AL7 thoughts

[Craig380]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

The mpg I get is great, I can quite easily get over 70mpg, and with a bit of effort and short shifting nearer 80, mind you I don't do many miles in built up areas so not too much stop-start stuff.

I've done 2000 miles on the bike now, and have been getting 70 - 75mpg too in open-road riding, 'making progress' without any attempt to ride economically.

I'm quite surprised given the much worse aerodynamics compared with my previous K6S. That bike did around 55mpg in exactly the same type of riding.

I did make a significant improvement to the brakes: I thought I had the brake lever's span adjusted to maximum, but I didn't. Actually setting it to maximum distance from the twistgrip helped a lot

[R1ffR4ff]

Originally Posted by Craig380

That's the fun of biking, isn't it - all down to personal preference.

Occasionally, I think that a bit more power would be nice, but then I realise that I hardly ever use more than half throttle ... and I still find myself trying to change up to 7th 'cos I did the last overtake so easily that I could've sworn I was in 5th

My sentiments exactly

Even on my 99 Curvy I can safely do overtaking maneuvers I wouldn't have dreamed of on my old Honda 500s.MPG wise I can't seem to get less than 54 mpg<BFG>

[Craig380]

On both my old K6S and current AL7, I marked the half-open throttle point with a spot of Tippex on the twistgrip.

On both bikes, holding the throttle steady at the half-open mark in 6th gear, sitting normally in neutral conditions on the flat will see a genuine 100+ (GPS verified) come up in less than half a mile.

A while back I found an interesting set of dyno plots on a standard K3 pointy, in which the owner had done full dyno pulls at 50% throttle as well as 100% throttle. At 50% throttle, the power peak was 51bhp and torque peaked at 36lb-ft (thread is here, if anyone's interested: http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=226401)

It's surprising how little actual throttle opening is needed for everyday road riding.