Average Fuel Economy

[Cyclerosis]

I've been averaging upward of 69 mpg with a running average of 70+ (according to the fuelly site). However, today's fill up of 2.596 gallons after riding 198.6 miles, gave me the best mileage the bike has achieved so far @ 76.56 mpg. That was a pleasant surprise!

 

[shawnfrontier]

It seems since I've passed 8000 miles on the bike the average mpg for me is 70-79. That is not even trying to get that and riding with a few open throttle's.

 

[mreric]

I just got my new nc today. Rode for 25 miles. 2014 model. The screen said that my averag mpg is 99.9. Is that right? It was and average speed of 40mph....

 

[Bullseye]

My first 3 tanks have been 68, 60, and 65. AND I got a bad habit of riding in 5th all the time. If I would use 6th abit more my mileage would improve !!! Bike goes in for first service soon ...hopefully that helps as well !

 

[TheEdge900]

My mileage has gone up significantly this summer. I expected a little increase, but it has been great. During the winter I was averaging about 62mpg, my last four fill ups have been over 75mpg. Same commute, same driving style, only thing has been I removed my hand guards and lowered my madstad screen, and morning Temps have not dropped below 80 since may (I live in Phx). This is my first summer with the NC, so we will see if it drops back down next winter or if it just took 9000 miles to break in.

 

[BerndM]

I notice that a goodly percentage of the riders who experience the highest gas mileage on their NCX bikes live in what I would consider "Flatland" states. This would certainly affect gas mileage in a very positive manner.
Unfortunately, because of where I live here in SoCal (near Disneyland) I am hampered by the geography of the terrain and the highway system. To get ANYWHERE that's worth riding to, you're pretty much forced to travel the horrible freeway system. While that is the easiest and quickest way to get out of the urban sprawl, it is NOT the best for great gas mileage. In order to NOT get run over by cars and trucks travelling 80 mph, you have to work the NCX pretty hard, resulting in less than stellar gas mileage. You can ride surface streets if you don't mind all the traffic and traffic lights. The other thing that hampers our gas mileage is the fact that in order to get out somewhere, we have to climb over 4000 foot mountain passes which does nothing to improve our mileage, especially while riding at 80mph.
All my whining aside, I really do love my DCT bike. I don't know if there is any hard data on gas mileage between the DCT and standard types.

 

[670cc]

Mountains actually improve my gas mileage. Higher elevations are good for economy. Its high speeds, side bags, and head winds that kill it.

 

[davidc83]

Mountains actually improve my gas mileage. Higher elevations are good for economy. Its high speeds, side bags, and head winds that kill it.

Agreed, I have had the best fuel mileage riding in the Smokies (the Great Smoky Mountains-for the foreigners on here) (elevation above 5000ft) and the worst riding the interstates, but then the Smokies is riding less than 55mph and the interstate is above 70mph.

 

[mwcogburn]

I have noticed several posts commenting on higher mileage since spring/summer started. I wonder how much the changing seasonal fuel blends affect the NC's mileage. I have no idea if it does, just asking.

 

[shawnfrontier]

My mileage has gone up significantly this summer. I expected a little increase, but it has been great. During the winter I was averaging about 62mpg, my last four fill ups have been over 75mpg. Same commute, same driving style, only thing has been I removed my hand guards and lowered my madstad screen, and morning Temps have not dropped below 80 since may (I live in Phx). This is my first summer with the NC, so we will see if it drops back down next winter or if it just took 9000 miles to break in.

This has been the same for me. Once I got 8,000 miles or so on the bike, the mpg have gone up from the 60's to 70's and sometimes 80's. My last tank from last night came out to 81.8 mpg, which is my best tank yet. I also about 90% of the time run 91 octane with no ethanol (pure gas). Currently I have 11800 miles on the bike.

 

[Antarius]

I filled up today and got 66.something miles per gallon. To give you an idea, if I miscalculated the fill up by even 0.1 GALLON, it adjusts my MPG by like 2 MPG -- so how accurate I am is, well, relative. I don't really think I can get more accurate than 0.1 of a gallon as far as how much gas I actually put in each time.

Nonetheless, I'm averaging (according to fuelly), 65MPG over the life of this bike, which as of today is 9600 miles.

 

[TheEdge900]

I filled up today and got 66.something miles per gallon. To give you an idea, if I miscalculated the fill up by even 0.1 GALLON, it adjusts my MPG by like 2 MPG -- so how accurate I am is, well, relative. I don't really think I can get more accurate than 0.1 of a gallon as far as how much gas I actually put in each time.

Nonetheless, I'm averaging (according to fuelly), 65MPG over the life of this bike, which as of today is 9600 miles.

This is exactly why I don't make any assumptions on a single tank. I usually try to get in three tanks before I assume any change had a true affect, that way I am averaging it over 500-700 miles and a tenth or two doesn't have as big of an effect.

I have an extreme example of how much fillup techniques change the mileage with my wife's car. We have similar driving habits, but different fill techniques. She fills to first click then done, I "top off" and sometimes get an extra gallon or two, so if you look at her car on fuelly the graph is a saw tooth. In the end though, the average should come out correct as long as every fillup is accounted for.

 

[itlives]

Mountains actually improve my gas mileage. Higher elevations are good for economy. Its high speeds, side bags, and head winds that kill it.

That's exactly my experience. The best I ever had was 72 mpg in the Smokies with my soft saddle bags but with out the rest of my camping gear. I quit checking after that - I was happy with that.
The worst was coming home on the interstate with the full load. It went down considerably. I forget what it was but the whole 2.300 mile trip average was 65.5 - I'm happy with that, too.

 

[ld_rider]

I'm clearly doing something very wrong. Commuting on Interstate 95 gets me about 55 mpg @ a GPS 73 mph or so. Puttering around town @ 40-45 mph gets me all of 68mpg...That is what my dash computer says anyway...

Never, ever saw anything approaching the miles/gallon reported here <shrugs>..


Does the VStream windscreen and Givi panniers have that much of an impact? I'm all of 160lbs geared up....

 

[davidc83]

I'm clearly doing something very wrong. Commuting on Interstate 95 gets me about 55 mpg @ a GPS 73 mph or so. Puttering around town @ 40-45 mph gets me all of 68mpg...That is what my dash computer says anyway...

Never, ever saw anything approaching the miles/gallon reported here <shrugs>..


Does the VStream windscreen and Givi panniers have that much of an impact? I'm all of 160lbs geared up....

Don't think you are doing anything wrong. most of us has reported our MPGs go down on the Interstate, and stop/go traffic in town will cut down on mpg-sitting at a traffic light=0mpg. Go find a couple hundred of country roads and ride them between 45-55mph and see if your mpg goes up.

 

[JerBear]

My average is 66 mpg using 88 octane. My worst 59 mpg and my best was 75 mpg. Actually 2 tanks in a row at 59 mpg. that was a road trip and I was running 80 to 85 mph most of the way. I had a Kawasaki Ninja 500 and 59 mpg was the best it could do! That bike averaged 50 mpg.

 

[itlives]

I'm clearly doing something very wrong. Commuting on Interstate 95 gets me about 55 mpg @ a GPS 73 mph or so. Puttering around town @ 40-45 mph gets me all of 68mpg...That is what my dash computer says anyway...

Never, ever saw anything approaching the miles/gallon reported here <shrugs>..


Does the VStream windscreen and Givi panniers have that much of an impact? I'm all of 160lbs geared up....

As several people have mentioned, the NC is very touchy when it comes to mileage. A large windshield and panniers will definitely cut down on your mileage. Take everything off. Go back to how it came when new, do a tank like that and you will see a difference.

 

[anglachel]

As several people have mentioned, the NC is very touchy when it comes to mileage. A large windshield and panniers will definitely cut down on your mileage. Take everything off. Go back to how it came when new, do a tank like that and you will see a difference.

Large windshield can hurt or help... Same with hand-guards, and fairings... and even potentially panniers.
There are a lot of factors that add up to determine the MPG, speed, air density, wind, weight, etc.

Really it can be added up into 2 factors, friction from the bearings, and ground trying to slow the bike down, and resistance from the air trying to slow the bike down.

Friction from the ground is largely a factor of weight, and causes most of the resistance at very low speeds, 0-10 mph...
Bicycles will often overcome the point where ground resistance is the leading factor in resistance to the bicycle, that's why bicyclist when racing will draft each other doing so makes it much easier to push the bike through the air.
Friction from the air, increases exponentially with speed. Reducing the drag co-efficient of the whole of the bike and rider can reduce this amount of friction, a larger windscreen while providing a bigger surface to the front of the bike, is largely moving the air smoothly up and over or around the rider, the rider is not a smooth surface, particularly with mesh gear, and an upright riding position.

Even panniers can have a mixed effect on the drag a bike creates, with 1-up riding you have a gap between the rider and the panniers, and that can cause more drag, but when riding 2-up with panniers the panniers actually provide a smoother back half of the bike/rider/pillion setup than just the pillion themselves...
Others have stated they get better mileage when riding 2-up, with or with out panniers this is explained away by the way that two people can create a more streamlined approach through the air than one person can (particularly if the person in the rear is smaller and more shapely than the person in the front, which is what most people are looking for in a pillion any how )



It's largely about how aerodynamic you and the bike are. Do a little experiment some time when you are riding down a long straight flat country road, lock your throttle (if you don't have a throttle lock just put a finger up on the brake lever and keep your hand still as you can) then go from sitting up right to laying flat across the frunk. When you do this, with out giving the bike any more gas it will speed up... I figured my bike would go 10-20% faster when I was basically looking through the stock windshield (face pretty much in the instrument cluster). 10-20% gets pretty big when you talk about the mild swings in MPG we see on the forums here... 50 mpg can become 60 mpg based on rider posture alone, not counting speed, and acceleration habits, panniers, windshields, etc.


And of course when you start considering percentage change (because every change to the bike/rider position and riding style/speed/etc. is going to improve or worsen the mpg compared to another riding style) the difference between 50mpg and 100mpg would be similar to the difference between 20 mpg and 40 mpg in a vehicle that gets that kind of mileage (my car).
If you go look at fuelly for the old Honda insights (the funky one with the covers on the rear wheels... circa 2000) they have a spread of 40-80 mpg... really no different from the spread (as a percentage) as our bikes, or my Subaru (high teens to mid 30's)... and those don't even have to consider rider posture.

I guess the take away here is that the bike isn't really that finicky when it comes to mileage, given all the potential things we can do to improve or ruin our mileage, some of them changing every time we move on the bike, inhaling and exhaling... if a stream lined car can have the same fluctuations despite a static drag coefficient I think we are doing good.

Any way I slice the numbers I'm on a 670cc bike, and getting the gas mileage of an efficient 250cc bike, and that ain't half bad.

 

[mwcogburn]

Well said anglachel

 

[BerndM]

I try to be very consistent when I fill up to get the most accurate mpg figures possible.
I always fill up on the centerstand.
I fill until the nozzle shut off, and then, because I'm in f'd up California, I manually pull the nozzle partially out of the filler neck while holding the vapor recovery boot back so it will continue to fill. I fill until the gas is just barely covering that thin metal shelf about 3 inches down in the neck.