volroom
Race Dog
Went to margate for a week. Changed the semi knobs to continental attacks, I'm wasting the knobs riding on tar mostly...Will put them back on later for a trip or something. The GS handles a bit different with the more tar road orientated tyres...had to get used to it, and i'm not sure but it almost feels like it pulls better...I've heard from a guy that dynoed bikes, that with knobs a dyno readout shows less power, marginally, but still - compared to tyres that grip continuously. Makes sense actually.
One day, 750km with two up (me and the missus) and full panniers and top box. With full tank the fully loaded bike must have weighed in at around 500kg plus. Got a bracket that supports the topbox mounting frame, the book says no more than 5kg in the topbox, i'm quite sure I've had close to 15kg in there before and the frame holds because of the support bracket, a worthwhile investment, or DIY project.
Anyways, really found respect again for the ol girl during the trip. It's a great touring bike. The airhawks helped...the limiting factor is sore joints and butt, but if you can stand every now and then, it helps. On the way there, I got reasonable fuel consumption. Around 14-15 km/L. Was doing 120-140, maybe now and then a bit faster - speedo readout, not GPS. Seems the Speedo is around 8km/h too optimistic when comparing with GPS speed (seems it depends on speed as well, more accurate when you go faster...)
Coming back, I was going a bit faster. Averaging around 130km/h GPS speed, or 140 on the speedo. For some stretches I was doing 150km/h on the speedo, perhaps a bit faster now an then. OMG, from one fuel station where we filled up, I thought that we'd have enough petrol to get home. Home was around 270km away. So, I didn't really keep an eye on the fuel level indicator, until my wife pointed out that the fuel light came on, and we were still at least 70km away from home!
Calculated the fuel consumption for that stretch...11.9km/L. WOw...Welsh once told me that he got around 240km on a tank once coming back from previous bash doing 160km/h with strong head wind. We also had quite strong wind on the way back, so that would definitely have contributed to the fuel consumption.
What I'm getting from this, is that if you keep to an speedo indicated 140km/h, you can still get rather good fuel consumption, but just over that..where the rev counter is sitting at around 4.5k RPM, fuel consumption increases drastically.
We got from Durban to Bedfordview (560km) in 5 hours flat, and that is with at least an hour stopping at fuel stations, eating something, resting and so..In Decmenber, we might go down to the Cape for holiday with the GS
What is your experience with fuel consumption when you go a bit faster?
One day, 750km with two up (me and the missus) and full panniers and top box. With full tank the fully loaded bike must have weighed in at around 500kg plus. Got a bracket that supports the topbox mounting frame, the book says no more than 5kg in the topbox, i'm quite sure I've had close to 15kg in there before and the frame holds because of the support bracket, a worthwhile investment, or DIY project.
Anyways, really found respect again for the ol girl during the trip. It's a great touring bike. The airhawks helped...the limiting factor is sore joints and butt, but if you can stand every now and then, it helps. On the way there, I got reasonable fuel consumption. Around 14-15 km/L. Was doing 120-140, maybe now and then a bit faster - speedo readout, not GPS. Seems the Speedo is around 8km/h too optimistic when comparing with GPS speed (seems it depends on speed as well, more accurate when you go faster...)
Coming back, I was going a bit faster. Averaging around 130km/h GPS speed, or 140 on the speedo. For some stretches I was doing 150km/h on the speedo, perhaps a bit faster now an then. OMG, from one fuel station where we filled up, I thought that we'd have enough petrol to get home. Home was around 270km away. So, I didn't really keep an eye on the fuel level indicator, until my wife pointed out that the fuel light came on, and we were still at least 70km away from home!
Calculated the fuel consumption for that stretch...11.9km/L. WOw...Welsh once told me that he got around 240km on a tank once coming back from previous bash doing 160km/h with strong head wind. We also had quite strong wind on the way back, so that would definitely have contributed to the fuel consumption.
What I'm getting from this, is that if you keep to an speedo indicated 140km/h, you can still get rather good fuel consumption, but just over that..where the rev counter is sitting at around 4.5k RPM, fuel consumption increases drastically.
We got from Durban to Bedfordview (560km) in 5 hours flat, and that is with at least an hour stopping at fuel stations, eating something, resting and so..In Decmenber, we might go down to the Cape for holiday with the GS
What is your experience with fuel consumption when you go a bit faster?
