Re: [St] Fuel Economy

[Jim Crate <jimcfl@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 20, 2008, at 9:25 AM, rlnm2000@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> What would be the optimum gearing for the best fuel economy on the  
> 2000 Sprint RS?  I changed it to 17/43 and I'm about 42MPG on a good  
> day.  I want to get it as close to 50MPG as I could.
>
> I may have a long commute coming and hybrids are still too expensive  
> for my budget and the Toy Yaris only gets about 36MPG with an 11 gal  
> tank.  I'll still be filling it up twice a week.  If I fill up my  
> bike 2-3 times a week it will still be cheaper than the best fuel  
> economy cage.

I have a problem with fuel mileage in FL, but that problem seems to be  
related more to my right hand than the bike.  In the mountains I  
thought I would never run out of gas!

The way to get gas mileage is to go easy with the right hand and keep  
the cruising speeds down somewhat.  It is way to easy to use that last  
3K rpm on the tach when accelerating here, while in the mountains the  
straights were so short I almost never went WOT or over 7K rpm.

Changing to an 18T sprocket may help some, but I think it is the speed  
more than the gearing that will make your gas mileage suffer.   
However, if you're cruising at 85+ in an econocar, the mileage is  
going to drop into the high 20s, while on the bike you can cruise at  
90-95 and still get high 30s to low 40s.

You can probably reduce the cost of tires by going to a Michelin  
Macadam rear.  Fronts last around 15K miles anyway, so I'd still go  
with the grippier front like a Michelin Pilot Road.  My friend has  
Macadams on his Bandit (from factory), and he isn't happy with the  
braking grip on the front, but the rear doesn't seem to have any  
trouble with the 1200 cc's of power on that bike.  When my rear Pilot  
Road wears out, I'll probably replace it with a Macadam and see how  
many miles I get out of that.  I never get close to the limits of the  
bike's or tires' performance in corners anyway.

As someone mentioned, overall cost may end up lower with a used Honda  
Civic.  However, the bike should be very close and a lot more fun,  
even if most of the time you are droning along on the highway.  When  
you want to have fun you can just start slicing up the traffic like a  
scalpel and enjoy the growl of the triple.

Carpooling in a fuel-efficient car would be the cheapest by a long  
shot, though...

Jim

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