Report on the 2011 Las Vegas to Barstow Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge.

[darkvision]

This is what I did last weekend :

Report on the 2011 Las Vegas to Barstow Vetter Challenge.


Alan Smith met me at my home in Livermore CA on Thursday morning( 11/17) and we started our ride to the event on our streamliners. We rode down California's autobahn; US Hwy 5 maintaining 70 to 80 mph speeds.  Conditions were good and we made good time to Barstow where we spent the night.  

The next morning we left for Las Vegas and encountered strong winds.  Alan's streamlined Ninja 250 with its new Vetter tailsection handled well in the winds with minimal corrections while my Yamaha Vision 550 was forced to slow down and countersteer strongly to stay in my lane during the ride on Hwy 15 to Vegas.
After settling in at our hotel we met Beater911 who was in Las Vegas from WA for some training for his job.  We showed him our bikes and discussed our hypermiling efforts.

Beater911 drove us to the Red Rock Casino where the American Motorcycle Association was having a convention and motorcycle concourse. Alan was going to display his streamliner on Saturday with Craig Vetter's Honda Helix streamliner, Fred Hayes diesel streamliner and diesel Streetfighter.  The vintage, racing and specialty motorcycles were awesome.  The event staff asked us to move Alan's bike to the display area before 10 PM rather than early Saturday morning as we had initially planned. We returned to our hotel and returned with Alan riding his bike to the Red Rock loading dock.  We then rolled the 10' long bike into a 9'x 6' elevator and took it to the convention floor.  We rolled it down a long hotel kitchen corridor and the cooks and waiters were intrigued by the streamliner passing through their work area. We placed the bike in its designated spot and then the three of us went out for dinner and a tour of the Fremont Street experience.

Saturday we returned to the motorcycle concourse event, answered questions about streamlining and motorcycle hypermiling, and visited with other motorcycle presenters.
The AMA Hall of Fame inductees then did an autograph signing and we had the privilege of meeting motorcycling legends such as Kenny Roberts, Wayne Rainey, and Bubba Shobert, Bob Hannah, Malcolm Smith, Craig Vetter, Cook Nielsen and too many other legends to list.  It was great! The day flew by and we helped Alan get his bike back to our hotel.  We then got together with the Vetters, the Hayes and the Chens for dinner, socializing and some discussion about our fuel economy run on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning we topped off our tanks and met at the Red Rock Casino for the start of our fuel economy run to Barstow.  The ride was almost all freeway miles under cold and windy conditions. We rode up several 4000'+ passes on the climb up to Barstow. The conditions were the hardest to date of all the Vetter Challenges.  We all were able to maintain a 65 mph to 80 mph Pace to Barstow.  My bike was the only one to be significantly effected by the strong winds. Beater911 joined us and took photos and video of the ride, and then returned to Vegas for his flight home to WA. He did a great job helping to support our competition and the motorcycle hypermiling cause. Hopefully he will start work soon on streamlining his motorcycles.

We cruised into Barstow and assembled for lunch.  After lunch we topped off out tanks and found:  1.  Fred Hayes, HDT streamliner , 138.2 mpg,   2. Alan Smith, Kawasaki 250 streamliner , 95.9 mpg, 3. Josh Chen,  HDT  Streetfighter,  95.3 mpg,  4. Craig Vetter, Honda Helix streamliner, 92.9 mpg , 5.  Vic Valdes ( Low&Slow) , Yamaha Vision streamliner,  61.9 mpg

Compared to the 2001 Quail Run, my bike improved from ~56 mpg to 62 mpg on a faster, uphill ride with cold and windy conditions. I'm pleased I was able to significantly improve the efficiency of my bike but the performance gap between me and my friends indicate that my bike is too large, and produces too much power to compete with 250s and the diesel bikes. I need to get a smaller bike and streamline it to start getting competitive. I will probably do a little more work on my Vision to achieve a 70 mpg tank fill but I plan on looking for a new Vetter Challenge bike.

After the event debrief Alan and I started our ride back home.  We encountered rain, strong winds and temperatures as low as 37*F.  We stopped in Bakersfield and had dinner with Craig.  We left on Monday morning for the ride home to the SF Bay Area, encountering lots of fog between Bakersfield and Fresno. Needless to say, it was a great trip with hypermiling, motorcycling and friends.

I hope you all enjoyed this report and that you and your families have a great Thanksgiving holiday.

[fret not]

Hey Vic, do you have some pics of the event?  At least your bike and the 250 Ninja, please. ;)

How about a XZ400?  Or, like the Ducati V1 on the kneeslider site, that uses the rear cylinder as a super charger for the front cylinder.  The builder got a small increase in performance with half of the displacement.

[supervision]

  Way to go Vic !! You deserve a medal for your efforts. I can't believe you still got that good of milage!  Those side winds are tough to handle. Hopefully you were dressed warm enough through that fog, on the final leg.

[darkvision]

Thanks!!  It was alot of fun.  Here is the link on Vetter's website, it has some better pix  http://www.craigvetter.com/pages/2011-Streamliner/2011-vetter-streamliner-p50.html

[VisionMeister]

Very interesting Vic. The Vision is probably not the best platform to start with, but with your incremental mods, it keeps improving.
Have you though about trying a smaller carburetor? 2mm could make a hug difference in low and mid range. Carburetor swaps are difficult, but I was thinking a spare set of venturis could be built up with epoxy. For the mileage goal you don't need the top end.
Varying the cam overlap slightly, by slotting out the timing notches, could go hand in hand with a smaller venturi to improve the low end. Ducatis Multistrada is using what they call the 11 degree motor, 11 degrees of overlap.
One thing I notice in the bikes shown, is that they all maintain a fairly stock upright riding position. Why doesn't anyone in this challenge try working on a low set seat like Gurney's Gator? or even possibly a kneeler concept, like was banned from GP racing years ago? Low height is a big key to reduced frontal area.
Thanks for keeping the Vision in the public spotlight.
Sounds like fun. 

[darkvision]

Craig, Thanks for the suggestions.  The Vision is limited by its larger, more powerful engine, size, weight and shaft drive.  I would like to break the 70 mpg barrier, which I think I can do now or with a few more minor mods.  For future fuel economy competitions I've started looking for a 250 cc, Probably a Kawasaki Ninja 250.
The reason you don't see the riders crouching forward more is that the point of the Vetter Challenges is to produce comfortable, practical motorcycles that can keep up with traffic in all conditions and still get great fuel ecnomy  rather than just tiny, slow motorcycles fit only for fuel economy competitions.  The Vetter goals are the capability to go 70mph into a 30 mph headwind,  ability to carry 4 bags of groceries and to get over 100 mpg.  So far only  Charly Perethian, Fred Hayes( 3 times) , Alan Smith and Craig Vetter have been able to it during the competitions. Also during the Challenges if you are passed by the designated trailing vehicle ( usually Craig V ) then you are eliminated.  The ride are at a spirited pace so the the use of "hypermiling techniques is limited.
Merry Xmas,    Vic