tommymck
Well-known member
Nature can most certainly be coaxed into providing less acceleration of the bike for a given fuel energy input. The most simple case is if you are riding your brake. You can compensate for that by adding extra throttle to get the same acceleration. Operating at a less than optimal place on the torque curve (trying to accelerate in 6th while going 30mph as an example) results in the same thing. More throttle required to produce the requested torque at the wheel. Since f=ma and energy in joules is newton-meters, sure...energy at the rear wheel for a given acceleration is fixed. That's a tautology. But fuel consumption is a function (among other things) of how efficient the fuel energy is converted into mechanical motion at the rear wheel. And that is a function, among other things, of how the bike is operated. You will never get near 1-1 energy transfer from fuel to motion, so you're not cheating nature. Another way to look at it is to consider the fuel required to maintain a fixed speed on the highway. In that case, net acceleration is zero in both cases, but fuel consumption isn't the same if you are using 4th gear or 6th gear.Quote: "The identical bike can have identical accelerations but different fuel consumption depending on how it is ridden."
When a certain mass (motorcycle) is accelerating in an inertial frame of reference, the energy expended is the same whether it be an electric vehicle or piston powered. The only variable related to mpg is choice of diesel, ethyl alcohol, etc. Nature can't be tricked into providing extra acceleration for free.