I’ve only had to fill up the new DR200 three times so far (had it about a month) and I’m still trying to get a good gauge of how well it’s doing on gas. Today I finally puttered out at about 200 miles on this tank. I flipped on the reserve and headed to the station. My last fillup was after a ~40 mile journey at fairly high speeds, so I was curious how this tank would do with mostly city driving under it’s belt (although it had the journey home from the long trip on it). I topped it off at 2.4 gallons.

199 / 2.4 = 83MPG

83 MPG is better than the last tank and I expect the next to be even better (considering it will be all city driving). Also take note that gas was a little over 3 dollars a gallon if you do the math on the gauge. A HUGE reason for getting the bike was to save gas, and in a future where gas may not will not be cheap, I felt it was a worthwhile investment all the way around.

I got around to getting Robyn to post a etsy listing for one of her paintings. It’s a 16X20 original acrylic which I personally think looks REALLY cool. I almost half hope nobody buys it so we can hang it up at some point. I helped her make her etsy account pretty and we’ll have to see what happens with this peice.

I suppose if you mention that you found it through the blog we’ll have to ship it for free

Took my longest trip so far on the Suzuki DR200 to visit my Dad in Taft, CA from Bakersfield. I opted for the 30 miles of farm roads and corn fields instead of the faster Taft highway route. I’m not sure I could keep up with many cars behind me at 55MPH the entire time. On the long straight farm roads I was able to push the 200cc engine to it’s limits. I got up to about 70MPH+ for a few seconds but it basically feels like it’s going to fall apart at that speed. The DR200 could probably take 50-60 comfortably for quite a while which is fast enough for most general highway riding in my area.

I left Bakersfield with about 100 miles on that particular tank of gas and was pretty confident I would make it there without any problems. I missed a turn on the way which worried me that I wasn’t going to have enough gas, but found a dairy to photo some cows as consolation.

After visiting with the family and playing some Punch Out for the Wii (AWESOME!) I made the journey home. At this point the tank had about 140 miles on it. I had read that this bike had a 3.5 gallon tank so I figured I could PROBABLY make it home with the gas I had left, so I left Taft without getting gas. About 3 miles outside of town the bike died and I realized I had made a mistake. Luckily, the reserve on the bike allowed me to putter back to the gas station and fill up. I filled up roughly 2.5 gallons (meaning either the tank isn’t as big as I thought, or the reserve is a whole gallon) and don’t remember exactly but I had somewhere between 150-165 miles on that tank which means I got 60-66 MPG (although the big revs testing the speed on the way there probably didn’t help). After I filled up, I headed home, enjoyed the scenery and took some pictures on the way.

View Larger Map

The more I ride the bike the more I realize you notice SO much more than you do in a car. You really feel much closer to the land around you. It seems like you almost become super-aware of everything you see. I’ll still drive by places on my bike I’ve visited 100 times in a car and notice something new.