Hi Mike:
___Thanks for posting the details from my call last week!
___Lugnuts001, although I will incorporate much of this into the review with pics of the fills, the bike, some vid on the highway and Kawasaki’s Jeff Herzog giving a quick overview, this is a nice start... The Press Pics I used for his spec page is the
Exact bike I was riding! I picked it up with less than 80-miles on its ticker in fact
___The bikes speedometer/odometer. I checked the speed/distance next to the Lexus HS250h while on the highway and found the speed to be 2 mph over report at 50 mph. The HS 250h at 50 showed the bike reporting 52 mph. Distance was dead on over the very short 1-mile test.
___I was on the I-110, I-10 and I-5 for the 46.0 miles of highway segment and speeds ranged from 0 to 55 mph. There were backups but thanks to lane splitting and alternate exit ramps, I was mostly able to keep the bike moving through the 3 Stop and Crawls encountered on the way from LA to Irvine, CA.
___For the city drive, I have never been in such a mess for that period of time. I hit the downtown streets driving from 3rd and Figueroa up to Western, over to Santa Monica, Hollywood and Sunset and than up into the Beverly Hills area. Schools had let out early and it took hours to get up into Beverly Hills. Even up there, there were two light movements and bumper to bumper traffic. Very heavy and I have to wonder why everyone doesn’t ride a bike to keep moving vs. the stop and crawl nature of downtown LA on that day.
___For the second days ride, I left after 06:00 PM from the same location and although I intended to head out the same route, traffic was literally stacked up and at a standstill for as far as the eye could see on all the majors heading North. Accidents and heavy traffic appeared to be the cause as I did run across two ambulance/LA Police officers at two scenes. I ended up paralleling the 101 and ran up into some neighborhoods. Since I am not all that familiar with downtown LA and it was night, I ended up riding a figure 8 around the tourists areas as I cross through Hollywood and Vine 4 times attempting to get back to downtown. Frustrating yes and I thought for sure it had eliminated any chance of the KLX to hit 100 mpg as I bet most of the two afternoon and evening rides were spent in First, Second and Third gear for at least 75% of the rides. I was FAS’ing at every stop of course but the continuous slow downs, stops and reacceleration’s was causing me to wonder if reaching 100 mpg with this bike (or any bike???) was in the cards.
___The first fill up was on the day we were leaving so the Cold Blooded KLX whose Choke causes a 3,000 + R’ period to warm up was performed 3X’s. It was a relief to open the fuel tank and seeing fuel in the upper portion of the tank. Topping off yielded a surprising 101.9 mpgUS.
___Fas’ing while on the move on this bike was an absolute dream. Drop her out while holding the clutch in, let the clutch out and she never failed to start, hesitate, sputter or in general cause an issue. Just off and than on again. When coming from a stop however, I had a few issues until I learned what was going on. When stopped at a light or sign, I was initially stalling about 50% of the time when trying to pull the bike up off the starter. Since its carbureted, I suspected I might need to add a small amount of throttle while spinning it up when warm. Wrong move as it would flood and you were sitting on the starter while trying to clear the cylinder. I was thinking in my head this is going to suck until maybe the fourth or fifth stop and I tried just leaving the throttle off while cranking her over. Now it was 100% of the time she pulled up which added FAS’ing at a stop to the bikes repertoire.
___For the highway portion described above, I figured the mighty KLX was going to fall back into the low to mid-90’s and ruin the chance for a 100 mpg review. Just before dropping the bike off, we pulled into a Shell and the KLX gave me yet another surprise. Top off to top off and it yielded almost 111 mpgUS and this was far more than I would have guessed it was worth given the mostly 5 to 6,000 R ride.
___Between the XT 250 we tested two summers ago, the CRF230L we tested last year and the KLX250SF, the KLX250SF is hands down a far better highway bike. The FE while at higher speeds matched the XT250 which was really surprising let alone the much improved power and top end. Due to its mostly street nature, it not only held the road but added quite a bit of confidence amongst the hazards that riding in downtown LA present.
___An additional item is its top end was 85 mph which may have been 82 to 83 mph in a tuck. Sitting upright, it was 80 mph or 77 to 78 mph actual.
___Regarding the .25L engines power band, it was having trouble pulling me and the bike below 2,750 R's. The XT 250 and the CRF230L would pull from the 2,400 to 2,500 RPM range about the same. In other words, the ICE was not as refined including additional NVH but from 3,000 R's on up, the SF was definitely much more powerful yet still extremely fuel efficient.
___Good Luck
___Wayne
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