Weight loss & a noticeable improvement in motorcycle fuel economy ?

All of a sudden I've noticed my motorcycle's gas mileage go from about
35 mpg to 40 mpg. The bike itself & my daily commute haven't changed.

The bike is a 1996 BMW R1100R with 50,000 miles on it so I doubt if
it's still breaking in (although I've heard that Boxer engines take a
long time to break in ).

I've lost about 20 lbs of weight this year from 160lbs to 140lbs and
my bike weighs 518 lbs wet so to go from 678 lbs total to 658 lbs
total doesn't seem like a lot overall.

Has anyone else lost a lot of weight ( off themselves or extraneous
parts on their bike ) & noticed a fuel economy gain ?

 

40MPG is a much more typical mileage for a R1100 than 35mpg. I only get
35MPG when I'm twisting the hell out of the throttle. I've gotten up to
50MPG in the sierras riding fairly briskly. A lot of it is how hard you
launch at stops, especially in short haul round-town commute kind of
riding. just being a itty bit mellower can make a big difference. Mine
is a 96 R1100RS. Oh, and it ain't about the weight... I'm 230 lbs, and I
was carrying a weeks worth of camping gear on that Sierra run

-jrp

 

At freeway speeds, the frontal area of bike and rider are a pretty
good predictor of total drag, so maybe having gotten thinner has eased
the load a bit.

As John Pierce has already pointed out, your behavior at the controls
probably has a larger effect. Maybe dieting has altered your basic
personality a bit, making you less enthusiastic with the throttle...

Al Moore
DoD 734.