MPG for the June 22nd ride to Williams, California

Well, I finally got around to filling my tank after the Sunday ride and my avg was 45.7 mpg. When we were just riding the curves at about 40-50 mph I got 53 mpg. I have found that the Silverwing gets good mileage during the lower speed rides but when you start to get the tach over 5,000 rpm's it seems the mileage really goes down. My ride home at 75-85 indicated got me only 42 mpg which is about avg for me. I sure wish the Silver Wing had an overdrive on it. As a matter of fact that is the only thing I think the Silver Wing lacks, is an overdrive. It runs at the same rpm's as the Majesty I had. But it was a great ride and I really think we need to do this ride, and go down the road that Tom suggested, during the cooler months. I really liked this ride.

Jeff:

The "road" I suggested..... Would that be the alternative to taking SR29 that I talked about?

To be honest, I ended up there in February or March on a suggestion from James when a friend and I went for a ride out to the coast via Petaluma and decided that the fog made it too cool so we headed inland. We headed out through the hills on this road and then started up SR29. But the traffic was miserable, stop and go on a Friday afternoon so my friend took me off on the road I mentioned. After lunch in Middleton, we came back down around Lake Berryessa and into Fairfield via Mankas corners. It was great, country riding with minimal traffic.... until we hit 680/Cordelia to come home. Lots of scenery!

As you might remember, I was concerned about a repeat of the traffic on SR29 when we rode up. But, with fuel prices being what they were, it was not to be. Napa and St. Helena were absolutely beautiful!

The only bad part was riding home on I5, I505 & 680. Not only were they boring, fast and mixing it up with semis going way over the speed limit, parts of I80 through Fairfield were so badly rutted that I thought I was going to shake parts off my Burgman or knock out some teeth. Actually, my windshield cover - whatever Suzuki calls it - ended up with a broken screw mount from that ride. I guess I'd better go fix that before the Alice's Restaurant jaunt in two weeks.

Jeff:

An overdrive might not get you the results you seek. No matter how fast the engine is turning, there are still the laws of physics that determine fuel consumption. It takes X amount of power to overcome friction and wind resistance at any given speed. That amount of power requires X amount of fuel and air to enter the cylinders, whether the engine is turning 500 or 5,000 RPM.

Of course, there are differences in engine efficiency - that is the power output vs fuel input - at different RPMs based on the design parameters of the engine. So, if the engine makes the required HP at a lower RPM more efficiently than it does at a higher one, the OD might help somewhat.

But, the bottom line is that your fuel consumption is more based on your velocity of travel than anything else. And that's because air resistance has a quadratic relationship to velocity. i.e. it takes twice as much power to push your SW at 80 MPH as it does at 60 MPH and thus, twice as much fuel.

IIRC, my Burgman got less than 50 MPG that day but better than 42. I've got the receipts around here somewhere to prove it.