tour reports » Oregon desert buzzard bait

I picked up a slightly used 1250RS in Los Angeles this week and rode it home to Washington State. Along the way I overestimated my gas range while underestimating the distance to the next gas station. After getting the "Idiot Message" to stop at the next filling station display on my TFT screen, it begins counting down the miles left to empty. The empty, sagebrush country of Eastern Oregon can begin to look all the more desolate with each passing mile. I engaged Rain mode thinking that this might help my fuel mileage, reduced my speed to 50 mph and turned on my hazard flashers while hugging the white line all the way to the next town (Riley, Oregon), all the way saying a silent prayer that (A) this town had a gas station and (B) they hadn't already closed for the day. My gas tank mile counter was all the way down to the 1 mile mark when I finally limped into the filling station.
I'd like to think I learned a little lesson about the relationship between the very sporty nature of this particular engine and it's drastic effect on remaining fuel range. Or maybe I should consider carrying a few liters of extra fuel somehow on tour and not rely on the TFT to give me an accurate picture of how many miles I can get out of my tank...

The low fuel capacity is definitely a limitation of the bike. Not so big of a deal in the east where it is rare to be far from a gas station, but riding in the West would require some advance planning.

Sounds like you did everything right.

Plenty of posts on accuracy of "reserve" and range as well as posts of who has put the most into their tank without running dry (4.88 gallons is the most I've heard of...). (Stopping every couple of hours, not a contest in which I care to participate.)

Question is, how much did you put in when you arrived?

(Tank is 18 l or about 4.8 US liquid gallons.)

Zitat von Ray B im Beitrag #3

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Question is, how much did you put in when you arrived?

(Tank is 18 l or about 4.8 US liquid gallons.)

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I filled it to the bottom of the plastic fill neck as per usual. I'm too lazy to go to the trouble of noting how much went into the tank and then how many miles I got out of it, etc., etc..
That's something for the BMW engineers to install on my bike to figure out for me. My job is pilot, and I would rather devote my concentration on that. Lesson learned- all the bikes I've had have their own differences. This one is a hungry little beast and I have to do a more mindful job of fuel inventory...