I had a stretch on my ride home yesterday that surprised me a bit...I went 200.5 miles (indicated...more later) on a tank of gas before the "Low Fuel" warning came on. I've never been able to do that before, and I thought it was some sort of "Holy Grail" of sport-touring. The com-pooter-iser indicated 45.0 mpg, which implies about 4.46 gallons. Here's the rub, though. The trip odometer indicated 200.5 miles when the warning came on, and 201.0 when I stopped at the pump (I reset the first trip odometer and the average mileage at every stop). But my GPS and Google maps both agree that the distance from pump-to-pump was 198 miles (implying that the odometer reads "long" by about 1.5%, at least with these tires). Personally, it still doesn't really matter to me, since I don't really like going 200 miles without a bit of a stretch; I stopped once in the middle of the 200 miles at a service area, so I could just as easily have picked up some gas there. The stop probably cost me a few miles, too.
Here is the route on Google Maps, if anyone cares.
2008 C14
Pirelli Angels front & rear (front nearing end-of-life, rear about 50%), filled & checked before the trip at 42/42
Mobil 1 4T 10W-40
Mobil 1 75W-90 rear gear lube
Windshield fully down the whole time
65 on the Taconic State Parkway; 72 on the Thruway (measured by GPS)
Bags fully loaded
Sleeping bag on the rear seat, Cortech soft tail pack on the rack (maybe they helped aerodynamics?)
No tailwind that I noticed, but I only looked near the end, when I thought I might go 200 miles
Filled up flush with the metal guard in the top of the tank
One "comfort" stop
Is this unusual, or have others managed the same thing from time-to-time? I know the people on this board must have a metric butt-load of collective miles...