Cruising in 6th . . . I was just thinking . . .

[Buckster]

If only they would get the F800R over here......maybe.....

[CycleRob]

The F800R has chain final drive
BMW riders for the most part have bad feelings about that.
Right now, belt FD is at the top of my list.
Look at how well BeltFD has served all the newer Harleys.
H-D is now all belt drive.

[CycleRob]

Out riding today I had a "time critical" stint on the interstate. Accelerating down the highway on-ramp I blend into traffic going 70+ MPH (112.6km/h), the posted speed limit. I fall in neatly behind an 18 wheeler and decide to draft him for a ways, since he's holding a steady but fast cruising speed. My GPS says I exit in 22 miles (35.4km), and I wanted to see the MPG (km/L) improvement the tall trailer body would provide at high speed. It was dramatic. On the level road, calm winds and 3 bike lengths behind the left tire set, the instant MPG reading varied from 80 to 84 MPG (34.01 to 35.71km/L)!! Dropping back further to ~6 bike lengths the turbulence is bad, literally punching me from side-2-side and the draft reduction is gone. Empty road ahead, the reading drops to 58 MPG at 70MPH (24.66km/l at 112.6km/h). Riding an OilHead, that low number would be fantastic, but on my ST it seems low and is disappointing. I got spoiled. Todays MPG average after 92 easy miles (148km), was 67 MPG (28.48km/L).

Amazingly, it is easily capable of exceeding 70MPG (29.76km/L) on a 1 hour ride -IF- most of the riding is 40--50 MPH (64.4--80.5km/h) in 6th gear. No, 40MPH is not too slow to be in 6th gear on near level roads. Even if there are 1 or 2 traffic lights in that 1 hour ride you have to stop at, it'll exceed 70 as long as the accelerations are gentle and along with the cars. A smaller 798cc water cooled DOHC engine with a very sophisticated fuel/ignition management system and belt FD makes it so. BTDT, only I got stuck behind 4 or 5 red lights, yet managed to score 69MPG (29.33km/L). The stops are bad because the engine idling uses fuel to go nowhere and the fact that you have to get back to cruising speed from zero. Oh yeah . . . . it takes a calm and patient short shifting rider too. At least it is very smooth running and responsive when the rider inputs are so minute.

BTW, I just made a dramatic modification to my bike today. I wanted to, and should have done it last year, but because it would be so costly to undo, I hesitated until now. The thought of it finally wore me down. All I can say after completing it is WOW(!) and I'll let the pics do the talking tomorrow night. Any description just wouldn't have the same impact. Besides adding a new function I wanted, it sure will be distinctive in an all bike parking lot. Oh yeah, it's prolly NOT whatever you think it is!

.

[CycleRob]

It was a 300 mile day on Friday. Dropped by the BMWMOGA Georgia Mountain Rally in Hiawassee, GA. About 80 (BMW) bikes there and I had the only F800ST. What's up with that? Absolutely beautiful day, gorgeous setting and picturesque lakeside campgrounds. Only found 1 familiar face there, Danny A.
I was looking for Boxer, but he managed to evade me, prolly having fun somewhere on a small group ride. It was then that I decided to go the extra miles to the Tail-of-the-Dragon at the NC-TN border to check for the rock slide road blocks. Wow, the twisting roller-coaster roads going there are the very best there is. Routes 60 & 19. When I got to Robinsville NC there obviously was a huge Mini Cooper rally staying there. 2 of them were behind me on the 14 mile road trip from Robinsville center to the Dragon. I did not want to go too much over the speed limit, but apparently they did. A few miles down the road there was a passing zone. I heard them gear down and wind out behind me, then swish by me. I decided to follow them. They were certifiable 110% crazy . . . going around blind 35MPH corners at such a high speed (well over 65) I had no safe free time to even read my speedo! After a few curves I backed off and let them go. The ST had no trouble keeping up thru the curves and easily beat them on accelerations, but I was not confident I could stop in time if they smashed into a large parked truck just on the other side of the next blind curve. Phew! That was enough adrenalin for a day.

Stopped in the dragon store parking lot to name save the POI in the GPS, then left for the 318 curves in 11 miles thrill ride. Ah yes, it was very familiar, but I took it in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th on this bike at a moderate pace after seeing the first of 2 parked state police cars. Didn't goo too fast, I just don't slow down much for the curves. Right at the NC-TN border there was a tall chain link swing gate pair spanning the road with a warning sign about the road being closed and only being open 8am---8pm. From the wording I did not get the fact it is closed off from Tennessee side access at the "other" end, miles past our favorite scenic overlook at the power lines well above the dam. I continued on to the end where there were some serious fences and dirt barriers just after the long thin angular parking lot on the right at the end. Make a U-turn and go back. Stopped at the scenic Dam overlook minimal parking area and struck up a lengthy chat with a pleasant 30-ish young lady solo riding the new 2010 silver Honda NT700V, clearly what spiked my interest. Maybe hearing my F800 polite downshifts and smooth entry/dismount changed her first impression. Here is that 60HP bike:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/m ... test-ride/
She showed me the "pass thru" chamber between the integrated side bags where you could store items up to 26 inches long. She graduated from an 1100 Honda Magna, then a Suzuki VStrom 1000, so she was underwhelmed with the power of the bike but absolutely loved the shaft drive. I mostly convinced her that for the type of riding she admitted to, it was "the one", with lovely storage, stellar quality and reliability, with fuel injection but without chain drive. She was surprisingly knowledgeable about engines and motorcycles in general. What other chic knows a Honda Pacific Coast (based on her NT700V running gear) has (NO valve adjustment) hydraulic lifters? When the subject of power and vibration came up, she even said "take it for a ride and see for yourself". I politely said no thanks, wondering how a stranger can be so trusting with some old guy riding her new bike on a dangerous twisty road. I was impressed with the classy modern look of the bike, the Honda build quality, it's shaft drive and practical almost bulletproof water cooled V-twin motor. An excellent Plan A or B for sure. EDIT: Honda stopped making this USA bike 3 years later.

Pushing the envelope on the mandatory return ride, my bike's stock Bridgestone BT-020 tires didn't earn much praise from me when cornering at/over the 99% level. There were 2 police cars parked miles apart on the course, just waiting for a 10,000 RPM lunatic doing over 60 to talk to, I'm sure. My ride was different. I enjoy maximum cornering speed minus the racetrack full throttle to redline, hard stuffing the brakes antics in between the curves. Did not even go much over 5,000 revs. It's a very tight course, unlike anything you'll ever ride. There were 3 separate website camera guys there and I found the April 30th pics on-line like this one:
This one of the 4 camera guys there. BTW, my leaning left over the double yellow line was justified only because the view of the road way ahead was totally visible. I used the rear brake more than I ever have, mostly as I was going thru all the poo corners I encountered with a little too much speed. The ST generates decent enough acceleration for me without a lot of revs or throttle, especially if you weigh about 153 lbs like I do. The fuel cut engine braking decel is also pretty strong above 2,500 RPMs.

I called home and passed on my 8:08PM ETA the new Magellan 1212 listed to my loved one who calmly informed me of the great L.O. supper on the after hours menu. My Zumo450 was sent back for out-of-warranty ($140) repair of it's freezing display so I bought the $79 1212 as the new car/truck unit and bike loaner until the Zumo gets fixed. Really nice, intuitive menu system 3.5" screen GPS that speaks the street names in a soothing female voice. Compared to the Zumo450, the full brightness display in sunlight is weak and when used on a motorcycle, every missed turn recalculation is just too slow, and you miss the next best turn-off before it figures it out!

The twisty mountain state roads (Routes 60 & 19) on the return trip IMO were actually better than the Dragon. Faster speeds, wider sometimes 2 lanes wide roads, very good smooth paving, very sharp curves, much steeper climbs and descents, more distant (safer) blind spots using 4th rarely, 5th sometimes and mostly 6th gear. It was still a warm 73F when I got home at 8:04pm, still grinning about the well over 1,500 sharp curves I had carved without holding up traffic. The rear tire chicken stripes are so very thin now. The Dragon did it again.


EDIT: To fix broken links and add text enhancements.

.

[Boxer]

Excellent report of the Dragon, Rob. I didn't get up to the Rally until about 5PM Friday and had a blast Friday night and Sat. We all kept looking at the sky but it never came until after I got home on Sunday. Here's a thread at our club forum which contains a lot of pics and videos of the rally. I haven't completed my "standard" slideshow yet, but its coming.

http://www.bmwmoga.info/forum/showthread.php?t=2137

[CycleRob]

Continuing on the title's topic . . . I missed it when the main odometer went past 8,000 miles (12,875 km) because I always have the Trip 1 odometer displayed instead. Yes, trip 1, trip 2 and main odometers share the same LCD space and the lower of the 2 protruding push posts (PP) toggle thru them. The upper PP toggles between the chosen odometer display and the stopwatch timer. Pressing and holding the upper PP enters clock reset mode. Pressing the lower PP resets the displayed trip meter (1 or 2). It took a while for me to master those rules . . . I seemed to erroneously press-n-hold the upper PP, thinking I was resetting the tripmeter, see the clock display flashing -then- with a 50/50 chance of doing the correct thing, press the wrong PP that changed the hour setting . . . while flying down the road. I found out the best option is to do nothing and the flashing clock reset mode times-out, in (I just measured it) 4 seconds! To make clock changes, it was correctly decided you have to be "on your toes" within 4 seconds to make the correct PP push.

In spite of my slow-to-adapt to the new and very informative instrumentation, I really like it!! The 3/4 inch tall gear position indicator is bold, fat and easily seen at a quick glance. No more wasted gearshift movements for 7th gear, or unaware you're using 5th gear as 6th gear, because the display tells you what gear you're in. Press the left grip pod's top mounted mode pushbutton to toggle thru the cool OBC functions in another LCD area. Outside air temp, average MPG, instantaneous MPG, average speed and predicted miles to empty. On the left and right sides of the tall rectangular LCD are bar type vertical displays for fuel and engine temp. Tripmeter 2 selectively tells me how far I've traveled since my manual reset to zero at the last fill-up.

On another note, the last few days have topped 100DegF (37.8C) and even after brief stops at 2 far apart traffic lights, the fan does not come on. Then again, I do not exceed 2,800 RPM in the lower gears during this very hot trip/errand. When it's really hot, I frequently can steady speed level slow cruise, very smoothly, in any gear at 1,900 RPM. That allows radiator heat dump from forward motion to keep up with or exceed the engine BTU's added in. The next time I have the bodywork off I plan to add discretely hidden, colored 12V LED indicators for fan running, tank venting valve and air injection backfire valve actuated.

FYI, South America is now experiencing record cold winter weather and rare, big snow storms while where I am right now it is 100.2 DegF (37.89C) with 47% relative humidity at 3:50PM. I'm going for a ride to take care of some errands.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EDIT: After the ride and gas up I figured out the fuel economy. Here's the data:
216.0 miles
$8.62 of Chevron Regular @ $2.599/Gallon
3.317 Gallons
Calc: 65.1 MPG
Bike's OBC shows: 66 MPG

Since there isn't any fuel flow "component" in the fuel system, the milliseconds injection time reading shown in the GS-911 runtime diagnostic chart must be used with rear wheel RPM's to calculate fuel flow and the MPG's. From the consistent close agreement between the calculated and the OBC MPG average reading, I'd say they did a really good job with the programming.

.

[CycleRob]

Saturday, Oct 9th was a 309.7 mile (628.8km) day ride. Left my house at 9:40AM to join the BMWMOGA group ride at Clayton GA that was headed for a 2 day stay at the Ironhorse campgrounds in Robbinsville NC. My friend Danny asked that I join the group the day before when I set the TB synch on his R1100RS as it idled on his bike trailer. Turns out Boxer, the avid camper and BMW F800 GS rider was in that group too when I arrived at the BP station meeting point. I rode with the group for about 20 miles, then lost my patience. I felt like a stallion forced to walk in a circle, powering that rotating kiddie ride. At the re-group of the dozen or so rider engine stop rest, I bowed out and left on a solo ride to Robbinsville NC. I had a plan. I went North to make a big loop on the Cherohala Skyway Westward, then North and East to the TN (North) side of the Tail-of-the-Dragon, then back home. One of the quick rest stops I took revealed a "No Service" display on Ann's newer, tiny, Motorola cell phone. I was in the wilderness.

The bike was running perfect as usual, whether it was taking the 25MPH sharp curves at 50 in 6th or rowing thru the 2-3-4-5-6 changes in the slow or steep hill climbs. The engine is responsive and powerful even at 2,500 in 6th with small throttle openings. The stock BMW satin finish muffler makes a nice deep sound too. The Zumo 450 plays MP3 files and I have country music or new MP3 Mark Levin talk radio shows on the SD chip to listen to, but I just "forgot" to put the earphones on the list or, again, to bring them along. Listening to the stock exhausts' precision tune play is also entertainment to me. I choose the frequency and volume with the throttle and gearbox. Cool. I thought that my planned "big loop ride" would be a lot smaller than it turned out to be. I seem to have enjoyed too much the go "West" portion of the trip on the amazing corners and mountain views of the Cherohala. I realized that about 3PM during the time I was looking on the GPS for the "North" and "East" portions of that loop after the GPS said "Make a U-Turn" when I put in the Dragon store as the destination. That means that any other way is much longer. There was only wilderness or small roads that most likely turn to dirt. Screw that, I kept going. It was now 81 degF (27.2C) and winter's coming soon. I went North on the next main road and kept on going and going. Roads nearly deserted and I was going fast. Sometime later the Zumo finally rerouted and took me to the North end of the Dragon. I zipped thru it, stopping only 3 times for slower traffic (Harleys, GoldWings and cars) to go by while I waited -or- for them to get ahead when I caught up to them again. As all Dragon veterans know, there are many tarred roadside rest patches for that purpose. The Metzeler Z-6 Interact equipped F800ST was rock stable, even leaned way way over. The road was really clean. YeeHaa!

At the stop in the Dragon Store parking lot I got another "No Service" cell display. Bystanders said to me about my bike "I never seen one of those before". My gas stop later on I called home and told Ann my GPS calculated arrival time would be about 8:30 PM. I had a great leftover beef stew from yesterday waiting to be nuked when I got home. It's actually better the 2nd day when the flavors blend. The last hour and a half riding home was in the dark and over the top exciting cranking it thru the sharp turns while watching out for Bambi. Didn't see any deer or dead roadkill anywhere. It was a really enjoyable ride with nature's visual landscape overload, and after almost a 12 hour day ride my sit down discomforts weren't that bad. It seems the riding kept my circulation going. My 2 gas stops calculated to 68.04 MPG (28.93 km/L) on the Cherohala big loop and 58.68 MPG (24.95 km/L) blasting around the mountains. All On Regular grade BP and Shell gasoline (My preferred Chevron/Texaco not readily available). What a great bike it is!

.

[CycleRob]

I was thinking of adding this post in the "Went for a ride today . . . " post, but it really belongs in this one.

It's January 7th now and the Georgia winter sometimes means it can go as high as 50 degF (10 degC). That was today when I left @ 2:04PM to go shoot my new pistol at a state run firing range that turned out to be 27.7 miles away. I posted about it in Off Topic under "Shooting my new Pistol".

Riding there I was absorbed by the ominously dark fully clouded sky and in following the GPS's visual guide displays so I wouldn't miss anything. The final stretch was .3 mile on a dirt/gravel road with not much loose material. On the way home there's 11 miles (17.7km) of boring divided highway thru wilderness that is the smart route, as the side roads don't much go in the same direction. The dark clouds look even worse now with slanting vertical precipitation wave bands. Getting wet would really suck in 49 degF weather! There I am humming along at 60, 65, 70, 75 MPH (95.5, 104.6, 112.6, 120.7km/hr) trying to see if there was a "sweet spot". You know, that speed where the engine has the least vibration or where it just "feels/sounds better". Well, I couldn't decide on one. There did not seem to be any. It was all good. With just over 11,170 miles (17,976km) on it now, it is nearly vibration free at ALL those speeds. Not quite the electric motor smoothness of a Gold Wing, but better than the OilHead was @ 4,100 RPM on the highway. Also, even though it's just 798cc's, there's a big fat punch of power when you roll on the throttle (6th gear) at those speeds.

I just wanted to point it out that if you test rode an F800ST and noticed a little buzz thru the handgrips like I did on my test ride, that buzz eventually goes away after break-in. When/if you DO someday own one, you'll also have to COMPLETELY give up the "check the oil" routine. No bending down to look or necessary engine temperature and waiting period. It does NOT use ANY oil, even during the break-in, where it dropped less than halfway between the full and add marks. I NEVER have had to add oil between the recommended 6,000 mile change intervals. I don't even check it anymore. It's safety wired shut to make it tamper proof. The level is always near the full mark. Add THAT to the list if you need another good reason to trade-in trade-up to a better machine.

.