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

Ta. I must admit I was thinking of power, whereas the OP was about
economy.

 

And, once again, you miss the point by a mile.

 

Sorry. SC = Stratified Charge. Like the Citroen HPi engines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_direct_injection

You'll be telling me TC stands for turbocharged next )

 

The OP was a technical question about fuel efficiency, not actual
ownership costs. Yet again I stress: you miss the point.

Oh dear. Another one.

And if you *do* want to talk about comparative ownership costs, you're
comparing apples and onions unless you specify capacity sizes etc.

Otherwise all those poor people in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos etc would be
running around in uber-economical Cadillacs instead of on small-bore
motorcycles, wouldn't they?

No, the issue is technical developments about fuel economy and engine
development. That has more of an environmental slant that a cash slant,
actually, since fuel costs are not a big part of vehicle ownership
anyway, and anything that ekes out the oil supply a bit longer has got
to be a Good Thing.

Wouldn't you agree?

(Awaits answer 'no')

 

Even my bog standard low powered vauxhall gets through £300 or so of
tyres in 20K miles.

 

Fahck! Mine's still on its originals at ~50000km. Although TBF a lot
of that was on mthe winter tyres, but both sets are still good.

Motorway driving, I suppose. Oh, and a light right foot, perhaps?

 

I didn't realise Spain had that many cameras.

 

Polarhound wibbled forthrightly:

And you think that you live in a free country? Wow.

 

All of which are better than living in a country where filtering is
largely illegal.

Which country do you think someone called Domènec might live in?

 

nice coinage.

 

I have Kumhos on the RX - perfectly acceptable for a 230bhp car, and
even cheaper than Falkens.

 

generally, I'll "Take the Ogden" on this question and not really care,
but it has to be said the fuel consumption on my 'Blade was awful.

That said, not all Honda's are like that - the awful 6v Benley I
bought from you didn't ever seem to use any petrol at all.

 

If you ignore toodling around at slow speeds, weight & aerodynamics
seem to be the most important things. Hence I generally expect
superbikes to use far less fuel /for their power/ than lardy old
tourers.

E.g. the MV makes close on 200bhp/litre compared to the 955's
100-n-a-bit, yet they both do high 40s mpg. The Tiger actually uses
more fuel on the motorway than when ragging it on the back roads due to
the barn door aerodynamics. The MV otoh sips it on motorways as it was
the most aerodynamic production bike around when it came out.

Apparently the TL ups the fuel by 10% in 6th gear which may partly
explain it (dunno if that's common with ram-air). They've also got very
aggresive cam profiles for a road bike to get the power up, which is
great for willy-waving at Ducati owners but makes the throttle body
balance absolutely critical if you don't want to keep banging your nose
on the visor when crawling in traffic.

 

A country called 'Foreign'.

 

You don't half tell some WOPRs.

 

A country called "Even George Orwell couldn't save us from Fascists".

 

My Bandit 12 had a problem with tank range, but the problem there wasn't
the consumption, it just needed a bigger tank to make up for it.

If I wanted economy I'd ride a C90. Off a fucking cliff.

 

I don't have to take that, you pig-eyed sack of shit.

 

Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?

 

Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.