[EcoRider]

Hi,

New on the forum, and like my name suggests, I love riding economically; and was on the market to look at some bikes.

I have a Rebel250, great for town and ez-rider stuff, great on gas, but top speed is only 85mph.
I needed something bigger, and the next step up will be Honda's 300cc bikes, a ninja300, or the R3.

Honda was too small for me.
Ninja was ok, but gas mileage was worse.
And the R3 has even worse gas mileage, but from the reviews is more aimed for the streets than for the tracks.

Currently I have a GS500F for the interstate rides, but have lousy gas mileage on it (below 50mpg on the interstates).

Now, I was surprised that the R3 is rated only 57MPG, whuch would be close to my GS500F's 54mpg, and not really worth the upgrade, if it wasn't for the 50lbs lighter weight.

Is Yamaha usually modest about their MPG ratings than Honda or Kawasaki?
I see the Ninja 300 gets upto 60mpg, rated 66 on their website, and the Honda CBR300 gets 66mpg, 71mpg rated on their website (All US MPGs).
I suppose their websites use imperial mpg?
Are we to expect the R3 to get below 50mpg, 54, or when ridden conservatively (40mph), could we see mpgs within the 60s of mpg?




From online dyno pics it appears that the bike does 121mph @14k rpm, or doing 117 rpm per mph.
Those are some short gears, and geared worse than my Rebel doing 100 rpm per mph (or 4k rpm @ 40mph, @244cc).

A gear ratio of 117rpm over 1mph with a 320cc engine, should give almost 50% more power than my Rebel!
No wonder gas mileage is also 25% less than my Rebel.

 

[Blueballs]

Motorcycles are not practical so worrying about mpg is pointless, just buy what you love and remember that it still kicks a cars ass in mpgs.

 

[YR3]

Welcome to the forum

 

[OneTwo]

Hi,

New on the forum, and like my name suggests, I love riding economically; and was on the market to look at some bikes.

I have a Rebel250, great for town and ez-rider stuff, great on gas, but top speed is only 85mph.
I needed something bigger, and the next step up will be Honda's 300cc bikes, a ninja300, or the R3.

Honda was too small for me.
Ninja was ok, but gas mileage was worse.
And the R3 has even worse gas mileage, but from the reviews is more aimed for the streets than for the tracks.

Currently I have a GS500F for the interstate rides, but have lousy gas mileage on it (below 50mpg on the interstates).

Now, I was surprised that the R3 is rated only 57MPG, whuch would be close to my GS500F's 54mpg, and not really worth the upgrade, if it wasn't for the 50lbs lighter weight.

Is Yamaha usually modest about their MPG ratings than Honda or Kawasaki?
I see the Ninja 300 gets upto 60mpg, rated 66 on their website, and the Honda CBR300 gets 66mpg, 71mpg rated on their website (All US MPGs).
I suppose their websites use imperial mpg?
Are we to expect the R3 to get below 50mpg, 54, or when ridden conservatively (40mph), could we see mpgs within the 60s of mpg?




From online dyno pics it appears that the bike does 121mph @14k rpm, or doing 117 rpm per mph.
Those are some short gears, and geared worse than my Rebel doing 100 rpm per mph (or 4k rpm @ 40mph, @244cc).

A gear ratio of 117rpm over 1mph with a 320cc engine, should give almost 50% more power than my Rebel!
No wonder gas mileage is also 25% less than my Rebel.

Get a 125, mine returns near 90 mpg

 

[EcoRider]

High MPG isn't my only goal.
I get 90MPG out of my Rebel 250 too.
sometimes 95MPG if I baby it.


A bigger bike allows me to use it on highways and interstates as well, to reach higher top speeds.
It is possible to get 95MPG out of a 300cc bike, when going 40mph continuously, with changing the gearing.


The R3 could get me to 85-90MPH easily, and to 100-110mph before running out of breath, while still getting great gas mileage at lower speeds.




From an eco point of view, a 125cc is great for the city, riding 1 person, but doesn't have a lot of power to accelerate much faster than cars (unless it has a cvt).
I've gotten 110MPG out of my 127cc.

 

[Aufitt]

Seriously dude,
Eco people are in the 0.0000000001% of the riding population,
and you've posted so many mistruths about bikes and gearing.


Keep it here in your own thread, and I'll address it so I don't join your spamming every thread

The r3 can overtake in 6th gear means it's hopelessly undergeared for day to day use.
It's geared lower than most 250cc bikes, acceleration at cost of mpg.
I've been looking at that, and for me to get normal acceleration out of the R3 will be very hard.
Upgear by 50% seems necessary, which is quite a lot.

The cbr can have acceleration in top gear, when you'd downgear it.
But then you won't have the top speed, because of its lower rev limit, nor the mpg.

Any bike that gets over 75mpg would accelerate slow.
There's just so much energy that you can get out of fuel.

My cbr250 went faster with 13T front,
Im talking real GPS speed of 162kph , not Indicated speeds of 171(14T) and 175(13T)
And with the 13T it could do it every day in a tenth of the time not just down hill on rare occasions.




The R3 is about the last bike for driving miss daisy lugging it way outside its design brief and the laws of physics.

 

[EcoRider]

Seriously dude,
Eco people are in the 0.0000000001% of the riding population,
and you've posted so many mistruths about bikes and gearing.


Keep it here in your own thread, and I'll address it so I don't join your spamming every thread







My cbr250 went faster with 13T front,
Im talking real GPS speed of 162kph , not Indicated speeds of 171(14T) and 175(13T)
And with the 13T it could do it every day in a tenth of the time not just down hill on rare occasions.




The R3 is about the last bike for driving miss daisy lugging it way outside its design brief and the laws of physics.

There are a whole bunch of people who would agree with you, and few who agree with me.
Lugging an engine is less of an issue of the gearing, and more of an issue of how you ride it.

Economical riding is just smart riding.
A lot of people ride smart.
Not all of them are hypermiling, and neither do all people who hace a sportsbike ride it like on the tracks.
Unfortunately there are more people riding like idiots, than riding it economically or safely.

Most people are riding in between.

Concerning lugging, I don't lug my Rebel, and it's geared way heavier than this 320cc.
If anything, this bike is undergeared, and making the gears 50% taller is only overgearing it by about 25% or so.
The gears on the R3 are ridiculously small!
They're not even practical for anything else but track riding.

It's got 6 gears, but for normal riding it only has 3 to 4 useable gears.
triple or quadruple down shifting just to make a turn is just plain stupid!

If you take most 350cc street bikes from the 70 and 80s, you'll see they're geared much better, and much similar to what I'm suggesting.

I just don't get why street bikes need to be geared for the tracks..

 

[Aufitt]

It runs 14/43 sprockets with a 0.800 sixth gear. *Canadian Owners manual


12,240rpm in 5th gear is 177kph *Youtube dyno vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9taWzzThCPY


12,250rpm in 6th is 187kph. *Youtube top speed vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPhPMwfvh_4
It took forever to get there but he made it to revlimiter.


Max HP @ 11300 rpm
Max Torque @ 9300rpm


http://www.akrapovic.com/#!/motorcycle/product/road/15684?brandId=41&modelId=720&yearId=3718


Dyno Graph-
http://az79640.vo.msecnd.net/akrapovicbppmultimedia/97dae65ca3cc4d758a93f7122ac71b4b.pdf


How on earth is it 'ridiculously small' (gearing) ?


It has VERY tall gearing for a high revving small 4 stroke.
Poor little thing would be much faster in the real world if it ran a 45T rear
but emission standards and ride by noise testing always wins, and that's why every bike ever made has gearing slightly on the tall side.


When a bike is topping out at the rev limiter, its optimum gearing.

 

[EcoRider]

It runs 14/43 sprockets with a 0.800 sixth gear. *Canadian Owners manual


12,240rpm in 5th gear is 177kph *Youtube dyno vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9taWzzThCPY


12,250rpm in 6th is 187kph. *Youtube top speed vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPhPMwfvh_4
It took forever to get there but he made it to revlimiter.


Max HP @ 11300 rpm
Max Torque @ 9300rpm


http://www.akrapovic.com/#!/motorcycle/product/road/15684?brandId=41&modelId=720&yearId=3718


Dyno Graph-
http://az79640.vo.msecnd.net/akrapovicbppmultimedia/97dae65ca3cc4d758a93f7122ac71b4b.pdf


How on earth is it 'ridiculously small' (gearing) ?


It has VERY tall gearing for a high revving small 4 stroke.
Poor little thing would be much faster in the real world if it ran a 45T rear
but emission standards and ride by noise testing always wins, and that's why every bike ever made has gearing slightly on the tall side.


When a bike is topping out at the rev limiter, its optimum gearing.

Well, I'm not going to elaborate much on it, but yes,
It would be optimum gearing for top speed purposes; not for comfort riding, where larger gear spacing matter (which is what most people be doing 90-95% of the time on the road, riding the legal speeds; not on the tracks).


One could very easily make a 2 or 3 speed bike with exactly the same final gear ratio.
Then the gear spacing will be too tall.
It's not about the final gear, although making that one taller will help significantly in increasing MPG, and lowering rpm.

 

[Aufitt]

Max torque at 9300. max power at 11300.


A cbr500 tractor would be a far better proposition for you,
it gets 20% better mpg for starters, and is one of the only bikes that could possibly handle taller gearing and 4000rpm.
better still a big scooter since you don't like to use the gearbox properly.

 

[AJ Nin]

If you can truly open the throttle at 25 mph in 6th gear as one review wrote, and not lug the engine and go all the way to top speed, then 6th gear is very tall. Typically 25 mph would put you in 3rd gear (2nd with aggressive riding) on 300 cc bikes. Someone also said 1st gear is taller than the Ninja 300 1st gear. That would be an improvement since 1st gear on the Ninja 300 and Ninja 250 is very short. I will have to ride the R3 to see for myself, but it seems strange you would have a long 1st gear and a very long 6th gear. Sounds like you could go from 1st to 6th gear. Someone is probably mistaken. I still say you can't be going 25 mph in 6th gear and open the throttle without lugging and I wouldn't even ask anyone to do this since it is not good for the engine.

 

[EcoRider]

True,
But if you're only using 6th gear at 25 mph to maintain speeds, the bike should have enough power for that.
Want to accelerate?
Downshift 1 or 2 gears.


The majority of my riding is at a constant speed; mostly between 40 and 50MPH, occasionally 35MPH.


I don't want to lug the engine, so will never accelerate full throttle at those speeds in 6th gear (when the bike does 3-4k rpm).
Riding in this fashion should not damage the engine.


But if I would want to accelerate fast, I probably will need to shift down 2 or 3 gears.


I think it's nice to have the option to accelerate fast, but also the option to ride economically when I want to.
Most of my riding isn't spirited anyway, so the R3 may be not 100% the right bike for me. But it could possibly suit my needs, since it's really the smallest displacement I will want to take out on the interstates for prolonged rides.

My Rebel 250 is kind of working too hard maintaining speeds of 80+ MPH.