Wednesday, April 18, 2012

63

Hey, not bad. That number represents the miles per gallon I achieved on my first tank of gas. Granted, I didn't go as far as I could have (I filled up around 160 miles showing on the trip odometer) but it was far enough to get a pretty accurate reading on fuel economy. I will say this; I used a relatively low (6000 rpm) shift point for each up-shift and rarely accelerated heavily.The VTR is easily capable of keeping up with traffic, whether it be accelerating away from a stop or cruising with the flow, and I sometimes wonder how the NX125 I had did so well. Earlier today I was thinking about commuting, in general, on a motorcycle and came to the conclusion that for a (sub)urban environment, 200cc is almost the minimum displacement. This provides the ability to stay with traffic or extricate yourself from "situations". 250cc seems to be just "that much" better. While I obviously used a 125cc for the 2011 riding season, there were several times where I felt I could be in serious trouble if things didn't work out for me. I have yet to feel that way about the VTR. Of course, the trade-off with an increase in engine displacement is usually a decrease in fuel economy. So, the 200-250cc range should provide plenty of power and still return good-to-great fuel economy (depending on the number of cylinders, the engine's state of tune and the rider's ability to use the throttle with restraint). I need to check a couple of things, still, on the VTR to ensure it's running as it should; spark plugs, oil change & air filter change. The oil in the site glass still looks pretty clean. But, it's been in the sump an unknown (to me) amount of time based on statements made by the previous owner. I can fix that this weekend. I going to guess the spark plugs that are in the motor are the originals. While they still seem to be working properly, it sure couldn't hurt to check their status. The air filter is something I've wanted to experiment with. I use "experiment" lightly in this context. It would seem that the stock air filter is pretty expensive and only available from Honda. Some have used a 1996-2000 Honda Civic air filter (1.6 liter motor) to replace the filter media in the VTR. I'll have to look into this and will post my findings. Up until now though, the VTR has been spot on.

Edit: The second tank was even better; 70 mpg. I hit reserve @ 170 miles on the odometer. I've since changed the oil and am aiming to do the air filter asap. We'll see how things go from here.

No comments:

Post a Comment