Fuel injection is by far a better system for day to day running of vehicles.

It's more efficient, more economical and semi-self adjusting. It's mostly very reliable and the technology is well established. Solid state electronics very rarely go wrong.

BUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!! And this is no small but !! LOL

This only stands true where you are in a modern civilised world where there is a garage every 5 miles, a pocket full of recovery companies, mobile phones, next day delivery on parts etc.


Carbs, gravity fed fuel and natural aspiration are BY FAR simpler, BY FAR easier to diagnose and repair and BY FAR easier to bodge, repair and adjust, and any mechanic in the third world understands how it works.



Fuel injection bikes need fuel pumps and the electronics to run fuel pumps. They have servo controlled motors to let the bike idle. They need lambda sensors in their exhausts, MAF sensors in their airbox.


These are not things that can be bodged. If your fuel pump dies on half way down the silk road then you're going to be pretty much up sh*t creek. You'll be parked up in an overpriced hotel for 7 days while you search endlessly all over the internet on a crappy wifi connection trying to find out why your bike doesn't run and swearing that DHL want £150 to ship a £200 pump out to you which then customs will want 20% import tax on and you'll have to wait another two weeks for it to clear customs. If it's not lost in the post altogether. And unless you really KNOW it's the pump you might have to post out a controller too. It might be the TPS sensor though. Or maybe the idle actuator is dead.

If you carb stops working in the same place, a 14 year old mechanic with a few old tools will be able to find out what's wrong with it. Carbs are VERY VERY reliable if fed clean fuel. Injectors need the same.


In a nut shell. If you ride a simple FI bike like a 660 Tenere then you'll be very unlucky to break down but it will be more complicated to get sorted. A simple carbed gravity fed bike will be easier to fix in far off places but you're not going to get the same power and economy for the same size engine.


However.... In my opinion , all the best travel bikes are carburetorred. Not because it's better, but because that was all that was really around when they were made. The 90's was the golden era for travel bikes. Not just because they were well made, reliable, cheap and trust wrothy but THEY HAVE CHARACTER...

You can fall in love with an old Tenere or Africa twin. You can't fall in love with grey plastic, control units, and computers which pretty much want to ride the bike for you.. Which all the modern bikes really are.

So if you want an Africa Twin , XT600E, XT600 Tenere, Dominator, Transalp, F650 Dakar, KLE650, DR650 or XR650L etc etc, you're going to have a carb.


Wow... That was quite the rant.

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.