What's your best motorcycle MPG?

[wanna bECO]

I have a completely stock 1982 honda passport. I weigh 270 lbs. I carry a cobralinks lock (says it weighs 10 pounds, but it feel like 20.. not sure of the weight tho. ) The max weight limit is 300 lbs. If I would loose some weight, i'd probably do better on the mileage. I always get 92 mpg... and ... I always run WOT. I don't try to get good mileage on it, it does it all on it's own.

[garetcurry]

I used to have a 2006 Kawasaki ZX-6R and the best MPG I saw with that was 49.5 -- it was on a roadtrip up the PA turnpike to my buddies place. My other friend was driving in his car too, he drives like an old lady so that forced me to keep it pretty darn close to the speed limit. It started to rain along the way and I had to go up and over a mountain.

Here's a picture.



I have a 2008 Kawasaki ZX-10R now and the best I've seen is 38 mpg.

[Ryland]

I also have a Tomos scooter, not a motor cycle but it's got two wheels and goes 30mph, it's been averaging 101mpg and was around $1,400 new, and is allowed to park on sidewalks and at bike racks.

[order99]

Originally Posted by diesel_john

i wish the war would end so they would start building these for sale.
http://www.hdtusa.com/

but when the war ends fuel is going to go down and then they might not build them.

I found this Link on another Ecomodder thread:

http://www.dieselbike.net/

Maybe you can purchase one there-or get the Tech advice to roll your own...

[spoil9]

I ride a '95 Yamaha YZF-600R, and I top off every 150miles so I don't have a max mpg figure, but I know I have gone about 60 or so mpg before with out really trying.
Never tried to get good mpg on the bike, it's just too much fun to grab a fist full of throttle. Now that I have some figures to compare, this summer I might try to see the max mpg I can get.

[seanof30306]

Originally Posted by solarstazz

The wife and I bought a brand new Kawasaki KLR250 (enduro/on/offroad) in 2004 and have put around 5000 miles on it by now. Mileage varies from 75mpg to 77mpg. I am going to replace the tires for next season with something a bit less knobby and might do a sprocket swap to lower revs a tad...the dirt style front fender catches alot of wind but I don't know what will bolt on that's more streamlined.

Solarstazz

A Super Sherpa fender ought to fit

[seanof30306]

My all time best is 75.9 mpg; pretty good considering I'm 6'5" and weigh 280.

I've become concerned over the lugging I've been doing to get that mpg. Most of my riding is on side streets, at 30-40 mph. The K&N air filter makes it lean on the primary, and detonation is deadly to these engines. I can be a little less intense on my hypermiling and still get 67-70 mpg. I believe a smaller, lighter rider would easily get another 10mpg.

[Ford Man]

I had a '78 XS400 Yamaha that would consistently get around 60mpg. My current bike a 1982 XJ1000J Yamaha that gets about 37-38 mpg most of the time.

[Andyman]

My brother had several motorcycles in the past. One was a Honda CX500 which had a V twin water cooled engine and shaft drive. He said it would get about 55 MPG on the highway. I don't know if that's accurate. That's better than his other motorcycles. I think most of them got about 40 MPG on the highway.

I can think of a few reasons why motorcycles often don't get great fuel economy.

- they usually don't have any vacuum advance in the distributor

- they often have low gears, so the highway RPM may be double that of a car

- they don't run well at low engine speeds

- the tires have high rolling resistance

- the coefficient of aerodynamic drag is high

- the engine may be larger than necessary

I have read about some bikes that could get over 100 MPG. They usually had an engine size of 125 cc or less.

[dcb]

yup, I'd put aero at the top of the list though efficiency wise, as it is the most radical thing to change IMHO and sets the parameters for things like engine size and gearing.

Some of the rest can be adjusted to some degree without a lot of fuss (pump up tires, change valve timing, put small sprocket on rear).

I gotta streamline my bike this year I get 96 mpg pretty consistently w/pulse and glide, but would like to glide a lot farther @ speed. More aero might take me over 100mpg, hoping for 105.