I post a technical question and get these totally useless remarks from the peanut gallery. Well, bob, I don't know where you live or how many miles you ride, but where I ride gas stations, especially those that carry premium gas, can be few and very far in-between and having another 25 miles of range may mean that I do not have to put 85 octane gas in my tank. Cost is not the primary issue but I just completed a 6000 mile trip and paid over $600 for gas...and that was running the ECON mode 100 percent of the time...so we are not talking about saving 2 bucks.
Unfortunately, most people here think that this bike was only meant for twisting the throttle as hard as you can. They don't see the "range" of this bike and how it can appeal to so many different types of riders and that this is not just a bike for going 170MPH on, but it is also a bike meant for long distance touring, and there is no other touring bike on the market that can get as impressive mileage as this one gets. I've also noticed some members on here with bad attitudes, and I can only hope that they don't take it to the streets, or they won't last long.
That being said.....
If I don't use ECON, I get low 40s for MPG. When I do use it, I realistically get high 40s (47-48) MPG, although Connie always lies to me; telling me I am getting 50-51.x MPG. The other day I went 233 miles between a fill-up, and according to Connie, I could have gone another 68 miles. That is the furthest I have ever safely traveled on one tank of gas in the 30 years I've been riding motorcycles.
One person above describes the tank as "smallish", and while a 7 gallon tank would be nice, a 250 mile range is highly respectable for any style of bike. This gives you a range to comfortably travel anywhere without having to worry about making it to the next gas station.
If you can get your PCIII to extract more MPGs from the tank, more power to you. I'd love to hear some real world results. Its always good when someone is thinking outside the box.
Talking again about the guys who only want to go fast, I always have to laugh every time I'm traveling down the highway at 65MPH and an SUV blasts past me doing 90. It is almost like they are trying to say that they are so much faster or something. What is the top speed of most of the SUVs?....120 if you are going downhill with a wind?...and at that speed they are getting what....4 miles to the gallon? If I was driving something like that, I would be embarrassed to blast past a bike that is capable of such incredible speed. It would be like blasting past a Lamborghini doing 90 in a Ford Escort. I'm not sure what these people are trying to prove, but to me, it only proves how insecure they really are.
I'm quite comfortable cruising down the road with my wife riding behind me at 65-70MPH and getting close to 50MPG. We have a lot more fun than most, and spend less money doing it.
Austin
