GP800 - Fuel Consumption

I have now covered just over 2,000 miles on the GP and fuel consumption has averaged exactly 49.0 mpg. The individual spread across tankfulls has been a worst of 44.6 mpg and a best of 53.06 mpg. This exludes the first few "running in" tankfulls.

This gives a theoretical "range to tank" of pretty much 200 miles.

It started me thinking. I have a speadsheet that records distance and fuel consumption and I wondered how the GP800 would have fared if I owned it in 1977 - the time I owned my first ever bike, (also a Gilera) the RS50E "Touring".

In 1977, petrol was 78.2p per gallon (I can't remember the price of the "spash" of two stroke - there was no "autolube" on Italian 2-strokes in those days). This doesn't sound so bad until you remember that this price equals just 17.2p per litre. I have taken today's price as £1.19 per litre.

Applying these figures to my use of the GP800, I find that:

• If I had been filling the GP800 up at 1977 prices, I would have paid only £31 to cover the 2,106 miles I have on the clock.

Or to put it another way:

• If I had spent the same amount of money at 1977 prices, I could have travelled 13,275 miles for the £212 I have actually spent on fuel for the GP800

Makes you think, doesn't it ?

Nokia E90 and Nokia Maps - Satnav for people who don't want a Satnav

Up to now, I have never been a fan of Satnav. Watching motorists looking at a small screen on the dash instead of looking out for me on the bike scared me from the moment they became commonplace.

However, there's none so pious as the converted and an "incident" in Germany where my passenger's newly acquired Garmin was hastily unboxed and fired up started me on the path to richeousness. I was already looking for a new mobile phone and built in GPS moved from the "nice to have" category into a requirment.

I've been looking at the commercial software options but at the moment, most seem to have one disadvantage or another - they don't use the E90's internal screen, they can't use the internal GPS or worst of all, they are "locked" to the memory card they are supplied on. However, Nokia Maps has the answer for me. Although it can download maps on the fly (if you have a suitable data tariff) it is also possible to install the maps to the device using Nokia's "Maploader" software, a far better solution.

"Turn by turn" voice guidance is not a standard feature (nor is route planning in V2 of the software) but you can add it when required for a small fee - currently £6 for a month (UK only). This suits me fine as most of the time I know where I'm going. I'll certainly buy a month's licence for Europe when I go on holiday in August.

In the Mazda 2 which is "fully fitted" for the phone it's excellent. I keep the Navman B10 external GPS receiver in this car which means faster satelite "lock on" and there is now 12v power in the top glovebox so I can use the E90 open or closed when navigating. Despite the increased screen area of the internal screen, I find myself more likely to leave the phone in the cradle. This is because the small fonts are difficult to read and it's also harder to operate the controls on the keyboard when it is sitting flat on the dash.

I tried to be clever yesterday in Coventry and Nokia maps certainly saved me. I had previously saved a long term car park into favorites and was heading for my destination when I saw a sign for car parking at the venue I was attending. I ignored the SatNav, followed the sign then found that the car park was full and then simply re-searched on my original destination to get me back on track. Without the Satnav I would have been lost in Coventry's city centre.

It integrates well with the Visorlite and although I have nothing really to compare it to, "it does what it says on the tin". When I have used it on routes that I know and chosen to ignore, it recalculates quickly without telling me to U-turn. It gives instructions in good time and tells you to "keep left" as appropriate on merging motorways. Even in the upright cradle on the external screen, the details at the bottom are too small (time/distance to destination and current speed) but the mapping and directions are clear enough. It's best to turn off the various points of intetrest like petrol stations and garages as the small screen can get crowded.

It's a pity the call/hang up buttons don't work while navigating, you have to "long press" on the menu key to get back to the standby screen but otherwise it's fine.

Last week I was driving our other car, a Mazda 5. This has no provision for phone at all. All I did was put the Visorlight on the sunvisor and kept the phone in my pocket using the internal GPS only. As an example of the effortless use of modern technology it was peerless. Although I didn't have a screen to look at, navigation commands came clearly through the Visorlight.

I don't know how I ever managed without GPS. The licensing model may not suit everybody but until a "perfect" E90 solution appears, Nokia Maps will do for me.

GP800 - Custom Screen Modification

Here it is, the DIY screen modification for the GP800. It stems from a suggestion from JT at Thompsons that the standard screen blade for a 125/250 Gilera Nexus might be usable as a second screen on bikes where the standard screen does not protect enough. However the Nexus screen blade is too flat for the GP800. It could work if it was carefully curved (with the aid of a hairdryer) but there did seem to be another solution. The standard screen from an MP3 looked good for the GP800 - but it also needed a degree of modification.

In order to line up properly and provide sensible mounting, the lower section complete with bolt holes needs to be removed as well as the top of the side mounting holes. Here it is with a neat(ish) curve applied where the top hole has been cut out.

JTs suggestion that rear exhaust mounts from an original Mini might make good mounts/spacers seemed like a good place to start however these are a bit big and unsightly but I guessed that Vauxhall Cavalier fuel pump mounts might do the trick (like the Mini metalastic "bobbins" but smaller).

Before I tried the Cavalier fuel pump mounts, I bought packets of every washer and grommet under the sun together with some GT Moto "Aluminium Screen Screws" (at £10 ouch). These were the really clever idea - unfortunately, they just pulled through the hole I cut in the screen under light hand pressure - they would never have survived the wind blast at motorway speeds.
After drilling my GP800’s screen and using a combination of coachbolts and grommets to create a kind of rose joint arrangement I bolted it all up and went for a spin.

Not an entirely successful operation to be honest.

Firstly, at slow speeds it squeaked and creaked - I presume I had put some stresses in one screen or the other when bolting them together. As I got up to 50, wind pressure stopped the squealing and I headed for the M1.

Now things started looking up - with the screen fully upright, the increase in frontal area stops all windlast and buffeting was definitely reduced - but......... IT'S VERY VERY VERY NOISY - IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE IN A WIND TUNNEL - YOU DON'T FEEL IT BUT YOU CAN CERTAINLY HEAR IT.

I came back down the M1 with the screen at it's lowest setting - still plenty of protection from the wind but just as noisy.

Next step was to increase the separation between the two screens. I also took the opportunity to do a better job of sanding and finishing the cut edges.

The separation was achieved by using nuts as spacers and this allowed the coachbolt to be tightened on to the MP3 screen first. This allowed the screen to rest on the GP800 screen so that I could tighten it down in rotation to avoid putting any stresses in that might cause creaking.

Grommets were fitted where the bolts pass through the screens with penny washers each side to spread the load. A quick "round the block" roadtest revealed no creaking and the only problem was that despite increased spacing, the two screens just touch at he top where the GP800 screen has it's maximum curve causing a "tapping" noise and also scratching both screens. I cured that temporarily with a bit of old hose.

After about 50 miles each way on a motorway at sustained high speeds - the new solution was definitely quieter than before - although still noisier than the standard screen. It was quite gusty on the M4 and no problem at all - in fact I was probably going a bit quicker than usual so it must have been keeping the wind blast down.

However (you knew there was going to be a "however" didn't you) by the time I left the motorway and was pootling towards Northwick Park, I noticed that the squeak/creak had returned. I'm guessing that the force of the sustained high speeds had put stress into the rigid mounts. There was also slight cracking. Surprisingly, the cracks are in the MP3 screen which is mounted using original holes rather than the GP800 screen which has been drilled.

I now know why Reseach & Development is such an expensive buisness. I stopped at good old Moshi's Auto spares and bought the Vauxhall Cavalier Fuel Pump mounts (four of them at £2 each ) to give me a "flexi mount - I should have done that in the first place.

The problem of the MP3 screen touching the GP800s screen at the centre top was cured by a piece of visor rubber (like a short sticky backed car wiper blade).

I fitted the second biggest penny washers I have together with the rubber washers from a garden hose connection. The biggest washers I had were an affront to aesthetics (and lets face it the nyloc nuts I have now are hardly pretty) but we'll have to see how that effects the cracking. I've marked the extent of the cracks with a black felt pen to see if I've arrested their spread.

Finally, I cut and reshaped the sides - this may further reduce the turbulence and is certainly neater. All I need to do now is spend some time with brasso where the multiple cutting, sanding and simply removing and refitting has left me with a few scratches.

And here 'tis

GP800 - Alternative Screen Options

The aftermarket is now starting to wake up to the GP800 and there are a number of screen options appearing. Information is still scarce and some of the manufacturers are all as bad as each other when it comes to responding to customer enquiries. There's an honourable exception for Ermax who responded very quickly.

In summary, options seem to be as follows.

1. The official Gilera "Touring" screen -no news there yet (unless anyone knows differently and would like to let me know about price and availability)


2. The Ermax "Aeromax" screen http://www.ermax.fr/nouveaute-GP_800_2008-153.html This is quite a nice looking bit of kit and the UK price is £73.36. This one is available in a variety of tints and is 60cm tall.


3. The Givi "D352ST" http://www.givi.co.uk/caschi_borse_bauli_accessori.asp?CO_ID=28234 Clear only and I can't find a price anywhere. 12cm higher than the standard screen (60cm the same as the Ermax) but no wider.


4. The Secdem - this one's a bit of a mystery. I found a reference to a GP800 screen on a Japanese site and heard that it was made by Sedcem. I've e-mailed Baglux (UK importers) but heard absolutely nothing. As their screens for BMWs are fairly well rated as an economy option, I'm expecting this one to be cheaper than the others - but again no news yet. I can't even find Secdem's website so I think they've "gone to ground" somewhere.


5. Make your own. This came from a suggestion by JT at Thompsons and the next post will detail exactly how I did it. In essence, it's the standard screen for an MP3 fitted over the GP800's screen on rubber spacers. There was an awful lot of cutting, shaping and trial and error involved but it does work. And it will suffice until I've been able to make a proper comparison with the 4 "proper" screens listed above.

GP800 - Leo Vince Exhaust

It looks like the Givi Screen for the GP800 is imminent and I suspect this will also herald the OE Touring screen as I guess it will be made by Givi like the topbox (it may even arrive before I get any reply from Sedcem who seem unwilling to actually sell their GP800 screen). However, while looking for pictures of the Givi screen on the 'net, I found this, the Leo Vince exhaust. It looks very nice - far better than the twin silencers of the OE pipe.

There is one small problem with it. It's £550 (€687). Now as I don't ride R1/Gixer/Blades, I don't know if that's normal but it seems like an awful lot of money to me.

I presume that it saves weight and every little will help the GP800 and I bet it sounds gorgeous but I don't reckon that it'll be going on my shopping list any time soon. At £550 it costs more than my whole K75 is worth.

GP800 vs K75 - A Comparison

I have kept my K75 alongside the GP800 as a spare bike. The intention is, (over a period of time) to "fettle" it into an immaculate modern classic for high days and holidays. To start with at least, I need to keep it roadworthy while I ride the GP800 on a daily basis. Since taking delivery of the GP800 two months ago, the K75 hadn't turned a wheel. Its MOT and tax expire this month so I thought I'd fire it up and use it for work just to see if it's still OK before submitting it for test.

So, how does a 20 year old K75 compare with a new GP800. Firstly, these are very different animals - they may have the same performance "envelope" but riding them illustrates just how far apart they are. In fact, the K75 aquits itself quite well at commuting.

Firing up the K75 was no problem at all. Despite it's period of idleness the Hawker Odyssey battery spun it immediately into life and it settled down quickly to a regular tickover aided by the "choke" control to give a fast idle.

Pulling away brings an immediate awareness of how light it seems after the GP800. Of course it is much lighter (by 36 kilos) so it almost feels like a 400 by comparison. The thin tyres also give it away as it feels much less "planted" than the GP800. Two other things grab your attention. You can see behind you - the Beemer's mirrors are excellent, large and completely vibration free. Secondly, you know how fast you are going - indeed the whole dash is a model of simple clarity although it does lack the fuel and temperature gauges of the GP800. The Beemer also has BMWs excellent left for left, right for right indicator switches - this is a much more logical system than the one used by just about every other motorcycle manufacturer. So far so good. The first problem comes with the brakes - even allowing for the fact that the K75 is probably long overdue a brake fluid change, the brakes are terifyingly bad. The front lever travel is enormous and the rear drum is hardly an efficient anchor even when working perfectly.

The first part of the journey is fairly fast and uncongested and in performance terms there is no difference between the two bikes. You are changing up and down the gears to go with the flow and overtake where appropriate on the K75 whereas the GP800 just goes wherever you point and squirt it but the end result is the same.

As the traffic starts to build up, the narrowness of the K75 becomes noticeable as does the ease with which you can "paddle" it through very narrow gaps wiggling the bars to clear the mirrors where required. However this is countered by the fact that it is less easy to ride at 0 mph than the GP800. In this respect, the GP800 is king. You can come to a halt and wait a couple of seconds before you need to put your feet down (who needs a Fuoco?). In slow moving stop/start traffic, this ability makes for very smooth progression with little effort.

By now, the riding position of the BMW is starting to tell on wrists and palms. The K75 is no sportsbike but you are tilted forwards and the (heavy) clutch makes riding much harder work. The Gp800's ride quality is in another league as well despite the handmade E=MC rear shock I have on the K75. But that sportier riding position coupled with the shorter wheelbase and lighter weight make the K75 a better hooligan bike in traffic by quite a margin. It's no KTM Duke but it makes the GP800's progression seem almost stately by comparison. On arrival at work, the K75 plays its last trump card - you just put your right foot on the centrestand tang and think the bike onto the stand - completely effortless. There is no other bike in the world that drops onto its centrestand like a K series.

All in all, riding the K75 is a much more involving experience compared with the effortless nature of the GP800. For some, that's the point of motorcycling. For me, I'm glad I've still got it for high days and holidays. It certainly doesn't feel like the "old nail" I thought it would after a couple of months on the GP800. However, getting to and from work doesn't have to be involving - it has to be efficient and comfortable and the GP800 wins out here every time. More luggage, more comfort, effortless riding and about 25% less fuel consumption make the big scoot the "daddy" in the commuter stakes.