Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveK
Ive recently been giving a lot of thought to using a lower capacity bike, even down to a modern 125cc, to significantly lower fuel costs. With the price they are now I would save a small fortune by using something like a 125cc which returns 100mpg vs a 600 which returns 50mpg.
I suppose the compromise is speed, but so long as I avoided motorways 60-70mph top speed is fine.
My brother has just passed his CBT and bought a Honda cbf125, which costs him only £6 or £7 to travel over 100miles. My R1 costs way over double that, but I get there quicker obviously.
As a toy the R1 is fine and I don't mind paying the higher fuel for the thrill, but i want to do a long long trip abroad and the saving of fuel would allow me to travel for longer with the same budget.
So what bikes do you guys recommend as a fuel efficient alternative suitable for 200-300 mile days on all terrain?
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Well you are getting plenty of responses to this thread but nothing yet about the "all terrain" aspect of your post.
Anyway, I mentioned FI because that is the way things are going, in the UK at least, but not all small bikes are using FI, yet.
I just did a check on ebay and there are more than 2 dozen 125cc Varaderos for sale there right now. Somewhere along the way that bike has switched to FI (an ad for a 2010 bike says this but earlier models have carbs).
Even a brand new one can be got for £4K+ a bit and there are loads of low mileage bikes for £2K or thereabouts.
And, it's a 90 degree V twin 125cc engine - how cool is that?
The serow has been mentioned here. I run one of them and, yes, it is 225cc for the older versions, like mine, and the newer ones are 250cc.
Running this, I don't even think in terms of MPG but miles per tank of fuel. In rough figures the Serow is doing 160 KM (they are all imported with KM clocks) per UK gallon (4.545 litres) on a mix of tarmac and gravel tracks. Yep 100 MPG or thereabouts. But, no way would I ride this bike above 50 MPH for any length of time with the standard gearing!!
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Dave
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