Fuel Economy

Hi All,
I need to save money so i've been driving round at about 5,000 rpm (High gear low rev's).
A mate has said bikes dont work like that and I am not using the most of the fuel and the bike isnt being efficient. He says low gear high rev's is going to be lots more efficient thus saving money!

Is this right?????

[jambo]

Accelerate smoothly, never brake for anything, ever. Don't do any short trips. Never go into town.


HTH

Jambo

P.S: I have a 14 mile commute each way through London, so all of the above is pretty much screwed for me.

so let me get this straigt, your mate is sugesting riding around in 2nd or 3rd with the engine screaming its ti*s off is beter than being in 6th comfy and cruising!!

WTF? is he on smack?? It cant be possible for a bloke to be more wrong!

Lower revs in any gear uses less fuel, that is a basic concept of how engines work.

Just to prove him completly wrong try it for yourself and see the differance.

As an example of how wrong he is. I get 40ish miles per tank more on my Kwak if i have my Daughter as pillion as i am normlly in 6th or 5th a lot at lowere revs.

Originally Posted by neio79

WTF? is he on smack??

In the non-gayest way possible Neio, I love you sometimes

[jambo]

Originally Posted by neio79

As an example of how wrong he is. I get 40ish miles per tank more on my Kwak if i have my Daughter as pillion as i am normlly in 6th or 5th a lot at lowere revs.

In fairness under these conditions you will probably be riding more smoothly, braking and accelerating more smoothly and doing lower top speeds, all of which will help, rather than riding in exactly the same way at a different rpm..

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by neio79

WTF? is he on smack?? It cant be possible for a bloke to be more wrong!

no, he's right

if you deliberately stick in 5th/6th to keep the revs down you'll labour the engine and use more fuel than if you were in the correct gear and using small throttle inputs

read last month's BiKE magazine for an in-depth analysis of fuel consumption...

this is my first post here so forgive me if you think i'm being out of line, but that's not technically true

if you were to continue at the same speed on a flat road then high gear low revs is good. but if you want to accelerate you'll have to chuck in more fuel for the same increase in speed. so the most economical is to keep in a high gear when on a flat or steady state cruising, and when you want to accelerate is to shift down and then accelerate.

would be the same for cars and bikes, its just a pain to keep changing gear to accelerate

Originally Posted by neio79

so let me get this straigt, your mate is sugesting riding around in 2nd or 3rd with the engine screaming its ti*s off is beter than being in 6th comfy and cruising!!

WTF? is he on smack?? It cant be possible for a bloke to be more wrong!

Lower revs in any gear uses less fuel, that is a basic concept of how engines work.

Just to prove him completly wrong try it for yourself and see the differance.

As an example of how wrong he is. I get 40ish miles per tank more on my Kwak if i have my Daughter as pillion as i am normlly in 6th or 5th a lot at lowere revs.

Wow this is new... neio is right!

Originally Posted by benp1

this is my first post here so forgive me if you think i'm being out of line, but that's not technically true

if you were to continue at the same speed on a flat road then high gear low revs is good. but if you want to accelerate you'll have to chuck in more fuel for the same increase in speed. so the most economical is to keep in a high gear when on a flat or steady state cruising, and when you want to accelerate is to shift down and then accelerate.

would be the same for cars and bikes, its just a pain to keep changing gear to accelerate

You are almost right. What you mean to say is use the right gear at the right time and you will get good ecconomy. This is true, riding around in 6th gear and trying to go from 30-70 will take longer than gearing down and doing it... so it will use more fuel.

[fastdruid]

Best way is to keep it smooth, don't keep changing speed, plan ahead and keep it smooth.
My fuel economy goes up massively in the wet and during winter as I'm far smoother!

If you do need to change speed then you want to be using full throttle in the correct gear for as little time as you need to make the speed change then change up to a high gear again. That's a PITA to do right though.

From another list

Corroborated by Mercedes in the Q&A section of a freebie magazine I
still occasionally receive (and even more occasionally open) along the
lines of Q: "Why does the resume function of my cruise control use
full throttle acceleration? Wouldn't it be more economical to
accelerate gently." A: "Because a team of humorlesss Teutonic
Engineers did loads of complex sums then ran exhaustive experiments
and found that accelerating to cruising speed as quickly as possible
uses less fuel - owners of AMG SL65 Black Series cars are advised
to make sure that head restraints are correctly adjusted before using
this function"

Other things you can do are to not blip on down changes and try not to ever come to a complete stop (crawl up to lights so you don't need to use power to get moving).

Druid

[embee]

A lot of people confuse ''efficiency'' and ''economy'' ...................