{"id":5724,"date":"2019-08-21T05:54:58","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T12:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=5724"},"modified":"2019-08-29T15:40:23","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T22:40:23","slug":"my-three-flags-classic-rx4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/08\/21\/my-three-flags-classic-rx4\/","title":{"rendered":"My Three Flags Classic RX4"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My 3FC19 RX4 motorcycle on the road last night. It’s a great motorcycle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m getting excited about the upcoming Southern California Motorcycle Association’s Three Flags Classic adventure and the CSC RX4 I’ll be riding on this epic rally.\u00a0 I’ve been putting a few miles on the RX4 CSC graciously provided and I thought I would fill you in on a few of the specifics I’m discovering on this bike.<\/p>\n

I have a measured mile by my home and I was happy to see that the RX4 clocked it at exactly 1.0 miles.\u00a0 I think that’s pretty much what all the motorcycles do these days for obvious reasons.\u00a0 If the odometer read more miles than you actually covered, the manufacturer would be cheating you out of a portion of the warranty, and if the odometer read fewer miles, they’d be warranting the bike for longer than they intended to.\u00a0 The point is moot with a CSC motorcycle; their bikes are warranted for unlimited miles.\u00a0 But it’s nice to know that whatever distance it says you’ve gone is the real distance.<\/p>\n

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Command central and my high-tech data bank. The ergos on this bike are good.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next thing I checked was fuel economy, and I did so based on a mix of freeway, city, and mountain road riding.\u00a0 The bike I rode, with roughly 1200 miles on the clock, returned 66.34 mpg.\u00a0 I think CSC advertises 60 mpg for the RX4; I did 10% better than that with the one I’m riding.<\/p>\n

Next up was motorcycle speed indicated by the speedometer versus GPS indicated speed.\u00a0 I found that the speedometer was 15% to 8% optimistic, depending on velocity.\u00a0 At higher speeds, the speedometer error decreased to the 8% range.\u00a0 It’s pretty common for motorcycle speedometers to be about 10% optimistic.\u00a0 It’s also very common for the percentage difference between actual speed and speedometer-indicated speed to not be constant (the error percentage changes with speed).<\/p>\n

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Indicated versus Actual MPH on the RX4 I’m riding in the 2019 Three Flags Classic. Speedometer error, as a percentage, decreased as velocity increased. The bike will do way more than 80 mph; I just didn’t want to go any faster for this test.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next up was a quick look at engine RPM versus indicated speed.\u00a0 The RX4 cranks way less RPM at every speed compared to the RX3. \u00a0 Here’s what it looks like on the RX4…<\/p>\n

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Velocity versus RPM on the RX4.\u00a0 The RX4 engine runs at lower rpm for any given speed than does the RX3.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The RX4 has a torquey motor, and I was surprised at how low the RPM is at any given speed compared to the RX3.\u00a0 I know on my RX3, 80 mph is somewhere near the redline at 9000 RPM.\u00a0 On the RX4, the engine is just loafing along at a meager 6000 RPM. \u00a0 The RX4 engine pulls strongly from anything above 3000 RPM. \u00a0 You can downshift to move away more quickly, but you don’t need to on this bike.<\/p>\n

And hey, because I know you’ll ask, here’s what the bike sounds like…<\/p>\n