[xenonite]

And there were many mountains in between. Hence, the bike gave 147 miles per gallon, a bit less than Honda's claimed 169 mpg.

[jandrese]

The extra 240lbs of gas at the start probably hurt fuel economy.

[rootusrootus]

It only went 2,599.7 miles, though? By my math that's 91 mpg. They gave up a lot of efficiency to carry around so much fuel.

[RoboRy]

2599 miles / 28.5 gallons = ~91mpg? did they claim 147 in the article? I'm just curious how my napkin math went so wrong haha.

[1970-01-01]

Most interesting is how sponges were needed to stabilize the fuel.

[nickff]

I suspect that the problem could have been solved with baffles (which are the typical solution to sloshing), but that it was impossible to add them to the tank post-manufacture.

[ilyt]

Or maybe just too many of them would need to be addded. At that point tank weighted more than base motorcycle, baffles are used and "good enough" in bigger vehicles that have more wheels for stability.

Sponges are also commonly used in race bikes so I'd guess there are some advantages vs just building a tank with baffles

[spurgu]

Baffles would remove volume as well. But I'm not sure how that'd compare with sponges.

[10000truths]

I feel like baffles would be better because you'd have to fight capillary action to extract all of the fuel trapped in the sponge.

[spurgu]

Makes sense.

[ecshafer]

It seems like it would have been better to do this at a track that is going to be more consistent.

[dharmab]

The sponsor, Acerbis, makes equipment for long motorcycle trips, so this is more interesting to their customers.