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5th or OD Does The Bike REALLY Care?

K

kern16

Street Cruiser
Having come from BMW's this was my first trip of any real length (over 600 miles) the CONNIE performed flawlessly and I couldn't be happier with my NEW purchase!
There was one thing I noticed with my Throttlemeister when in OD the bike seemed to run out of steam on the least hill or strong wind. ie:  Speed would drop! I started thinking (I actually do that sometime) maybe the OD is too high a gear to try and use a manual throttle control with? Maybe 5th would have a ltl more GRUNT and be less accessible to hills etc. Now if I run the interstate in 5th my engine is going to be turning more RPM's so anyone have thoughts on this and have you noticed it on trips?

Regards
 
I guess it depends on how fast you're going. Sixth gear is a true overdrive, the engine's not turning over very fast on the highway. I've never ran into a hill that I had to gear down for on the highway, though.
 
I didn't have to gear down what I was trying to say is  let's say I had the throttle control set for 75MPH everything is fine till I start up a small rise or incline? Then 75 becomes 70 before U know it. My guess is the gearing is so high it doesn't have much OMPH left for hills inclines and such. I"m NEW to the Connie so I'm just asking?

Regards
 
If you are relying on a throttle lock and expect it to maintain a constant speed on hills, you will be disappointed, regardless of what gear you are in. When you go uphill, you have to give the bike more gas to maintain speed. There is no way around it.

What you probably really need is a Rostra cruise control instead of a throttle lock.
 
Jim said:
I guess it depends on how fast you're going. Sixth gear is a true overdrive, the engine's not turning over very fast on the highway. I've never ran into a hill that I had to gear down for on the highway, though.
Click to expand...

6th gear is NOT a overdrive, it is per the manual 1.074:1 (29/27).  To be a 'true' overdrive, it would have to be 0.999:1 or less.

As for the OP's question, if you had a real cruse control, it would ramp up the speed to conquer the hill, so you need to also.  The C14 has plenty of 'omph' to accelerate in 6th gear, and I would not bother running 5th all the time.  I figure 6th is your fuel economy gear, though YMMV.
 
THANK YOU for the replies. Coming from the BMW R/T I did not notice the drop in MPH as much as I do on the Connie. I am aware that I should not expect it to hold a true speed as a REAL cruise control would. I also need to look at the throttle control and make sure it's not just slipping and that's why it seems to not hold a more constant speed on level interstate?

Regards
 
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