Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Fri, 18 Nov 2005

I've been sort of frustrated with the Z for the last few days.
I've been getting terrible gas mileage (33 and 34 MPG for the last two tanks), and I haven't been driving signficantly differently from normal. On top of all that, the low mileage makes me more "gentle" with the bike, which means I feel constrained. This leads to weird shift points, which always end up being jerky, as well as a certain gingerness around corners, as if some how cornering at the appropriate speed will decrease my gas mileage.

It all makes me hearken back to the Ninja 250, with which the very worst gas mileage I ever got was about 43 or 44 MPG. With the 250, I quickly figured out how to shift and accelerate and use the engine to best advantage without all this jerkiness. The extra power the Z has is nice and all, but I'm just not sure if it's worth the tradeoffs.

Then, of course, I remember that the reason I got rid of the Ninja in the first place was that it wasn't standing up to my weight very well. The creaking made me feel like the bike was letting me down. So, that's not really a good long term answer, either. Other riders have reported living with the creaking for many thousands of miles and never having a problem beyond the noise, but I had a hard time seeing beyond it.

All of this leaves me thinking that the motorcycle industry has basically left me without any choices. There are no 400-500cc bikes with reasonable performance, light weight and good fuel economy, yet which are still sturdily enough built to withstand my weight and in-city riding habits in the long haul. The Ninja 500 comes close, but I don't have the impression it's enough of an upgrade on the 250 to be worth the extra money.

The Ninja 650R, which is new for 2006, could be a good choice, but it's still oversized for what I need. The Suzuki GS500 is apparently a worse choice than a Ninja 250 (although I don't recall now what the reasons were). There are a few other 250s, but they're all either cruisers (and therefore quite uncomfortable for me), or the Nighthawk, which is like a horrible joke of a motorcycle. In the current market, there are no street bikes in the 251-499cc range. Suzuki actually makes quite an interesting looking bike called the DR400SM (I think), which is a dirt bike converted for on-street use, but it's $6000 or so, and is therefore vastly overpriced for my purposes. I could find some used dirtbike and do something similar, but it would be expensive and time-consuming.

I'm not really going to do anything about all this, in any case. I have the Z, it's practically brand new. It does everything I need it to, just not as efficiently as I'd like, and I still haven't gotten the hang of driving it after 1500 miles.

Someday, I hope I'll find the bike that's actually the right bike for me, instead of a compromise.

Posted at 00:34 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.