Yes your are right, its not a good idea to drop too low,for more than 1 reason.

 

I get 14-22 mpg depending on rocks, inclines, altitude. I let it run out one day out of boredom because of the flat trails and roads we were riding in Utah, speedo said 121 miles, gps said 116 miles.

Usually we don't know what kind of mileage we're going to get or how many miles we're going, so if we don't know the loop back or even if there is one, at about 50-60 miles I hit trackback on the gps and turn it around. Spending the night in the mountains out of gas is a hassle. I carry two small fuel paks strapped to the front rack, 2.5 gallons total. All of us carry extra.

 

JimJa, anybody, what do you think, does altitude lessen gas mileage? I hadn't thought much about it other than the air:fuel mixture might take more gas as elevation increases.

 

I ran mine completely dry the other day and showed 90 miles on the bike's ODO. When I mean dry I mean I ran it till it shut off. I done the math and it was right at 17 MPG.

 

From what I have seen high altitude increases mileage some. We put over 600 miles on 2 Outy 800s in colorado last month, we were gettting about 21-23mpg dependent on what trail system we were on and how much low range we had to use. Both machines were getting almost identical mileage. The machine that was stock used a couple of tenths of a gallon more fuel than the machine with the HMF pipe. The stock machine had a standard low alt fuel map and was running a little rich and was also an XT so it was packing a little extra weight. Both machines were running 25" bighorns, that have a 26"+ diameter, so the speedo should have been still pretty acurate for the distance traveled and the tanks were filled up into the neck each time.