Every bike or scooter that I’ve owned could travel roughly 180km on one tank of gas. So I guessed that was the industry norm and that the better the mileage the smaller the tank…and vise-versa.
But I’ve got a magazine in front of me…and it blows my mind some of the figures I’m seeing here. They did a shoot-out between 20 different 125cc bikes…and there is a fairly even spread of mpg from the worst to the best.
The worst being the Aprillia MX at 31 miles per gallon (I’m still not used to the metric equivalent for this liters per 100km?) with a travel range of 120 km.
The best of which being…and this is the part that blew my mind (my girlfriend is mopping it up off the floor as I write)…ahem…the best of which being the Hartford HD (made in Taiwan)…at 139 mpg 
, enabling it to travel 444km on one tank of gas. And the Hartford has a fairly small tank.
The Hero Pluto (from China?) with it’s 120mpg and larger gas tank can reach 603 km ON ONE TANK OF GAS !?!?!?! 
:help: :loco:
I find all of this pretty amazing…and with the roughly 8 or so bikes I’ve owned…I had no idea that their mileage could vary from 30mpg to 140mpg for the same sized engine.
- I’m getting my stats from the UK magazine called ‘What Bike?’
Those consumption figures look very suspect to me… I find it hard to believe they are that efficient.
Hero is from India btw.
[quote=“redwagon”]Those consumption figures look very suspect to me… I find it hard to believe they are that efficient.
Hero is from India btw.[/quote]
Well there are many bikes in their test that did exceptionally well…hard to believe they’d be wrong about so many bikes…but yeah…seems odd to me too.
(Hero is a Pakistan company, but 90% of the bikes are made in China.)
Here is part of the article and a pic of the Mag ( 125Honda CBR is hidden by the flash along with part of the Hartford):
notice it says “estimated range…” that means that they more than likely just took whatver the manufacturer’s claimed lowest consumption figure is and multiplied by the tank capacity… Like redwagon I would be extremely doubtful that anything like those figure could really be achieved in the real world… it is an intersting comparison of the manufacturer’s claimed consumption figures though… but the point is comparing range is kind of pointless since the critical variable is tank size… the BMW R1200GS Adventure has excellent fuel consupmtion and can easily do 755km on one tank of gas, because its a 33 liter tank…
BTW Hero Honda isn’t a Pakistani company, it’s a an Indian company part owned by Honda Motor Co. it’s factories are also located in India, although it supplies engines to some smaller Chinese assemblers… In terms of volume Hero Honda is the biggest 2 wheeled mannfacturere in the world…
[quote]About Hero Honda
Hero Honda Motors is one of the leading two-wheeler manufacturing companies in India. It was incorporated in 1984 as a joint venture between India
Well then…British mags are just full of shitty info (the mag says Pakistani company)…not the first time either. I once read a British mag that explained how the letters on the sides of scooter tires were for speed ratings. I almost got laughed out of the scooter shop with that one…and he showed me if the mag was true then the NSR tires were rated for 80km/hr while the SYM scooter’s tires were rated for over 200km/hr.
Do British mags just suck or what?
Anyway…140 mpg and 600 km on one tank…is impressive even if slightly exaggerated. And since I’ve never done more than 220 on any of my 8 or 9 bikes on one tank…it still blows my mind.
there are more than a few British fishwrap magazines that are utter rubbish…in fairness though, it’s probably that the article was just written by some twat newbie journalist…
take a look at BIKE… it’s the biggest selling bike magazine in the UK by far, and it’s hands down the best motorcycle magazine on the market, UK or anywhere else… proper, unbiased, concise, expert testing, evaluation and information, numerous bike industry and racing world expert contributers etc… proper long term tests, real world owner polls and reviews… 2nd place but a bit more boy racer and low brow, would probably be RIDE… MCN is also okay, but pretty much news oriented, can’t slag it too much a good mate of mine works for them 
…
umm… that is true… all tires have a speed rating that is printed on the side wall as part of the ISO code… even though they don’t make bike tires, Yokohama was the first convenient website with a speed table that illustrates this, the same is true for all tire makers, Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli, etc etc… car or bikes tires, all use the same speed rating codes… only way it wouldn’t be true is if local Taiwanese tire companies don’t print International Standard codes on their scooter tires, but even that’s very unlikely unless they are strictly low quality domestic market only tires…
Michelin: How to read a motorcycle tire
http://www.yokohamatire.com/utspeed.asp
Well according to the chart in the mag my NSR tires were rated for something ridiculusly low…and my scooter tires were comparible to 1000cc superbike for top speed. So maybe they just got the chart wrong.
I argued this with the guy at the shop for a good 20min. He walked around showing me how racing tires often had a lower letter than scooter tires…and by that logic a lower top speed rating.
Thanks for the link though.
:s sounds like the guy at your scooter shop is a bit of an eedjit… surely someone in the industry, someone who sells tires no less, would be aware of the basics of tire construction, classes and speed ratings… I mean it is an ISO basic safety feature that I’d like the guy who’s selling me tires to be aware of … besides, it’s not a “higher” letter = higher speed equation… the speed rating does not necessarily follow alphabetical order… as you can see from the chart an H rated tire has a higher speed rating than an S rated tire. etc…
on any ISO tire (99% of tires on the market) you can also find out the date of manufacture… either as part of the DOT code or seperately, there will be a “stamped” 4 digit number often with an oval surround that indicates the week and year of manufacture… ie 2405 would mean the tire was made during the 24th week of 2005… useful for making sure a dealer isn’t selling you old tires that have been sitting on a shelf somewhere degrading for years on end…
Can you explain why some scooter tires are marked with a “Z” in the appropriate place then? I’ll have to take a pic of it…seems odd that a scooter tyre is rated for speeds above 300kph.
