Vishnu Tensleep
Member
I just mounted a Hua Sheng / Hoot system on a mountain bike. After 30 miles of short break-in rides, I took it on a 22.6 mile ride today, in part to get an accurate measure of gas mileage. I live in Seattle, and although I took a fairly flat route for this city, I included some hills, including a couple of about 9% grade.
I estimated the gas used by measuring the depth in the tank before and after, and doing a fairly careful measurement of the surface area (needed due to teardrop tank). By my measurements I used 0.27 gallons of gas, which comes out to right around 85 mpg. While this is more than is advertised by the scooter companies, it's a lot less than the 150+ mpg often touted by a few folks on this forum. I'm interested to hear what folks are getting, and if anyone has any ideas about why my mileage might be significantly lower than others get.
For the record, I weigh about 205, and the bike is a standard old Trek with no suspension. I had about 50 psi in new high-quality 2" road tires. I'm running a 50 tooth rear gear, and the engine seems to settle into a nice cruise at about 20-21 mph. It won't go faster than 23 on the flats (yes I know I'm not supposed to floor it, but I couldn't resist this AM with nobody around...) The 50 tooth gives me nice speed up grades in Seattle - with some pedaling I go about 16 up the 9% hill by my house. Would I get better mileage if I used a smaller rear gear? I wouldn't think so, but maybe others have found this.
Also, towards the end of the ride, there was some occasional power fade, but nothing alarming, and the bike finished strong up the hill to my house.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
My gas mileage
I estimated the gas used by measuring the depth in the tank before and after, and doing a fairly careful measurement of the surface area (needed due to teardrop tank). By my measurements I used 0.27 gallons of gas, which comes out to right around 85 mpg. While this is more than is advertised by the scooter companies, it's a lot less than the 150+ mpg often touted by a few folks on this forum. I'm interested to hear what folks are getting, and if anyone has any ideas about why my mileage might be significantly lower than others get.
For the record, I weigh about 205, and the bike is a standard old Trek with no suspension. I had about 50 psi in new high-quality 2" road tires. I'm running a 50 tooth rear gear, and the engine seems to settle into a nice cruise at about 20-21 mph. It won't go faster than 23 on the flats (yes I know I'm not supposed to floor it, but I couldn't resist this AM with nobody around...) The 50 tooth gives me nice speed up grades in Seattle - with some pedaling I go about 16 up the 9% hill by my house. Would I get better mileage if I used a smaller rear gear? I wouldn't think so, but maybe others have found this.
Also, towards the end of the ride, there was some occasional power fade, but nothing alarming, and the bike finished strong up the hill to my house.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
My gas mileage