What's your best motorcycle MPG?

[hummingbird]

Guess I am the winner till this point... 140 mpg!

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of my own scooter Bajaj Legend, but it is the model in the pic below, a 4-stroke 150 cc, which gave ~ 11 bhp, and was a breeze to ride till ~50 mph. Beyond that, it was an invitation to ER - these vehicles are notorious about ride stability. It looked something like this...



It routinely gave me 60 kmpl (~140 mpg US) from 1999 to 2004 when I sent it to my brother who needed it. Now my brother has graduated to a car, and the scooter rusts in the front yard.



In India, some 100cc bikes like the one above (by far the most popular ones) better even that, going close to 200 mpg - that too sipping a cocktail containing more naptha than gas!

[dcb]

Something doesn't add up there hummingbird. most mopeds around here don't break 100mpg without trying, the Bajaj Legend being no exception (though manual shift might help if you ARE trying). I have to ask if every fillup was 140mpg or if perhaps you are remembering the good ones? If the former then what is the reason for high mpg.

[hummingbird]

dcb, I was not even a hypermiling aspirant then, just a broke enggr, who bought this scooter solely because it had a reputation for good FE. Also a relatively uncluttered circuit for commuting to office, and care to keep the RPM low and speed @ ~35mph helped.

ALL fill-ups were 60 kmpl, I used to put about 5 litres for a total of 300 km between fill ups.

This scooter was the first 4-stroke scooter introduced in the Indian market, and I likely had one from the first lot. (e.g. my model did not have a petrol cock - later models have one etc.)

Later they 'finetuned' the model to take away a lot of good things, to pinch pennies. Probably that was the reason why FE went downhill.

[dcb]

So basically you are cruising around in 4th at 35mph, throttle open, at about 3800rpm for most of the time, and peak torque is at 4000. Sounds like it was a real good fit for your route.

Speaking of bajaj, I gotta do this for my bike/canoe (though the state would get me on all kinds of fees I'm sure)

[Nigel]

1972 Kawasaki H2 About the same as a Silver Shadow Rolls Royce But so much fun.

[dcb]

any mpg on the h2? I had a worn out water buffalo for a while.

[Nigel]

I never kept any records, and now it is seldom used.
It did use less fuel than a 650 Ducati and a 900 Yamaha on an identical, gentle run.
It also used about the same as a Silver Shadow ( driven gently ) on an identical trip ( ridden spiritedly).
The best and worst I have read were mid 50's ridden gently and 8 mpg during drag testing (both standard bikes).

[Ryland]

a friend of mine has a Honda Rukus witht he little 4 stroke water cooled 50cc engine and I think he said it was 120-140mpg.

[Centurion]

1982 Kawa Twin 750. 38 tooth rear sprocket - about 40mpg. I looked at changing the rear sprocket and used, "Gear Commander" to figure out that a 30 tooth rear sprocket would do the trick.

One-up driving - for a tank, my best has been 73mpg. I had one tank, that I will not comment on, it was high, really high!

Two-up with my sweetheart, I normally get 58 to 65 mpg. - Thats imperial gal. We use liters up here for fuel and I have been driving since Gas was 50 cents to fill a 1 Imp Gal Laquer thinner can to the very top.

My worst was a 1978 Suzuki GT 380, with the Secret Agent Blue smoke screen function. 5.5Gal tank and it never got more than 23mpg, and ran out of gas 5 times with it. The last time it ran out of gas, I pushed it 2 miles to a Station, filled it, drove it home, and put a "For Sale" sign on it. Nuff of that!

Cheers - I'l post a pic later - have one over at the blog. Centurion

[Formula413]

I average about 57 mpg, mostly cruising at around 40-50 mph. 1992 Kawasaki Vulcan 750 cc V Twin.