Just added up the fuel receipts from my trip to Brno...366 euros:frown: I can't really blame the bike, it averaged 38.7mpg despite being thrashed mercilessly, but these trips are getting ridiculously expensive these days. I'd have got there quicker and saved a load of money if I'd taken the van. It's made me question why I bother. Of course there's no price tag on excitement or enjoyment, but I could've had an all-inclusive holiday in Mexico for the money I spent last week. I could slow down of course, but hey, I'm a biker and the whole point of the trip is to have some fun. But it's making me wonder if it's time to ditch the big bikes and go for something small, nimble and frugal, and get my kicks off the main arteries. Let's face it, fuel ain't ever gonna get cheaper:frown:
Biking hasn't been travel for yonks. It makes no sense for me to go from Switzerland to England on a bike. A plane ticket is a fraction of the price, I can get up in the early morning and still be in London before the shops open. Biking is a sport, like skiing. You don't think how practical or otherwise it is to drive to a resort, spend a lot of money on a lift pass so that you can go up and down all afternoon. You just do it for the fun. Biking is great fun (unless you're in leathers in over 30° heat). Forget frugality. It's just the cost of high-end motorcycling. Of course, if you think you could have just as much fun low-end motorcycling, go for it. But at the end of the day, when you've paid for depreciation, insurance, tax, bling, servicing - the cost of fuel is almost neither here nor there.
its all relative. if i take the land rover to work it costs E50 a week, but if i take the monster E18 a week, win win lol
I disagree, fuel is one of the biggest expenses for many - unless you buy new bikes rather than secondhand of course, but then you already know you're gonna get walloped by depreciation. Servicing is something that again affects new bike owners more than used bike owners, and insurance is a pittance compared to the amount you'll shell out in petrol. In 1990 I was dispatch riding, and getting concerned about how much petrol was cutting into my profit. It was getting up to 50p per litre then. Now look at it, 3 times the price. I took £800 with me on holiday last week, and nearly half of it went on fuel; that's a hell of a lot of beers down the drain:frown: Most weekends I'll top the tank up and go for a blast, and the cost doesn't bother me, but I like to get away a couple of times a year, it's what I do, why I ride a bike. And it's starting to hurt.
when you can do a 3000 mile round trip for £100, I cant even imagine a quicker easier and more cost effective way of travelling than flying. The fact jet A1 is now much more expensive than it used to be (almost as expensive as pump fuels) it shows how incredibly clean and efficient planes really are. Imagine the amount of congestion and pollution it would release if all of the air miles flown were done by road, not to mention all of the extra trucks that would be needed to carry the freight every airliner carries.
Doesn't really help though, does it? At the time new sportsbikes were around 7-8 grand, now they're 11-12K. But fuel has tripled in price. Nowadays even big cars are remarkably fuel-efficient, my mates E350 Merc averages 48 to the gallon (according to the computer, which is likely to be reasonably accurate), but bikes seem to be getting worse. With modern bikes approaching 200bhp, isn't it about time they started looking at improving economy as well as performance..?
They never have. People are more interested in the status they get through having 200 unexploitable bhp and the electronic trickery to tame it than they are in fuel economy. The manufactures give the market what it really wants. As the guy who sold me my car said 12 years ago: "puissance = essence" - "power = fuel". You are just in a minority that the market doesn't care about. As for beers down the drain - all beer goes down the drain. Depends if you set greater store by drinking than riding. In 1978, beer was 33p a pint. Look at the cost now. As Dave on the Fast Show says "it's just a load of chemicals and water mixed around in a vat".
We will all be dead soon(ish) and wont have to worry about it. Me? I'm spending it before I go so fook the cost.
