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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2008_Yamaha_XT250_-_73_mpg_-_Second_most_fuel_efficient_bike_in_lineup.jpgYamaha XT250 – Rated at 73 mpg

Hi All:

___Yamaha is supplying me with a brand new XT250 for a week starting next Tuesday. Is there anything that anyone would like to see or hear about other than the std. maximize her capabilities on local IL and WI roadways?

___I am kind of excited and am really glad I kept my IL M-class license up to date all these years :)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

This should be interesting...

I'll be interested to hear what you can do with this

Could you comment on ergonomics and over-all comfort? - seat height, is the single cylinder kinda "thumpy"?
How comfortable is it when riding all tucked in?

Thanks,

How about off-road mpg vs. paved road mpg? Since this vehicle is mainly used for recreational purposes, I'm curious to know.

Hi Don:

___I have to admit I am a somewhat inexperienced rider as it was almost 16 years ago when I lost my Hurricane 600 to a 14 year old drunk kid in a junk bomb crossing my path. I have ridden bikes whenever I get the chance since then but I can tell by looking at the XT that it will be a more comfortable ride than the Rice Rockets I used to enjoy ;)

___A short story… I took a trip for a motorcycle race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI in 1990 or 91. Temps were in the 95 to 100 degree range and after about an hour and a half, I knew I made a mistake running that kind of distance in the Rice Rocket’s crouch. Do you remember the movie “Gumball Rally”? There was a biker competing while running through the higher elevations or something in below freezing temps. I distinctly remember him driving into a gas station and simple laid it over because he was literally frozen to the bike and couldn’t move (the most hilarious part of the movie that I remember :D). I remember feeling the same way when I arrived at the Road America track and it took over an hour to begin walking normally :)

___Back to your point… I certainly will. I am also really interested is the engines NVH to the rider as it should make for a very interesting ride over many miles of wringing her out.

___C0da, that would be a very good idea. I do not know where a 1-mile or longer dirt road or trail is near me anymore, if anyone does know of one in South Eastern WI, let me know and I can do some off-road/trail FE testing as well!

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi All:

___The bike(s) are ready but I have to wait until tomorrow so the dealership can verify which of the two bikes they received is the review one and which bike the dealer is supposed to be able to keep for themselves to sell off their showroom floor :)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi All:

___A little update.

___The bike was ready two days ago but no temp plates :( Today, temp plates were over nighted but FedEx tried to deliver them at 07:30 AM when the Yamaha dealership did not open until 10:00. Plates are on the truck so the dealer will pick them up on his way home after the shop closes at 08:00 PM CST this evening. Tomorrow it is supposed to be ready :)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi All:

___The 2008 Yamaha XT250 is home for a week :)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/John_and_Jim_of_Lake_County_Motorsports.jpg
John Covell (General Manager) and Jim Parpan (Service Manager) of Lake County Power Sports.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_at_the_pump.jpg
Spec fuel tank capacity: 2.59 total gallonsUS cap including the .5 gallon reserve.
First Fill up actual: 2.326 gallonsUS on top of another ~ .45 gallons of reserve still left.

Picked her up with .8 miles on the odometer. She ran out of fuel in the parking lot at 1.1 miles as I was driving back and forth behind the shop while getting used to her. I drove 4.0 miles on reserve and added 2.326 gallon topped off. Total cap is more along the lines of 2.75 gallonsUS. There is a tank and carburetor Evap canister so it is the CA model vs. the non-CA model with no EVAP canister.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_Right_Front.jpghttp://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_Right_Rear.jpg
A dual purpose an on/off road bike so why take pics only on the pavement :)

Tire pressure specs

Manual Spec
Front Tire Pressure: 18 psi
Rear Tire Pressure: 22 psi

Manual Max Spec (for those of us that weigh over 198 pounds)
Front Tire Pressure: 22 psi
Rear Tire Pressure: 25 psi

Max Sidewall
Front Tire Pressure: 32 psi
Rear Tire Pressure: 32 psi

Oil sump cap: 1.27 quarts w/out Filter replacement. I think I will head over to Walmart and pick up some manual recommend Mobil1 10W-30 Synthetic after I run the first tank through. After consulting with the dealership of course ;)

Engine Break-in

0 to 600 miles -- Avoid prolonged operation above 1/3 throttle. I do not think that will be a problem :)
600 to 1,000 miles -- Avoid prolonged operation above 1/2 throttle.

After 1,000 miles, the engine oil and oil filter cartridge or element must be changed/replaced.

1000 miles and beyond -- The vehicle can now be operated normally.

Starting Emissions

To avoid the possibility of excessive exhaust emissions, never leave the Choke on longer than necessary. The time necessary depends on the ambient air temperature as shown below

Above 50 degrees F requires about 7 seconds of Full Choke.
Below 50 degrees F requires about 35 seconds of Full Choke and about 2.5 minutes of ½ Choke.

Warm Engine requires no Choke.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_Left_Front.jpghttp://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_Left_Rear.jpg
Right at home in the large open off-road spaces.

Quick impressions

You have to be in 5th gear by 25 mph for FE so she is geared really short. Commonplace for any bike actually let alone one with just 249 cc’s.

There is this little button called a kill switch that I renamed the FAS switch :D

Instrumentation

No tach unfortunately but does include two trip odometer’s and a clock.

Mirrors are a bit on the small size for view to the rear.

Suspension

Soft first 2 to 3” of travel to absorb the little road imperfections. Off-road tires can be a little rough as you can feel one knob to the next on the pavement vs. a road bike tire. Expected of course. Surprisingly comfortable for the novice rider actually.

Ergonomics

Yamaha gave the XT250 plenty of off-road ground clearance (11.22” unloaded) but in doing so, the pegs to seat distance place your claves to thighs in a sport bike bend even though you are sitting upright. I will let you know about this one after a few more hours.

FE

I have no idea yet but oh how I wish this had an OBD-II port to plug in some FCD instrumentation. She practically idles along at 26 to 30 mph so I suspect there is going to be some big numbers available given the size of the ICE at maybe 1,700 RPM (total guesstimate) at those speeds? I have internal ratios, sprocket teeth and will do the rear tire height for the RPM calc’s at various speeds later.

The full review will be a while but to start the blog, the above should suffice.

Individuals behind the scenes

I would like to thank both Michael Schmitt and Meredith Penrod of the Yamaha Motor Corporation for pulling some very large strings to have this bike shipped out from CA and setup for the review. I would also like to thank John Covell, the General Manager of Lake County Power Sports for picking up the temp registration last night and taking me to his dealership to pick up the bike this afternoon. And of course the working setup of the bike including the walk through by Jim Parpan, the Service Manager of Lake County Power Sports.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi All:

___Day 1’s ride is over.

___I was riding around the Northern Chicago suburbs to visit relatives plus took a 35 mile steady state slow speed cruise to Racine, WI and back on the frontage roads. I kept speeds down but variable per the manuals break-in procedures. With instructions asking for less than 1/3 throttle, there was enough power to take you to speed without undue stress in traffic even with that little throttle. The one issue where you can tell the smaller engined bike needs that lower top gear is while running at highway speeds. Anything over 50 mph and the Cd with rider is so high (estimated at ~ 0.50) that she really needs the coals applied to keep accelerating.

___First fillup complete with a 97.826 mpgUS showing over 54.0 miles.

___Now its time to take the fight to our level. Anywhere from 20 to 40 mph P&G’s using the Kill-switch to see if a bike can be manipulated like our daily drivers. Although it was only a 17.3 mile segment from the previous fill and was only a touch over 17 ounces (I actually spilled some on the tank lip during the fill :(), the numbers from top off to top off look pretty good at 129.104 mpgUS. This is such a short fill that the FE achieved cannot be reliably guaranteed but I have an idea it could in fact be a nice boost over slow speed steady state cruise.

___I will try and pull a few more miles tomorrow and lock down a type of rate/range even though we are flying literally blind with no tach, no load based parameter and no i or aFCD.

2008 Yamaha XT250 - FE Data

[Date|Odometer|Trip A (miles)|Fuel Fill (gallons)|mpgUS||Total Miles Traveled (miles)|Total Fuel Consumed (gallons)|Total mpgUS|Notes
7-023-08|5|0.0|NA|NA||0.0|NA|NA|Picked up and first fill.
7-03-08|59|54.0|0.552|097.826||54.0|0.552|97.826|Steady state cruise around the suburbs.
7-03-08|6|17.3|0.134|129.104||71.3|0.686|103.936|P&G’ing w/ a lot of work.
7-04-08|156|80.3|0.709|113.25||151.6|1.395|108.674|Slightly heavier throttle, higher Speeds and higher speed shift points w/ P&G.
7-05-08|192|36.0|0.330|114.55||187.6|1.725|108.75|Std. ride out to a gas station 9 miles from the off road trails.
7-05-08|233|40.9|0.494|82.793||228.5|2.219|102.974|18.4 miles of off-road slow speed trails and 22.5 miles on-road.
7-08-08|311|77.7|0.640|121.406||306.2|2.859|107.1|2.2 miles of Horse trails and 75.5 miles of suburb to suburb city travel.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/garage/images/1944.png

___Good Luck

___Wayne

___C0da, that would be a very good idea. I do not know where a 1-mile or longer dirt road or trail is near me anymore, if anyone does know of one in South Eastern WI, let me know and I can do some off-road/trail FE testing as well!

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wayne-

There is a 7 mile long dirt bike area at Bong Rec Area in Racine. http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/parks/specific/bong/

Hi Marc:

___I'll be, I am going to head over there tomorrow! I hope they do not charge a fee for out of state visitors. I will fill up before heading in and then pull maybe 30 – 50 miles in the dirt. Oh is this going to hurt its review MPG’s :(

___One thing I can say that is really great about the On-Off road bikes is if you have to do some business off the road (behind a tree kind of thing if you know what I mean), you just drive off the road and drive back to the road when complete. On my old Hurricane, I never took it off the pavement let alone consider it… The XT250 took me over to the scenic view next to the tree just fine yesterday while I was on the frontage road just North of the IL/WI border along I-94. I was simply looking for deer and critters and stuff behind the tree over yonder… yeah, that’s it :rolleyes:

___Good Luck and thanks for the link to the off-road riding area just a few miles northwest of me!

___Wayne

Thanks for reporting on this bike. I hope you can test other models as well. The gas mileage that Cycleworld, Rider, and others report almost seems to be a measure of how bad the bike's gas mileage can be or in many cases is not even mentioned.

How about doing a test oil change and valve adjustment and tell us if you have to spend an hour removing stuff just to get to the oil filter.

Hi BLE:

___Oil and filter change are really easy as the element is behind a 3-bolt (Allen heads)plate that is easily accessible for inspection and change. The Drain bolt directly under the engine right where it is supposed to be. No cowling to remove for either.

___There is a problem with minor maintenance and the supplied tool kit. To get to the basic XT250 toolkit behind a front panel , you have to remove two screws. Battery, same thing. Screws vs. a lever and release :(

___Adjusting the valve clearances is not in the manual but it is part of the regular maintenance schedule. 600, 4,000, 7,000 and every 3,000 afterwards. And here is lyes the rub. To get to the head, a bunch of cowling has to come off :(

___Idle RPM’s … Because this is a carbureted engine and that device has not advanced much beyond the 1920’s and 1930’s (I am exaggerating), she will barely hold idle when cold without choke. After a minute of warm-up long after the choke has been removed, her idle is way to high. Possibly as high as 2,000 RPM? The Service Manager was talking about it while they were doing their last minute adjustments on this XT250.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

How tall are you and what do you weigh?

I've considered a dual purpose bike...sat on an older model in the shop, but my inseam is about 30" so I didn't feel very comfortable on the bike.

He's 6'1" with a 34" inseam.

He's 6'1" with a 34" inseam.

Sean, you're scaring me.:eek::D:D

I feel so left out with all you tall folk... sheesh ;) I guess being short has an advantage after all.

I feel so left out with all you tall folk... sheesh ;) I guess being short has an advantage after all.

I'm 5' 6" with a 30" inseam...

Sean, you're scaring me.:eek::D:D

He included this info in a rough draft I'm helping him with. ;)

He included this info in a rough draft I'm helping him with. ;)
Ok, I guess I can sleep peacefully now.:) Speaking of sleep, I should probably do that since I have to be on the road to Jud's in about 5 hours.:D

Hi Sean:

___You have a memory like a savant and that useless information just never goes away :)

___WhatIs, this bike might feel a little tall for you? Not when you sit on it as the suspension compresses about 2 + inches (as it should) but to get your leg over it can be a challenge. Fortunately, the turn signals masts both front and rear are rubber mounted so when your leg hits the ones in the rear, they flex out of the way. I have hit them a few times already ;) A problem for the lengthier inseam folks is I am really cramped when on the seat and the pegs. I mean Rice Rocket cramped and after 30 or so miles, I feel the need to get off and stretch.

___Today’s ride and she seems a little more broken in. I changed some items as I thought the .25L ICE was not loaded up near enough to get both the performance and FE out of it during any P&G routine. The owners manual shift points follow:

0 to 10 mph in first
10 mph shift to second
15 mph shift to third
20 mph shift to fourth
25 mph shift to fifth

___These are great speeds with a shallow throttle to steady state cruise!

___What I did was rolled her up to an approximate ¼ throttle point but took the higher gear shift point speeds up 5 to 7 mph. My suggestion.

0 to 7 - 10 mph in first
7 - 10 mph shift to second
15 - 18 mph shift to third
24 - 26 mph shift to fourth
31 - 34 mph shift to fifth

___Depending on traffic and terrain of course.

___FAS’ing when ever she does not need any load coming into a stop sign or light of course.

___Some twists about FAS’ing a bike. There are no headlights/side marker (turn signal) lights off switch so even though there is no fuel pump, you have lights running and the little 12V in this bike cannot take much more than maybe 15 minutes of P&G w/ 30 to 45 second glides in between. She simply does not have enough juice to pull you up with the electric starter at a stop sign or light. Fortunately, you will not be P&G’ing for that long a period ever but I wanted to know when the 12V would run and that is what I found. A push start to about 5 mph, hop on hard in first and you can bump start in case you were wondering ;)

___The 30 mph, extremely light loaded .25L ICE yielded just 97.x mpg yesterday. I was running a higher speed range in my errands today with maybe a 35 mph average vs. yesterday while attempting to maintain a higher load on the ICE in the mix if that helps.

___For clutch starts after avoiding an impediment, no lower than 25 in fifth, 21 in fourth and 17 in third. The XT is actually very smooth if you follow the higher speed starts. If you get stuck under 17 mph, you better have your butt in the air and a quick bounce to load up the rear wheel or she will skid before starting.

___80.3 miles on .709 gallons top off to top off for a 113.258 mpg segment today so she is starting to wake up from the slumber she was in on that first 54.0 miles yesterday.

___Comfort … Well she was comfortable for the first few miles but my rear end is starting to hurt. Besides the short pegs to seat height causing knee joint stiffness as described above, the seat itself includes a very thin foam layer and boy do I wish it had another two inches. Tomorrow I plan on going off-road for quite a few miles and I just know what that is going to do :(

___Comfort at speed. Although I do not have a tach, this thing is really revving when at highway speeds. It is also relatively easy to be blown around by passing cars and such due to the light weight, lightly sprung suspension, off-road and light weight tires, and no aerodynamics to speak of. I would not want to travel at 60 + mph for any length of time. That being said, anything below 50 mph is great with the stability concerns disappearing somewhat. Anything off-road and she feels a lot more at home as there is a sure-footedness that she lacks out on paved roads. The Off-road knobby tires are the reason for the Jekyll and Hyde nature as it should be. I was running a few ditches today to get used to her off-road nature and it was a lot of fun :)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi All:

___Off-road trail riding day is complete…

___C0da, I did some calc’s to come up with a close to the mark FE while off-road. Because the trails were 9 miles form the nearest gas station, there was 9.0 std. road miles on the tank when I started the off-road segment. I traveled 18.4 miles on the trails. These were not fire roads or a std. Motocross track but a beginner loop of about a mile, two deep rutted ATV trails and the final was a nightmare of cat tails, deep grooves, pegs scraping along the edges in many places and lots of rocks. The going was very slow on that last trail with tops speeds of maybe 18 mph and the bottom at 6. That last and longest trail was treacherous to say the least. Once back on the road, I filled at a station another 13.5 road miles from the off-road trails.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_at_the_trail_head.jpghttp://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_taking_a_break_with_the_action_behind.jpg
I actually did start on the beginners trail :)---------------------Taking a break with the real action going on behind.

___Here is the math …

From the fillup prior to hitting the off-road trails, she was sitting at 108.75 mpg over 187.6 miles.

9.0 miles of std. paved road before hitting the trail and 12.5 miles of paved road after leaving the off-road trail site for a total of 22.5 miles. If I was averaging what the total review was calc’ed at (108.75 mpg which seems reasonable), that means 22.5 mi/108.75 mpg = .207 gallons were consumed for the paved road portion. From the on and off-road FE fill or .494 gallons over 40.9 miles, we are left with .287 gallons used on the 18.4 miles of off-road trails.

On-Road: 22.5 miles/.207 gallons = 108.75 mpg
Off-Road: 18.4 miles/.287 gallons = 64.11 mpg

Last tank with those lousy off-road miles came in at just 82.793 mpg.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_a_little_dirt_and_mud.jpghttp://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/523/Yamaha_XT_250_Review_-_Top_off.jpg
A little dirt and mud plus a lot of dust to show for the day.--------------------------This is what the top offs have looked like.

___I did update the tables on page 1 so she is still easily holding above 100 but that short 18.4 miles put a huge dent in her lmpg :(

___Off-road, the XT-250 is competent. It is no Yamaha YZ250 but that is not its mission. It will take you both on-road and off-road with few compromises. While achieving excellent FE… Just the way it is supposed to :)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Swung by one of the local dealers today. XTs are sold out for the rest of the year. As is the TW200 and most other Yamaha 250 class enduros.:(

Hi All:

___Great ride today while running errands around the far Northern Suburbs. 2.2 miles of horse trail riding and 75.5 miles of city riding yielded a really nice 121.4 mpg over 77.7 miles.

___Short peg to seat is still bothersome for longer rides but with < 15 mile rides between stops, it was not really a problem.

___Camaraderie. I still enjoy how other riders still give the left hand under the bars wave to one another. Even Harley riders offer a type of kinship to the non-Harley riders and this is not found in any other vehicle.

___Safety. I am in the habit of using the Hi/Lo beams and cycling them when coming up on intersections to make sure those ready to cross or pull out know a motorcycle is coming.

___Lowering high idle trick when stuck at a stale red (short light) or sign. Release the clutch a touch to grab and pull it back in and the idle will settle down at a more reasonable 1,500 R’s or less vs. the 2,000 + after warmup is complete.

___The only thing left will be some higher speed FE runs out on the Interstate tomorrow, a quick wash and then it heads back to the local Yamaha dealer. A bike I will be sad to see leaving my drive for the very last time :(

2008 Yamaha XT250 - FE Data

Date|Odometer|Trip A (miles)|Fuel Fill (gallons)|mpgUS||Total Miles Traveled (miles)|Total Fuel Consumed (gallons)|Total mpgUS|Notes
7-03-08|5|0.0|NA|NA||0.0|NA|NA|Picked up and first fill.
7-03-08|59|54.0|0.552|097.826||54.0|0.552|97.826|Steady state cruise around the suburbs.
7-03-08|76|17.3|0.134|129.104||71.3|0.686|103.936|P&G’ing w/ a lot of work.
7-04-08|156|80.3|0.709|113.25||151.6|1.395|108.674|Slightly heavier throttle, higher speeds and higher speed shift points w/ P&G.
7-05-08|192|36.0|0.330|114.55||187.6|1.725|108.754|Std. ride out to a gas station 9 miles from the off road trails.
7-05-08|233|40.9|0.494|82.793||228.5|2.219|102.974|18.4 miles of off-road slow speed trails and 22.5 miles on-road.
7-08-08|311|77.7|0.640|121.406||306.2|2.859|107.100|2.2 miles of Horse trails and 75.5 miles of suburb to suburb city travel.
7-09-08|338|27.9|0.404|69.059||334.1|3.263|102.390|27.9 miles of 60 mph speed testing.
7-09-08|355|17.4|0.114|152.632||351.5|3.377|104.086|17.4 miles of competition level P&G -- 17 to 36 mph using 3rd, 4th and 5th.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/garage/images/1944.png

Great review Wayne! Those are the highest mileage numbers I've seen for any XT. I'll have to reference this thread in the XT225.com forum.

Phil

It so sad to see poor, starving tires. Someone has forgotten to feed those tires on that XT250. What a shame!

Now these tires! Oh, yeah! They've been chowing down!

http://qrp.com/sprocket/dsp15.jpg

...but from the looks of your mileage logs, they eat my fuel!

-TR

But, I forgot to ask my question:

What kind of RPMs were you turning at 30 in top gear? ...or any speed in top gear. I didn't see it. I'm wondering if there is adequate power for resprocketing to pull the RPMs down lower.

Is there room in 1st gear for a resprocket to not severely compromise offroadability while attaining a lower RPM figure while cruising?

Hi TheRider:

___This is only a back of the envelope calc (it could be wrong at that?) but here are the rev’s to a mph from the internal gear reduction (3.083), transmission gearing in fifth (0.821), external gear reduction via sprockets (3.200) and the 18” rear tire with an ~ 25.5” diameter. I just eyeballed a tape measure to the rear tire for the 25.5” diameter.

1 Rev of the crank = [(Pi)*(Tire diameter in inches)]/[(Internal gear ratio)*(Transmission fifth gear ratio)*(Sprocket gear reduction)]

1 Rev = [(3.142)*(25.5”)]/[(3.083)*(0.821)*(3.200)] = 9.89 inches

1,000 RPM = (9,890 inches/min) * (60 min/hr) * (1 foot/12 inches) * (1 mile/5,280 feet) = 9.365 mph
2,000 RPM = 18.73 mph
3,000 RPM = 28.09 mph
4,000 RPM = 37.46 mph
5,000 RPM = 46.82 mph
6,000 RPM = 56.19 mph
7,000 RPM = 65.55 mph
8,000 RPM = 74.92 mph

___First gear is really low so a larger front sprocket would probably do the bike wonders as her .25L ICE does not really begin to struggle until after 60 mph. There is a light throttle flat spot between 34 and 39 mph in fifth that I could never get my hands around but a little more throttle always pulled her through it.

___For the 18.4 miles of off-road FE testing, I was using second and third in the real technical trails (what trail???) so there may be a slight issue with an additional 2 teeth to the front but that first gear could still pull you over anything I would dare be messing around on with this dual-purpose bike.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi, Wayne. I had not been following this thread closely due to being so busy, but I just got caught up. A few random questions and thoughts ....

(Potentially showing ignorance here) I've been reluctant to FAS with my bike. If I understand it correctly, the clutch and transmission are getting no lubrication with the ICE off (they're lubricated with ICE oil), so my gut tells me it could do damage cutting it back on and releasing the clutch at speed. Obviously you've deemed it safe for the drive train on this bike. Do you know if it's any different than mine in that regard?

For a stationary ICE-kill, how long of an expected stop do you have before deciding to hit the switch?

I feel your pain at not having a tach or an OBDII equivalent! ;)

One change I've noticed from my previous bike-riding stint 30 years ago. Back then the Harley riders would rarely return a wave to me on my Honda. Now it's routine. Maybe because the typical Harley rider these days is much more mainstream.

I can't imagine what that thing is like on the highway, especially with a cross wind. I had mine out on a windy day a few weeks ago and made the mistake of taking it across a high interstate bridge across a river. I was white-knuckled when I reached the other side. No more. I never pretended to think it was a touring bike, but that eliminated any fleeting fantasy about taking it on a prolonged road trip.

And with my long legs and big butt, I can't image riding that 250 for any more than about 10 minutes! ;)

Hi Jim:

___I do not have an answer for you wrt your Shadow but a manual is a manual. There is no pump so it is a slinger type system and the bottom of the gears are sitting in the sump. I will try and remember to ask the service manager what is going on inside the drivetrain when I turn it in this afternoon.

___A FAS at a light. This one is a bit tricky because of that darned carburetor. On stale red’s, I would FAS into them and assume they were going to be short with a bump start and idle. If this is anything like the old days, that blast of fuel out of the float bowl being vacuum dragged in sounds like a lot of needless fuel to waste. 2-years from now, carburetors will be a thing of the past so this issue will not be important. What will however is starting current. I was stuck twice during the heavy P&G segments at a stop sign on the frontage roads with not enough SoC in the 12V to turn her over. Getting off, a quick run to 5 mph, hop on and release in first to fire her up was fine but you have to be really careful as it is like FAS’ing an automobile at night and the charging system (12V and Alternator) is undersized already.

___For the longer stops, I would shut her down while driving through the suburbs as an example knowing the 12V system was strong (more than 3 to 4 minutes between any ICE-Off time) but I would also shut off the key once stopped and boxed in from behind so as to remove the ancillary and total load from the electrical system in its entirety. In other words, shut down while waiting the light and hope it was longer than 30 seconds or the whole exercise would probably have been in vain as a guess?

___About bump starting… Below 16 mph, I never felt confident as the rear wheel would break loose once in a while whereas anything over 20 mph, let loose in fourth or fifth and she would spin right up. There was always a little fall off in speed but it was minimal above 20 vs. the low speed stuff where you would lose upwards of 5 mph without any brake lights showing during the rapid loss in speed during a bump!!! I suspect it has more to do with the rear wheel’s own inertia vs. any kind of traction issue because that rotating mass adds a fair amount of cranking power all on its own.

___No tach and no OBD-II for feedback was tough.

___The motorcycle community is still close as ever. This is Harley territory given some of the rides occurred throughout much of South Eastern WI (Milwaukee is home of the Harley). I would speak with whatever Harley or Sport bike rider was next to me at the gas station or light and it just goes to show the camaraderie that exists between riders no matter the bike ridden is alive and well.

___Winds and the highway… She is stable enough but her light weight, tall Cg and our tall stature definitely adds to the experience. I would not say I was being moved from lane to lane as the higher speed traffic was passing on I-94 in WI but every time someone would pass, I was moving around in my path about 3 to 6 inches. The high speed FE testing was performed on an almost calm portion of the day so heavy cross-winds would be definitely something I would be watching out for.

___This bike is not a highway cruiser so I stayed away from the highway whenever possible. The XT250 is an excellent short distance commuter (< 15 miles) with any amount of stop light to stop light and slower speed suburban roadways to contend with. All the while returning exceptional FE in the 25 to 35 mph speed range. I was pushing the miles and extended time the first few rides and both my knees and my butt were not happy about it. As the week wore on, I was lowering my actual seat time to less than 30-minutes between stops. That is when I really started to enjoy the XT. I suspect its design philosophy was specifically focused towards the shorter and lighter weight rider who also wanted to have a little fun in the dirt if need be. For me, that shallow padded seat and the seat to peg distance was something I was always mindful of but with the shorter segments, that issue seemed to go away. It is raining here so the bike is still in the garage but before I take it back, I will take some pics with my son on it (29 to 31” inseam) so others will have an idea as to its actual size.

___The enjoyment of a dual-purpose shined bright three times during my week long adventure. When nature called in the middle of nowhere, I traveled off the beaten path a ways. The second time was when traveling to the off-road riding trails last week during which I crossed over a brand new Interstate with the road closed barriers at this particular overpasses on-off ramp. In a car or on a highway cruiser or sport bike, I would have had to pass and wonder. On the XT, I headed off road, around the barriers and I enjoyed a few miles of absolutely empty Interstate in the middle of nowhere while exploring. The third time was when heading home for her final P&G fill. With all the construction going on here, the WI DOT closed down a 1.5 mile section of brand new frontage road just before the IL/WI state-line. What did I do? Well let us find out what they did to the road ;) Into the ditch and around the road-closed barriers… Sure enough, about 1.25 miles up, they had busted the road to smithereens. The XT was built for that kind of roadway and she took it on without nearly a hiccup. That experience occurred during the competitive P&G segment at over 150 mpg too!

___Overall, it was the FE achieved plus the fact it was a bike that made it so enjoyable. Although an Insight might match its FE under similar driving scenarios with a Prius just a stones throw away, an Insight and Prius are not a bike by any stretch. With the off-road and road less traveled experiences, that should answer the question about why anyone would want to own a bike like the XT250. I had a great time enjoying both the on and off-road utility even though I was pushing her for FE every chance I got. The FE achieved was not just respectable but almost guilt free knowing it would take one heck of an effort to work an Insight to this level and it would not have been nearly as fun in the process either :D

___Good Luck

___Wayne