What kind of cruising range are you V-Rod drivers getting? Is 200 miles out of the question?

 

I've ridden 400+ in a day with very little trouble, but the bike was set up to ride that distance (different seat, windshield, sissy bar for the Ol' Lady) but I've ridden straight through 217.31 for a motorcycle rally in OK four different times looking like-

 

My wife and I regularly put 300 miles a day on our bike on any given weekend. Our longest single day ride was a about 550 miles.
Once my wife is done with the chemo treatments, we plan on putting a lot of miles on the D. Our daughter is done with her work-comp problem and is moving out again. Our son is looking pretty hard at the Air Force, so we should have a lot of time for riding soon.

 

Oops -- sorry to be unclear. My original post was really to ask about cruising range on a single tank of gas. Is it true that the '09 has a larger tank than previous models? The HD website says 5 gal. tank and 42 hwy/34 city for an '09 V-Rod Muscle. How close to reality are those mileage figures?

 

5 gallons is good for about 140-150 miles in real world riding conditions on a 1130cc bike. I imagine it would be slightly less on a 1250cc bike, but I can't say for sure.

I'm doing nothing to help my fuel economy, that's for sure.

 

I have pushed 170 miles out of my 4.9 gallon tank and took 4.8 gallons riding relatively conservative 75-80 mph part of the way.

 

150 miles is easy with the 5 gallon tank. The 08 and later got the 1250cc engine, but they also can go closed-loop, so you get better gas mileage in that range. The problem is, with a 28t front pulley, you are out of closed loop range by around 75mph in top gear. So driving 65ish mph will get you much better gas mileage. Even so, I would never worry about not getting 150 miles, you will never drop below 30mpg average unless you are just doing stoplight to stoplight full throttle all the time, or your fuel management is way off.

 

I have run 800 miles in one day on my 2006 Night Rod drove to New Orleans from Memphis to take care of my vehicle registration and had to be back to work in Memphis the next day. I was working in Memphis off and on then and bought the bike in Tennessee, but I live in the New Orleans area, so I took 1 day off to take care of my registration and drove home and back, which is normally 6 to 6 1/2 hours one way depending on how long you stop for when you stop for gas, and whether or not you stop for food.

The bike LOVES the open highway and so I. The worst thing was there was a frontal system moving through and I had a head-wind for the whole trip home, but driving back to Memphis I had a tail-wind and my arms and neck were thankful!! I am thinking of putting my Night Rod through the test by driving her like I did my V-Max from New Orleans to Maine in 2 days.

I'll let you know next long-distance run I make as to how she does, but most people do not drive as hardcore as I do. Most people will call it a day after 400 to 500 miles. I frequently will go for all day drives on a Saturday or Sunday and rack up 500+ miles in a day. I dare to think that my Night Rod will prove most agreeable with a hard@$$ run. I hope to upgrade to the 5 gallon fuel tank though for that ride, because I am not crazy about stopping every 120 to 125 miles for fuel.

 

We usually go between 100 and 120 miles between fill-ups on the little tank.