CBR 250R

This is my weekend fun vehicle, so I do not ride this bike purely for efficiency, if I did, I would expect MPG numbers of around 65+. I do hypermile this thing somewhat, I will pull in the clutch and coast to stop lights, short shift alot, and tuck down at higher speeds. However, the less efficient riding style that I adopt to have FUN kills gas mileage. But it sounds awesome :).

1988 CBR 250R Yes, its a single R. It has a single front brake rotor, a one piece exhaust system, and a red LINE (not rev limiter) at 18,000 rpm.

Notes about this bike:

History/Acquisition: Made in Japan, shipped over to Canada at some point, bought in Canada and imported to U.S.. Import was easy, no fees, took about an hour, and was easily able to get it titled in Georgia. Speedo cable was disconnected/broken when bought, had 23,000 kms on it. Cable was reattached before riding.

What its like to ride: The first thing you notice about this bike is how short it is, it is very easy to flatfoot with this bike. It is not only short in height, but also in length, it seems that this bike was designed with a 5' 6" rider or shorter in mind if you want to go into a full tuck. The mirrors are almost useless, you have to tuck down to use them since they don't tilt up very far. The bike is very light, and super easy to push around. The engine starts pretty easily most of the time, mine doesnt like the choke at all, i think something might be wrong with it. The starter spins the engine over very quickly, dont expect a wimpy slow ass starter here *COUGH KLX 250 COUGH*.

The engine doesnt rev up very quickly, and the gearing for first gear makes you wait for those high rpms. Top of first gear is a surprisingly quick 45 mph, 6th gear at 45 puts you at about 6200 rpm. There is a red light in the top left corner of the dash that says "SPEED", it comes on when you go faster than 86 km/h. This bike does not like going faster than about 110 km/h, any faster and it starts to get hot, but it does well at lower speeds and does decent in traffic thanks to its working cooling fan.

The brakes were disappointing to me, coming from a VFR 800 with linked brakes and dual front discs this bike's brakes are kinda wimpy. The engine remains smooth throughout the rev range, you can even go full throttle in 6th gear at 3k rpm and it will not buck. The bike handles amazingly, but since i dont have much experience taking streetbikes to their limits, i dont really have an idea how much better it handles than other sportbikes. While this bike is awesome in the twisties, what i think is even more fun is being stopped at the front of the light on an expressway. Take off at full throttle, shift at 18000 rpm for gears 1-4 and you will have a smile on your face the whole time, this bike really shines in the 16-18k rpm range. An 18000 rpm shift from first to second is enough to almost get this bike to do a wheelie :D. Time to talk about power delivery...

Power delivery:

1.5K: Idle

3K-7K: Smooth but weak.

8K-10K: Starts to sound cool, decent power

10K-14K: Meh.

16K: VTEC JUST KICKED IN YO!

18K: Oh my god it sounds amazing!

18.3K: Aww...No rev limiter bounce? Boooo.

Gearing:

Driving style:

Good for gas mileage: Accelerate at 50% throttle and shift at 6200-7000 rpm. Get into 6th gear as soon as possible, hold 6th gear down to 3000-4000 rpm depending on need for acceleration. Some DWL, and pulse and glide. Pull in clutch to coast to stop lights, rarely will i engine off coast. Tuck down on expressways, go speed limit or a few under on expressways.

Bad for gas mileage: 2-3 minutes of warm-up idling before each ride, when at front of stoplight on a high speed road i will go full throttle and shift at 18000 rpm for gears 1-3. I may accelerate hard up to the rider in front of me and have to hit the brakes. Spirited riding on twisty roads (duh).

Some ways I could improve my fuel economy in the future:

Cut warm up idle time to 30 seconds or less, much better acceleration discipline(less unnecessary acceleration), less aggressive P&G(I try too hard sometimes on the pulse and end up having to brake), pump up tires to 40 PSI, lube chain before every ride, more DWL, tuck anytime the speed light is on, aeromods.