPG... and yes the MPG will vary a little each time.... but in each case it is as accurate as the reserve pickup on your tank (which will be accurate unless you are going up a steep hill when it stumbles). That solves one of the tricky problems of figuring fuel consumption on motorcycles... the fact that it is nearly impossible to fill the same amount each time. You can put in any amount of gas (as long as it takes it out of reserve) and as long as you remember how much you put in you can figure your MPG as soon as you need reserve again.
Feel free to ignore #2... but #1 is essential.
1) You should always find the petcock on any new bike you get on, and practice switching it, before you go riding. The first time I ran out (this was at about 250 miles total real riding) I was doing 70MPH on an interstate and hadn't practiced switching to reserve... so I coasted to the side of the road, put the kickstand down, got off, switched to reserve, got on, and tried to start the bike... after a bunch of cranking it started... and promptly died as soon as I tried to go again. After a few repeats I realized that, in my flusterment at being on a gore point on an interstate with traffic roaring by, I had the kick-stand down and each time I let out the clutch the interlock killed the bike.
2) You should run the bike to the reserve and hit the trip ODO when the bike starts to stumble. I know, the normal advice is to hit the trip when you refill... but if you hit it when the bike stumbles you'll do two things that are "better". First, it will tell you how many miles you've gone on reserve (you only have about 20 miles of reserve... it would suck if you forgot exactly what mile you switched to reserve and tried to go 24)... and second....
Second is a little harder to explain. If you reset the trip when you switch to reserve, and don't reset it when you fill, then when you hit reserve a second time you'll be able to calculate your mileage even if you don't fill exactly the same amount each time.
E.g. let's say reserve leaves .2 gallons in the tank, and the tank holds 2 gallons total. You switch to reserve and reset the trip... then some time later you fill the tank, putting in 1.9 gallons of fuel. After riding a while the bike starts stumbling again so you switch to reserve again. The trip odo reads 114.9 before you reset it... that means you got 60.47MPG for that fill-up. But this time you are short of cash so you put in $5 worth, 1.655 gallons (not a complete fill-up)... and go 102.5 miles before it stumbles again... giving you 61.93MPG... and yes the MPG will vary a little each time.... but in each case it is as accurate as the reserve pickup on your tank (which will be accurate unless you are going up a steep hill when it stumbles). That solves one of the tricky problems of figuring fuel consumption on motorcycles... the fact that it is nearly impossible to fill the same amount each time. You can put in any amount of gas (as long as it takes it out of reserve) and as long as you remember how much you put in you can figure your MPG as soon as you need reserve again.
Feel free to ignore #2... but #1 is essential.