Improve your Sports Bikes MPG

 In our end of year survey I asked, ''What would be the best improvement you could make to your motorbike?" and the most common reply was better Economy.

Every year we at EDSBK while on one of our road trips do an ECO challenge, this is mostly to give us something to think about when on the long journeys between fuel stops. We record the miles traveled and the fuel added this gives a reasonably accurate measure of how well the bikes are performing and to make it more interesting make a competition out of it. Over the few days we are away our average MPG ranges from 37 - 52 MPG  depending if we are cruising or going for it. 
  Sports bikes are designed to go fast, the engine is designed to deliver lots of power to the rear wheel and not to deliver lots of MPG. The shape of the sports bike is to cut through the air and its low weight is also an advantage to achieving a higher MPG, but you don't buy a sports bike for its economic fuel usage. Taking advantage of its design and keeping it in a good condition can yield a reasonable MPG figure providing you ride in a fuel conserving way.

The Miracle Product

 At this point I would like to say there is a product out there that's going be the answer to our question giving an average 60mpg to the typical sports bike rider. There isn't one. However, an improvement can be made with some thinking around your bike,kit and riding style.

What works?

 I have been reading other peoples fuel saving tips, there are some good ones out there. Here's some examples of them and my thoughts on how it affects sports bike riders.

 Remove excess weight
EDSBK - Our bikes were designed to be light,  after market exhausts can save a few kilograms for the money they cost, but unless your a racer with a good budget realistically there's not much to be made here. If you worry about saving weight try putting yourself on a diet!

 Use correct tyre pressures.
 EDSBK - We regularly check our tyre pressures, it makes such a difference to how the bike handles and improves MPG. Best of all this improvement only costs 50p

  Slow Down. Twisting the throttle uses more fuel.
 EDSBK - Boring. OK the way to improve here is on roads like motorways and dual carriageways just cruise along in 6th gear at the speed limit, tuck yourself behind the screen and your MPG will be as good as you can get it. Once you get onto the more exciting stretches of road you can give it some beanz as you will have saved a bit of fuel.

 Keep the bike moving, an idling engine does 0 MPG
EDSBK - The advantage of a motorbike is being able to avoid queuing by passing any stationary traffic waiting to get into the field to the car boot sale. Even riding slowly and getting 5 MPG is better than nothing. However if you can see that there's nowhere to go and your going to have a long wait, turn the engine off for the best fuel savings.

  Be aerodynamic, use a full face helmet and tight clothes.
EDSBK - I dont like a face full of dead flies so always use a full face helmet. Last years trip to Scotland rained a lot, so flappy wind catching waterproofs were required on some parts of the trip. On all the bikes the MPG dropped when wearing these, but as our speed was slightly lower due to the poor weather conditions it almost evened things out.

  Keep the bike in good condition
EDSBK - A nicely polished clean bike with correctly aligned wheels,adjusted chain and a fresh set of plugs,oil and filters will improve you MPG by a fraction.
The main thing to remember is the harder the engine works the more fuel it uses and the more money you spend. 

 Change to a different style of motorbike
 EDSBK - Not for me yet. All of the above will help to save fuel, you might get up to an extra 5 MPG if you really try, but you have to ask yourself, why have a sportsbike if you want excellent MPG? If the difference between riding as normal or riding economically on a Sunday morning ride is only 3 or 4 MPG will you even notice when you next fill up the fuel tank. Why worry about fuel costs when the tyres and insurance cost as much as they do?
  For most of us owning a sportsbike is for fun, racing around a circuit on a track day, an escape from the usual daily routine or for a morning out with your mates, so is the best thing just to take it for what it is?
 Of course you can do all the above on any style of motorbikes, but for now I still like, the look, speed, handling and sound of Sports and Superbikes.

 Go green use electricity
EDSBK - Sports bikes that run on electrickery have a few major flaws so far. They weigh more than a petrol bike, and more importantly cant do the mileage, OK 90-100 miles seems to be the figure most manufacturers are quoting which is good enough to get us to the Cafe on a Sunday morning, but how do we get back home? Going touring for a few days would be out of the question. The good thing is these latest electric bikes look right, they have very similar dimensions to the petrol bikes and as time goes by these bikes are getting better. Who knows in 10 years time electric super bikes could out perform petrol bikes and charge times could be just a few minutes. Until then I will be riding my petrol bike.

Some of my favourite Electric Superbikes

 

Nope I'm not ready for one of these yet!

Ethanol

 Recently at work we have employed a new guy who had been running his own service station. We got talking about fuel prices and fuel saving methods, which is when he started telling me about Ethanol being added to petrol. I decided to look deeper into what he had told me and the following is what I've found out based on what he had said.

 In 2013 the Ethanol content in Petrol is due to go up from 5% to 10%. This move from the European Union is received by many as a greener alternative to crude oil. Fuel companies are obliged to add 3.5% bio fuel to both Petrol and Diesel and each year the content of bio/renewable fuel is set to rise by a small percentage.

 What is Ethanol?

 In short Ethanol is a modified form of alcohol, made from distilling fruit, vegetables or grain, which is a good way to get rid of unwanted crop waste and use less fossil fuels, and as it's made from plants they would absorb some of the carbon that vehicles generate as they grow. Sounds just what we need to help save the environment.

How will affect us?

 Research estimates over 750,000 motorbikes wont run on the mixture of Petrol and 10% Ethanol without some adjustments.
Ethanol is acidic so is very corrosive. When added to petrol the fuel is of a poorer quality.
 Being corrosive, Ethanol will clean old deposits from the fuel lines and fuel tank which can block up the fuel filter and in some case's cause running problems. Ethanol will cause damage to rubber pipes and seals, it reacts with sealants and on older engines can cause carburettor icing when humidity is above 77% and ambient temperatures are below 12C . In the USA they have been using a 10% mixture already, and common problems from the poor quality of the petrol is causing engines to struggle with starting, lack of power and mpg can be up to 10% worse than with 5% mixture. Once you have filled your motorbike with fuel at the service station, you should remember that Petrol with Ethanol added has roughly, only a 3 week life span, after this the petrol and the ethanol separate which is called Phase Separation.

Phase Separation describes what happens to Petrol containing Ethanol when water is present. When Petrol containing even small amounts of Ethanol comes in contact with water, either liquid or in the form of humidity, the Ethanol will pick-up and absorb some or all of that water. When it reaches a saturation point the Ethanol and water will Phase Separate, actually coming out of solution and forming two or three distinct layers in the tank. The only option when this happens is to get rid of the fuel as it will damage the engine.

 Fuel specialist are advising fresh Petrol every 3 weeks, as at present there is no additive that will stop Phase Separation.


(For more information click here to visit the Motorcycle Action Group website)

 Some of our bikes are affected see below.

Kawasaki are still considering the effects of E10 and do not recommend its use.

Yamaha models are compatible with E5 and some new models are compatible with E10.

Suzuki's have been compatible with E10 since 2005.

Honda models have been compatible with E10 since 1993 but carburettored vehicles could suffer poor drivability.

All the major Fuel brands currently run a mixture of 5% Ethanol in Petrol, apparently added to the tanker in seperate operations. Supermarkets get their supply's of fuel from the same refineries, I cant find any other details, so expect them to have the same content.

Mini DV MD80 / D001 Cam

 Myself and Jon have bought the mini DV D001 Cam from off Ebay. At the time of buying they were £18.50, they can now be picked up for as little is £12, which is less than a tank of fuel. So for that price we weren't expecting anything amazing.
  We have now owned these cameras for over 12 months, and after some recent testing can give a fair review of these little camera's.
 The purpose for buying these camera's was to attach them to the motorbikes and record some of our favourite roads and the trips away, so that during the cold, dark winter months we can virtually ride some of the best bits and share them with you via our Youtube channel.

Features

The Mini DV/MD80 has a 2 mb High Def camera,
Video records at 30 FPS in 720x480 pixels,
It supports memory cards upto 8 Gig,
There is a hi res camera mode that can shoot up to 2,000,000 pixel images,
It has a fast acting light response lense,
can be used as a web cam,
and has a 2 hour battery life.

 In reality the camera mode is a waste of time as you cant see what your taking the picture of,the 30 FPS is pretty good, 720x480 is almost HD, the fast acting light responsive lense works well,  the battery lasts about 2 hours and my 4G card holds about 50-55 minutes of video.
 When the camera arrives it comes with all the bits to attach it to a computer, a disk with the drivers and files needed, some brackets and instructions which were originally written in Chinese, so makes interesting reading if not any sense.

 In Use

   The first chance I had to try my camera was when we went to Germany and the Nurburgring. I used the brackets included in the kit and clamped it to the handlebars, but didnt have any idea what the camera was looking at as theres no view finder. Also I didnt know what the camera was doing as you cant see the lights when its sunny outside. The 4gb memory card can hold just under an hours worth of film so I saved it to record a lap of the nurburgring, the sudchleife and any other intresting bits we could find. We connected up to a laptop at the hotel only to find I had recorded a lap of the sky, with a few overhanging trees, and Jon had recorded by using a helmet cam idea of his a lap of the tank of the motorbike. Both cameras had wavy lines scrolling up the screen which made the footage unwatchable.  Most dissapointing!

Wobbly vision

 Once back home I tried the camera every time I went out with varying amounts of success  The main issue we were getting from both cameras was wavy lines scrolling up the screen, I found it was caused by the vibrations from the bike. After experimenting with places to mount the camera I discovered that the motorbikes frame hardly vibrates at all, so built a mount out of a piece of plastic tube which fits tightly into a crash bobbin. This has stopped the problem almost completely, only occasionally under high revs do they come back.
The brackets that are included in the kit, are useless for the purpose we need them for, so they went in the bin.

Lower MotoGP style view
 (Date Stamp was hard to adjust)

 After some experimenting we found that videos recorded from a lower position give a better perspective, show some interesting views and feeling of speed. If you watch Motogp they also use some nice on bike camera positions, looking behind across the top of the rear wheel or at how much the front tyres give in the corners, so we want to try out some new ideas and brackets.

 Another issue was the on light and record light could not be seen, so by removing the 4 screws in the sides of the camera and pulling it carefully apart you can see the little led lights. I used a dremil to make a hole big enough to let the light shine out of and put it back together. When riding along now I can see the lights clearly.

 After this Modification and using the bike mount I am pleased to say that I rate this little camera quite highly and have no fear of recommending them as a good buy and good value for money, just be prepared to put some time into experimenting with brackets/mounts.

For and Against

The good things about these camera's are the size, reasonable quality video and they arepretty tough. (We had one fall off a bike at over 70mph, when we went back to collected it it was still recording)
 The problems with these camera's are the poor instructions, the wavy lines, the L.E.D lights are not visable in bright sunlight and the worst thing is the time/date stamp cannot be removed. The newer version of the camera now has a much smaller transparent time/date which is a step in the right direction but totally removal would make for a welcomed option.
However there is ways around all of this:- 
The Instructions - Just go on Youtube and watch some of the how to use the MD80 videos.
The wavy lines - Experiment with positions on the bike that don't vibrate. Plastic fairings, mirrors and mud guards are no good, you need to find something metal for the best results, frame, swingarm or lower part of front forks we find work best.
 The L.E.D lights - Make your own window to view the L.E.D's (see above).
 The Time/Date Tag - Using Windows Live Movie Maker with 3rd party effects such as the increase zoom by 15% mode helps mask the problem as the time and date disappear off the bottom of the screen.     
 To reset the time - You will need to make a file in notepad which you copy onto the camera. There is a demo file on the disk that comes with the camera.
Good Luck with getting that to work! Eventually mine gave the correct time.

Old Camera with Yellow Date Stamp

New Camera with Transparent Date Stamp
To Watch this video click here 

 In conclusion we like it.   4/5

 See our videos on Youtube

Latest Video has the new look time date stamp

 The camera mount video

Suzuki GSXR K8

 This is Carls Suzuki GSXR 1000 K8. The model was released in 2008 having minor changes to the paint scheme from the previous K7 model that Jon owns. Suzuki have always made class leading motorbikes and this is no exception. The engine chucks out 185 BHP and was the first main stream bike to have a power mode switch that lets the rider select between full power, medium for economy and a wet weather mode. Suzuki have fitted twin pipes on their 1000cc model which is different from the other manufacturers who make superbikes. 

Carl has changed the factory exhaust from the standard 2 pipes into a Scorpion, shorter, single sided pipe which gives a much louder roar under acceleration, saves weight and looks great. He has had the suspension lowered as it was a bit to high for him and finds it handles well.

 He has been making some artsy, photoshop pictures and has submitted them to the site for all to see. 

Super Bike Phone Apps

   Over the last 12 months I have been using the Pirelli Diablo Super Biker app for my iphone.
 I am amazed at what it can tell you and at how well it does it.
   Each time we go along our favourite road the A483 I start the app. Now, I don't ever try to beat any times, etc after all its a public road, I just take it as it comes, if conditions permit I'll lean the bike over around the corners and pass slower moving vehicles so the data that gets recorded is only just for my own interest and nothing else. However the App has 2 modes, 1 for road use and one for track use. Now the information provided around a circuit would make for far more interest, especially if you were setting up suspension or trying a new performance parts or doing track days.

Start Screen

 The app records things such as:-

Stock Picture

 Journey Time, Distance, Max speed, Average speed and Maximum lean angle, then laps of the same circuit can be compared. It overlays your route over a photo map so you can see where you have been. This worked great until the recent update to the Apple Iphone IOS which did away with Google Maps replacing it with the far inferior Apple Maps so the map quality has gone and you look at a wobbly red line in a square of blobs, but that's Apples fault not the makers of the App's.
It works all this out from the GPS signal, the accelerometer and the built in gyroscope in the iphone. We have carried out a few test on the system, testing speed distance, max lean with great success and accuracy. 
   Lapping a circuit gives extra data such as allowing you to compare 2 laps to see where you were faster and how much lean angle you applied, and share the data on facebook. Like I'm ever gonna do that!
   Unfortunately the last update has somewhat cocked this info up, it has almost doubled some of the stats. For example, the first time I used it after the update, the app informed me I had travelled over 120 mph and had a lean angle of 65 degrees, impossible I thought, I didn't go anywhere near 3 figure speeds along there. Luckily I have gone back to the previous version (1.4) which is the one that works for me, and the figures when combined with video evidence are within 1 mph and 1 degree so that's good enough for me.

 We use the app for our Ashwood Triangle competition to record the lap times.
 (This will be available in a later post)

To try it for yourself for free Click Here