Gas Mileage

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Very happy with the mileage.
 
Chromeheadman said:
I ride with the flow of the traffic on my FE. No cruise control and I probably wouldn't use it if I had it.

I'm mostly concerned with tank range with that small tank and have had a range of 112-132 miles before the reserve indicator came on.

Tank is rated for 4.2 gallons and reserve comes on with 1 gallon remaining which is 3.2 gallons

35-41.25 MPG
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I am exactly on the same values as 'Chromehead' ... with or without cruise :) and with 'Ape Hangers' and no Windscreen.
... but, I have read through the whole thread and I think only 1 person mentioned 'Engine Mode' ... I used to keep it in 'Roll' she has plenty of power and I was hoping it helped with the gas mileage, but this weekend I thought of checking what it would be on 'Rock' on a 200 mile ride (all backroads no 'slab')... well it is a lot more fun riding, but I try to keep her in the same rev levels and shift points and the gas mileage seems to be the same (roughly) ... has anybody else noticed a difference when changing engine modes? (and you can omit 'Rain' that one is a bit lame IMO)
 
nielsm said:
Actually NASA did use the metric system for the calculations in the Apollo Guidance Computer used in the moon landings. Though they did convert to imperial units for display to the pilots.

So in actuality we put a man on the moon with metric, we just pretended it was with imperial.
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Moon landings? Did you say moon landings? Ha, ha,ha,ha,ha,ha
 
I still can't believe some of the gas mileage some of you get. It seems unreal to me. I am 'working' hard towards 40mpg and when I reach that it will feel pretty much like putting a man on the moon.
My bike runs strong and it's very responsive. No hesitations whatsoever. But in spite of that I am at ground level compared to some of you that live in the mpg stratosphere. Very weird.
 
It is remarkable how much better gas mileage is at 60mph than at 70. I can get 42 mpg at 70 in "Rock" mode (44 mpg in "Rain" mode).
But drop down to 55mph or 60 and up goes the mpg.
 
Calboy said:
I still can't believe some of the gas mileage some of you get. It seems unreal to me. I am 'working' hard towards 40mpg and when I reach that it will feel pretty much like putting a man on the moon.
My bike runs strong and it's very responsive. No hesitations whatsoever. But in spite of that I am at ground level compared to some of you that live in the mpg stratosphere. Very weird.
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Have you tried to vary the speeds? Ride 60 mph for a while in "Rain" mode and see if your numbers go way up.
My wife has a lead foot and does not get good mileage in her car. (It is astonishing how much fuel gets drunk during the hard pull accelerations)
 
R12C-R18TC said:
It is remarkable how much better gas mileage is at 60mph than at 70. I can get 42 mpg at 70 in "Rock" mode (44 mpg in "Rain" mode).
But drop down to 55mph or 60 and up goes the mpg.
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Wow! ... I just had the opposite experience ... 164 Miles ride ... back roads, paved logging roads, some country highway. In other words everything from 35 Mph twisty single lane to 75 Mph sweeps in 'Rock' mode and I used 3.25 US gal for 164 miles (odometer) which comes out to 50.46 miles average ... I really thought I would get better mileage in 'Roll' mode .. but in that mode I never made it past 45 Mpg ... very odd .. but I am also very happy about it!
 
One thing I would like to add : Although the BMW R 18 Classic is not equipped with a travelable distance indicator, there is one thing that cannot be emphasized enough, and that is that the instant fuel consumption indicator is absolutely accurate. If displayed instead of the rev counter, it becomes a valuable tool for managing fuel consumption !
 
bryl56 said:
One thing I would like to add : Although the BMW R 18 Classic is not equipped with a travelable distance indicator, there is one thing that cannot be emphasized enough, and that is that the instant fuel consumption indicator is absolutely accurate. If displayed instead of the rev counter, it becomes a valuable tool for managing fuel consumption !
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Good to know. I've been meaning to compare that with manually computed consumption but have been too lazy to do the comparison. In any case, I never get less than 50 (US mile/gal). Very interesting how varied the experiences are here.
 
I posted this in more detail on another thread, but on a recent cross country ride covering an average of 500+ miles per day I had many fill ups per day with very consistent conditions to monitor miles per gallon. The biggest difference was from how each state required their so called "gasoline" to be blended. I saw back to back tanks at 40+ MPG in the "bad" states and my more normal 48-50 MPG in the "good" states. Speeds, temps, winds and elevation, etc., had negligible influence tank to tank, so while many other variables can certainly come into play the baseline for me is the so called quality of the petrol all those other factors have to play with.
 
bryl56 said:
One thing I would like to add : Although the BMW R 18 Classic is not equipped with a travelable distance indicator, there is one thing that cannot be emphasized enough, and that is that the instant fuel consumption indicator is absolutely accurate. If displayed instead of the rev counter, it becomes a valuable tool for managing fuel consumption !
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Thanks,

I have observed the same, good point that I forgot to share!

Also the menu provides for MPH and on cruise I can see the difference between the analog and digital with the digital appearing to be "spot on", still need to grab my GPS to verify.

🍻 🍻
 
BobW said:
I posted this in more detail on another thread, but on a recent cross country ride covering an average of 500+ miles per day I had many fill ups per day with very consistent conditions to monitor miles per gallon. The biggest difference was from how each state required their so called "gasoline" to be blended. I saw back to back tanks at 40+ MPG in the "bad" states and my more normal 48-50 MPG in the "good" states. Speeds, temps, winds and elevation, etc., had negligible influence tank to tank, so while many other variables can certainly come into play the baseline for me is the so called quality of the petrol all those other factors have to play with.
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With that large of a sample size your findings might be spot on! Thank you for that ... may I ask which engine mode you rode (on that trip) with .. was it always the same?
 
Ulrich said:
With that large of a sample size your findings might be spot on! Thank you for that ... may I ask which engine mode you rode (on that trip) with .. was it always the same?
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I stay in "Rock". I tried rain a few times in heavy storms and I almost fell over in slow manuevers :ROFLMAO: because of the extreme changes in throttle response, not that I wouldn't try it again, but there would have to be some extreme circumstances. I also try "Roll" now and again and if prudent would likely use that for most rain conditions rather "Rain" mode. Each bike I get takes some getting used to and I spent time practicing close order parking lot "drills" to reprogram myself from my RT to this big girl, but after a short time she was now "second nature" and I find changing inputs electronically messes with my normal reactions/compensations rather helping them.
 
BobW said:
I stay in "Rock". I tried rain a few times in heavy storms and I almost fell over in slow manuevers :ROFLMAO: because of the extreme changes in throttle response, not that I wouldn't try it again, but there would have to be some extreme circumstances. I also try "Roll" now and again and if prudent would likely use that for most rain conditions rather "Rain" mode. Each bike I get takes some getting used to and I spent time practicing close order parking lot "drills" to reprogram myself from my RT to this big girl, but after a short time she was now "second nature" and I find changing inputs electronically messes with my normal reactions/compensations rather helping them.
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I feel the exact way ... this said, I did leave her in 'Roll' for the first 2500 miles to 'ease' the engine in. As you, I am not so fond of the 'Rain' mode ... the delayed/sluggish throttle response really throws me for a loop.

But back to the Gas mileage, I made a funny discovery this morning. I have to do @ 15 miles on the freeway to get to work and I am always a slow starter ... so I go on the freeway get her up to @75 and then hit the cruise control.
I switched on the relative gas mileage display and it said 39 Mpg ... so I clicked down the cruise control by 1 click (I guess @ 1-2 Mph) and the gas mileage went up by 1-2 Mpg ... I did it again .. and consistently with dropping 1-2 Mph the relative gas mileage went up by @ the same amount ... sigh ... so at 5+ Dollars a US gallon there is a price to pay for fun 😁
 
Calboy said:
I never got 40mpg or above, so I have a question for the ones that do.
Do you guys stay in the power band most of the time and never short shift, or do you actually ride this bike as if it had a 300cc engine and ride it with the mind of a 85 year old rider?
What's the secret of your spectacular mpg?
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The amount of energy required to accelerate a motorcycle is equal to the (mass)(acceleration)(distance). So for two bikes of the same weight who travel the same distance on takeoff, the one with greater acceleration will have the greater fuel consumption.
 
R12C-R18TC said:
The amount of energy required to accelerate a motorcycle is equal to the (mass)(acceleration)(distance). So for two bikes of the same weight who travel the same distance on takeoff, the one with greater acceleration will have the greater fuel consumption.
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Delivered energy and energy efficiency are two different things. The identical bike can have identical accelerations but different fuel consumption depending on how it is ridden. You can operate outside of the ideal torque rpm with added throttle input and get the same acceleration in comparison with operating at an ideal rpm with less throttle input. Another way to say your Mass*acceleration*distance is ft-pounds (or netwon-meters). Operating the bike so as to generate torque with the least consumed chemical energy results in less fuel consumption per unit distance.
 
Quote: "The identical bike can have identical accelerations but different fuel consumption depending on how it is ridden."

When a certain mass (motorcycle) is accelerating in an inertial frame of reference, the energy expended is the same whether it be an electric vehicle or piston powered. The only variable related to mpg is choice of diesel, ethyl alcohol, etc. Nature can't be tricked into providing extra acceleration for free.
 
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