Extra petrol

[Wolf]

Can you switch from ON to RESERVE while riding? It's happened to me twice now (that I"ve felt the sputtering) and both times I've not known whether to pull over. I coudl check my manual...but that's at home and I'm not (more's the pity) right now.

Switch while riding all the time - bike starts sputtering I just reach down past my knee, feel the tap through the gloves easy enough, twist it to reserve position and the engine evens out and I start looking for a service station.

A couple of times I've reached down and felt that the tap was already on the reserve position. Accepted practice in that situation is to start recalling all the obscenities you know...

I've found that most bikes I've ridden will do at least 200km at open road speeds on the main tank before hitting reserve - further if you drop 10km/h top speed when you know you're running low on gas. I rode from Wanganui to Palmerston North to Hamilton on bugger all petrol - coasting down hills with the bike in neutral and the engine barely ticking over, top speed 90km/h and never exceeding 50km/h in town - because I only had $10 when I filled up in PN prior to riding (at normal speed) to Wanganui and I knew I had no more gas money so the trip back to PN and then home to Hamilton had to be as economical as possible. Back then, a tank of gas was less than $10 but it still didn't give me a lot of margin for error.

[Oakie]

There's bit of a gap in fuel stops between Lake Dunstan and Tekapo. Being on reserve for 30 odd k's and no town in sight is a worry.

Hmmm, you must have been going too fast to notice Tarras, Omarama (two stations) and Twizel.

[unhingedlizard]

Switch while riding all the time - bike starts sputtering I just reach down past my knee, feel the tap through the gloves easy enough, twist it to reserve position and the engine evens out and I start looking for a service station.

A couple of times I've reached down and felt that the tap was already on the reserve position. Accepted practice in that situation is to start recalling all the obscenities you know...

Man, been there. Coasted into a garage once. How lucky can you get.

I wondered if my TDR could get across the desert road once. Only gets 140km to a tank. Thirsty shit. But did a trip in a car and it was only 40odd kms between fuel stations.

[Wolf]

Man, been there. Coasted into a garage once. How lucky can you get.

Try pushing the bike along the road and have some bloke with a trailer stop and take you and the bike to the next service station... only money I had was a $1 - American $1 - note (Sorry Sarge and Waylander, "$1 bill") and the guy at the servo exchanged it for NZ$1 worth of gas (I was not in a position to bargain and he wasn't a money exchange) which those days was fortunately quite a bit.

[Gixxer 4 ever]

Your engine is toooooo small........

So I see you haven't done enough work today. Mr's gixxer has no complaints about the engine and she cried when I wanted to swap to a bigger one.

[Bonez]

Use to carry a 1 gallon steel jerry can in soft panniers, padded by towels years ago on the cb550 on "extended" back country trips. Also came in handy for those East Cape Sunday rides.

[crashe]

Can you switch from ON to RESERVE while riding? It's happened to me twice now (that I"ve felt the sputtering) and both times I've not known whether to pull over. I coudl check my manual...but that's at home and I'm not (more's the pity) right now.

Yep you can do it while riding... In fact that probably the best way.

Find where the tap is when you sit on the bike and get a feel of where it is.

When the bike starts to splutter etc, then lean over and turn it to RESERVE.

Just remember to turn it back to NORMAL when you refuel up again.

[Wolf]

Just remember to turn it back to NORMAL when you refuel up again.

To avoid that "other scenario" I mentioned above.

After a while it becomes almost second nature to switch back on gassing up.

Almost. Unless you're in a hurry and thinking of a dozen things. If you're lucky you'll remember later before its too late.

If you're lucky.

[SixPackBack]

my dad carries extra petrol on is harley in a big plastic bag

[crashe]

To avoid that "other scenario" I mentioned above.

After a while it becomes almost second nature to switch back on gassing up.

Almost. Unless you're in a hurry and thinking of a dozen things. If you're lucky you'll remember later before its too late.

If you're lucky.

Yep I have to admit that I have forgotten to turn it back to NORMAL.
Twice I have run out of gas for the m/bike and had to push the heavy bike.

And a couple of times I have remembered after a little while of riding....

So it is easy to forget to do it.

Now when I fill up, I double check the tap position, even if I havent had to put it on RESERVE.

[Wolf]

Now when I fill up, I double check the tap position, even if I havent had to put it on RESERVE.

I'd be riding to or from work and suddenly come over paranoid, not remembering whether I reset the tap at the last fill so I'd check, groping under the tank at 100km/h convinced I was still on reserve.

Sometimes I'd be right.

[Skyryder]

Don't even think of it. Bin it and sparks come up from the road..............ignition well................like I said don't even think of it.

There's enough shit out on the road with out having to carry it with you.


Skyryder

[Timber020]

Forestry guys use Toucans, they are an aluminium can which is square and is seperated into 2 compartments, one for chainsaw lube and one for Fuel. I use them in my work quite a bit. They carry 2.25 and 1.6 litres. They mount to a packrack pretty well and take a hiding.
www.taylormadenz.com/sl/toucan.htm

[scumdog]

My old sporty had a small tank, use to carry two 2litre Coke bottles full of petrol in a bag, never had problems with that idea but probably not the best eh?

No problem now, bigger tank.

[Wolf]

Get a BMW R80GS or R100GS and get the "Paris-Dakar" tank fitted - 34 litres, from memory. I think that should see you around most of NZ, if not: blame poor planning...

There should be other bike models for which an oversized tank is available. BMWs are not the only bikes used in the Paris-Dakar raid and humongous tanks are the norm - presumeably all the major brands build an adventure bike with a tank that'd bankrupt you to fill (especially at todays prices - Scumdog's coke bottles would bankrupt me at the moment)