[theycallmeebryan]

Originally Posted by Longsnowsm

Bryan,

Everywhere I look on the internet about hypermiling a motorcycle your 101.5 mpg URL comes up! So your famous! I hope you have not wasted all your fame and fortune on some gas guzzling mosters. :-D

I had a few questions regarding your runs. Are you using your speedo for the speed figures are are you going by GPS? What impact on speedo and odometer accuracy was the tire change you mentioned?

Thanks a lot! It's nice to know that my writeup has inspired so many. I will tell you, though, that while i may have fame, there was no fortune to go along with it . I've since started a new job with a Pharmaceutical company, so i guess a small fortune is being made in that sense.... not really due to my ecomodding, but rather in vaccine research... i guess you can say I'm making a small fortune by making it possible to provide vaccines throughout the world.

I did in fact purchase a gas guzzling car to commute to work when the weather is not suitable for motorcycle riding; a 1999 Saturn SL1 that I've been getting around 45mpg with in the winter. Yes, i consider that gas guzzling because of the amount of wasted space in the form of frontal area and weight. I guess one can consider himself eco-friendly when he thinks 45mpg is wasteful!

As for the speedo question....It's widely known throughout the Ninja 250 community that the stock tire configuration yields about a 5-8% difference; that is, the speedo actually reads faster than you are really going. With the increase in tire size, i have moved the error closer to about 1%, and have verified this 2 ways. 1: By comparing my odometer to the marker readings on the side of the highway as I'm riding along. and 2: Plotting a course on google maps and using their distance calculation to compare to my odometer.

Originally Posted by Longsnowsm

With the next generation Ninja I am hoping to hear someone post the results with the next gen(current gen) bikes and what it takes to get decent numbers from that bike. I am considering buying one for this purpose and would love to get some ideas and things that would make the new bike work as well.

The new generation Ninja 250's have a different camshaft setup and are tuned differently, and on average achieve about 10% less fuel economy. I have not really seen anyone hypermile a new ninja 250 to the extent that i have on my bike though, so it's not out of the question.

Originally Posted by Longsnowsm

Also I was looking to see what kind of numbers your now getting with your taller windshield. I would love to see how your aero mods are benefiting the fuel economy. Also someone mentioned putting something behind the rider for aero. I saw your pics of your bike loaded up. I am wondering if a full fledged givi or other topcase in that passenger seat would be of benefit with the aero.

Funny you mention the windscreen. I actually started on Version 2 of my setup April of 2010. I'm surprised that I didn't post in this thread. I made a post over on the ninja250.org forums about Version 2. Ninja250 Riders Club :: View topic - Need Suggestions: Custom Touring Windshield #2

Short Version: I need suggestions on how to shape the new tall windshield so that it looks good.

Long Version:A couple of you may remember my previous windshield... some of you termed it a "roman legionare's shield" .
I went to Lowes and bought some lexan for $18 and after some cutting and heating and bending made a custom
touring windshield.... #1:




[img]

It may look like a Roman legionare's battle shield, but it actually does a nice job of keeping a lot of wind off my body. I rode with this shield for quite some time and did not see much of a drop in fuel economy with my bike.... i was still
averaging 90mpg with it. The only problem with the shield is that it was directing air right at my neck now, which created a lot of wind noise in my helmet (more so than the small stock windshield), and overall has made long distance riding a little more stressful.

So that brings me to my next project. I am now working on a tallerwindshield.... but that's not all. I am also working on an adjustable mounting system for the windshield so i can raise, lower, and tilt it however i want. I basically took some scrap angle iron and cut, grinded, and bent it to make these brackets.... so the mounts are not really costing me anything besides my labor. The larger piece of lexan costs a lot more than the previous shield, though.... about 65$.

Keep in mind these are early mock ups of the brackets and shield. I will be grinding and sanding the brackets down
smooth and will be painting them black..... custom touring shield #2 (WIP):






And here is a close up of the mocked-up adjustable brackets that i made from angle iron.




The shield is currently blue because you need to cover both sides when cutting the lexan... just to be safe (lexan is tough stuff). I will be removing the tape after I am finished cutting it. The shape of the shield is not the final shape. I cut it out larger than i want it so that i can trim back and shape it how i want it.... but that's the problem. I can not figure out a good looking shape for this shield!!

I was trying to go for a style of windscreen that the Kawasaki Concours 14 has, or something similar.

I have since tested the bike with the new windshield and found that it dramatically increased my overall aerodynamic drag. It was in testing phase so i did not get around to rounding the edges and shaping it how i wanted.

The bracket system that i made actually worked great. I could adjust the windshield forward and backward, up and down, and change the angle of the screen as well.

I took the windscreen off when i realized that the extra weight on the fairing stay bracket (main bracket that holds the front fairing to the bike) caused it to break. I had to have a welder fix the problem, and then it was warm again and didn't have a need for the screen all that much.

One other thought as I ramble on... is it possible to get into the Ninja transmission and change the 6th gear into a true overdrive gear? I realize that changing the sprokets is effectively changing the gear, but this affects performance across all the gears and it sounds like it does impact in town/city riding performance. Can the 6th gear be turned into an overdrive on this bike so that it is more suited to highway riding and good fuel economy?

Thanks for taking the time to post your efforts. This has been very helpful and gives me something to shoot for now myself. I recently sold my DL1000 VStrom with the eye toward this Ninja after reading your results. I have noticed that as I grew up so did the size of my bikes, then they grew out as in big fat, sluggish lazy bikes, now as I am even older still I am now shrinking... My bikes are getting smaller and smaller. So this little 250 looks like it is in the sweet spot to me. So this really looks like a lot of fun and your inspiring a lot of people. Thanks again.

Longsnowsm

There currently is no aftermarket individual gears, as far as i know. The cheapest and easiest way would be to change the sprockets. I supposed you could swap the gears with a ZZR250, which has slightly shorter gear ratio.

Thanks,
-Bryan