I won't go out of my way to save on the price but I will for better fuel. Especially since I've been told our engines will run cooler on premium fuel. Even though my evo runs ok on 87, it's lasted 156k miles using the best gas I can find.

You can't come out either way but it's what makes the world go round.

Sigh. Where in the OP did I say I couldn't afford to ride?

I guess my part of western Ohio is higher than average. I would love to only pay 3.389 a gallon or less, compared to what they've been charging. I realize my EG doesn't get the gas mileage it should or that my EG evo got, but there's not a lot I can do about it right now. My Chevy truck gets lousy gas mileage but it takes regular and it can do things my sub compact car or mc can't. So for general transportation I use the mc or sub compact, and the truck gets used for special occasions. If I don't have a special need to drive the truck I'll use it for something anyway at least once a week, just to keep it in good running shape.

I've been that poor too, not now fortunitly. Still, just because I'm not that poor anymore doesn't mean I want to unnecessarily throw good money away either if I don't have to. I have to have premium, the EG won't run well and throws a check engine light on anything less than 91 octane. I never said or implied that I was going to quit riding because of the price of gas. If however I can find a group of stations that mark up their premium less than other stations, I will probably patronize those stations.

I know I'm going to have to pay more for premium, I get that. If however I can pay 50 cents a gallon more than regular than a dollar more, I'll patronize that business instead. So yes that only comes out to 2.50 a tankful, which if I was one of those people who just use their mc to ride to the local bar and back in the summer, it wouldn't matter. I'm not one of those people. I never said in the OP that it was a big huge deal, or that I wouldn't be able to afford to ride, if I couldn't find reasonably priced premium. If however there is reasonably priced premium I'd rather buy it than the premium that is marked up more. So far my (new to me) EG runs pretty much the same and gets the same MPG with different brands of premium, so it's not like that's an issue.

I never said in the OP that I was mad about it, but you're right about taxes. Unfortunitely there's not a lot I can do about taxes other than what I'm already doing. Unlike patronizing certain stations or brands, I don't have a choice about paying taxes.

If I'm traveling from one state to another, and I know a certain state is higher priced, I'll fill up before I get to that state.



I use gas buddy too. Unfortunitely when I search for prices in my area many times the mid grade and premium aren't updated like the regular is. My guess is people see the posted prices as they drive by and post those, while premium is rarely posted. The only times I've been able to post premium prices is when I'm stopped at a station actually getting gas.

I can't justify it on cost alone either. Back in the seventies when I first started street riding, the difference was clear cut, not so anymore. My car (Toyota Echo with 350K miles) still gets 42 mpg highway on regular. The EG gets 40 mpg with premium, on a good day. On a bad day it's been down to 32 mpg, but that's very twisty roads in 2nd or 3rd gear with higher revs than just cruising down the highway at 2000 rpm in 5th gear. The EG is not stock however, has some high performances mods done to it by the previous owner. Although it doesn't get as good an mpg as the late stock 98 evo I used to have, the wife likes this one better, so there's positives and negatives to everything I guess.

I'm not a yuppie, and you obviously don't have to be rich to ride one, otherwise I would never be riding one. Most yuppies I've met just buy whatever they want, whenever they want it, on credit. There was a posting that assumed I spent X amount of dollars on my motorcycle, and that was an incorrect assumption. My brother bought a new Harley, paid almost 30 grand for it, financied it. I could do the same thing, I just don't want to be in debt for a motorcycle, even if I wasn't living on disability. To each their own.