Petrol Roulette

[p.dath]

Why do guys play petrol roulette? I don't know any woman who do (do woman play petrol roulette?).

Petrol roulette is a bit like Russian roulette, except there are usually 2 to 4 barrels firing in rapid succession (much a Gatling gun), but you lose when there is nothing left to load into the chamber.

How can you recognise when you’re playing this game?

• At the start of your journey you tell yourself you have enough petrol to make it.
• Halfway through the journey to tell yourself you "should" have enough petrol to make it.
• Despite not being 100% confident you have enough petrol to make it, you see an upcoming petrol station BUT still ride past it telling yourself you can make it.
• You start riding in top gear, and going easy on the throttle "just in case".
• You spend more time looking at your trip meter than any other part of your instrumentation.

Losing petrol roulette is crap. It usually means pushing a bike quite some distance or calling for help.

Winning, well winning isn't that great. I think it is more a sense of relief, than a "high 5" moment combined with a loud "fuck yeah I made it" call.


So why do we play this game?

[Latte]

Lazy ... less stops = more riding!

[White trash]

We do it constantly on a Sunday afternoon, knowing full well there's not enough gas in the car to get to the bottle store and back, but it's hilarious fun "running the gauntlet".

Should be an Olympic Sport I reckon.

[simpy1]

Losing! It's 'losing'! Loosing is not a word! (Unless you sing in the toilet. Which would maybe be 'loo-sing' (n) as in I'm having a loo-sing.)

This bizarre phenomenon has spread across the world and to NZ. It must be stopped!

[admenk]

Losing! It's 'losing'! Loosing is not a word! (Unless you sing in the toilet. Which would maybe be 'loo-sing' (n) as in I'm having a loo-sing.)

This bizarre phenomenon has spread across the world and to NZ. It must be stopped!

Yeh, spell it right, you looser

[slofox]

Sometimes it is possible to end up playing this game by accident...welllll...sort of by accident anyway...

Let me elucidate:

I can get anywhere from about 180km to 250 km on the vixen before the fuel warning light comes on.

Some days I head out thinking there's enough range to get from A to B and return without grief. Given "moderate" and "sensible" riding habits IYKWIM

Then the sun comes out, the traffic is low, the road is dry and the demons get loose and "moderate" and "sensible" degrade into an insane fang over the hill road...and the warning light comes on when you are just about ten km further from refuelling than you have range left...

So you slow waaaaaay down and pootle it gently towards the gas station - just as outlined in the OP.

So far, I have always made it home. The worst time was probably when I got into the gas station and the tank took more than it is supposed to hold to fill back up...musta gone into negative fuel reserve there at some stage...I didn't know they even had that function installed...

[imdying]

Losing! It's 'losing'! Loosing is not a word! (Unless you sing in the toilet. Which would maybe be 'loo-sing' (n) as in I'm having a loo-sing.)

His posts are generally formatted well with good spelling and grammar, you could cut him some slack. Try the rep system?

I've run my bike empty to see how many litres (it counts them as you use them when you hit the virtual reserve) the virtual reserve really is.

[p.dath]

Losing! It's 'losing'! Loosing is not a word! (Unless you sing in the toilet. Which would maybe be 'loo-sing' (n) as in I'm having a loo-sing.)

This bizarre phenomenon has spread across the world and to NZ. It must be stopped!

I just ran it through Microsoft Word, and it corrected about 4 or 5 errors. I also discovered I should be using "lose" and not "loose".

Perhaps we could have spelling roulette?

[Swoop]

This bizarre phenomenon has spread across the world and to NZ.

Here I was thinking it was indigenous to KB.

[steelphoenix]

There are many poor students all across the country that play this game... (though not necessarily on bikes).

[C.Linnell]

Winning is losing too though, because when you leave from your destination you have to find a petrol station really really soon, and you probably left late so you're only going to be worse off!

[YellowDog]

Yes, I'd agree that most females don't play this game.

I do play the game, but I also cheat. I know that the Ks to go display will go down to Zero and will still not be completely out. I have always got fuel before zero; except for last week when I felt sure it was wrong. It showed 44km to go at stop and then the computer reset at my mistake with a false start, which meant it could not take a reading. I ran a further 30 Km before getting fuel.

It's an odd habit and I would ideed sulk with my misfortune if I were to ever lose

If you know your bike well, you won't run out

[MarkH]

I carry spare petrol, so I should be able to get a further 30+ kms if I run out. But I haven't yet run out, although I have gotten down to ~0.5L remaining.
It is a bit easier when you know not only how many kms you have ridden since the last fill, but also the average litres per km since that fill up.

[Edbear]

When one is old and unfit, one tries not to play any game that may result in having to push anything heavy any distance...

[specter]

I can get anywhere from about 180km to 250 km on the vixen before the fuel warning light comes on.

i can do 320 on the sem fiddy, with and additional 60km on reserve (that i know of)