Ethanol is not stable and wil oxidate with oxygen to acetic acid (Essigsäure).
It is generally agreed that oxidisation is a minimum of a three to six month process. Ethanol free petrol has a storage life of perhaps a year. If you intend to leave any engine for any length of time it is a good idea to drain off the fuel. My old VFR gelled up many years ago (long before ethanol) when I left it standing for about 10 months.
This is why youcan buy Aspen fuel for hand tools with seasonal use at most garden/timber outlets.
It is a very good idea to run any engine at least once a month. I run both the road bikes every 3-4 weeks enough to get the engine hot and the thermostats open. I have understood the need to do this for at least the last 40 years. Modern petrol - with or without ethanol - seems to last a shorter period of time than when I first bought a motorbike.
There are clearly lots of different forumulations so it is hard to pick on one part of petrol. My understanding of ethanol is that it absorbs water so the octane rating decreases as the engine will not burn the water. In the UK the 97 and 99 octane fuels are E5. Virtually all two stroke bikes need at least 98 so they are on E5. My road bikes run on E10 and sit in winter and are zero problem at all. My lawn mower sits in a damp shed all winter and is faultless and will start first or second pull in spring (it has E5 in it as that is in t he can I use for the trials bike).
I think a lot of the (ethanol) problem exists only on the internet and very little in real life.
Something is going on with the fuel around here. I am no chemist but I suspect something is eating the rubber and if it is not the ethanol it must be some additive that goes along with it.
And yes I am considering changing to a much less convenient and more expensive fuel.
Where are you based? The E10 motorcycle lists I can find suggest the WR is OK. I suspect that there is another component in the mix. The oil industry is not exactly honest.
I wonder if the broader composition of petrol has changed in the US in recent years? It is easy to just look at the ethanol, but rather unscientific. Ethanol absorbs water and that can be an issue but a lot of the other problems don't ring true. My petrol lawnmower starts first or second attempt in spring with the same fuel it has had in all winter. It is in a shed that is damp and I don't really look after it much. Petrol will form a gel after a while, I had a VFR that needed the carbs stripped, but that was pre ethanol and it had been stood a long time. The volatile parts evaporate.
Aspen is designed to stand for a long time and is ethanol free and sold for the small engine market - mowers and the like. It is hard to get the high octane rated Aspen if you wanted to run a trials bike on it though. (My mower gets the bike petrol - Shell V Power)
I've been using tescos finest e10, 50:1 with octane booster in an 1985 rotax with no issues. It does have a modern ignition and newish carb, and runs very well. What problems are you having with modern petrol ?
I have been assured by a professional mechanic that his customer's Rover P3 has had "lots of problems" (non specific) and had to change all sorts of things (non specific) as a result of the E10. I didn't know they had plastic tanks in the 1940s but hey - I'm more of a bike man than a car man.
My mate's Fantic is OK but we did a (nice) section with a stream crossing. His brakes got soaked and were u/s from that point on. He packed up and missed the rest of trial. I think these old bikes are great fun and have a charm, but having paid to ride a trial and got out of bed early on a Sunday and braved the rain and traffic I want to ride not watch other people. I had an XL250 back in the day and its drum brakes were OK in the dry but you needed to be a bit careful in the wet. The drum went oval as well so they used to snatch. Nearly took me off one time. The bike got stolen so that was the end of that, but if I had kept it I probably would have upgraded to a disc front on a 21" rim to get a better choice of tyres. Norwich Union gave me 500 quid - it would be worth five grand now. Humph. I hate bike thieves.
Friend has a Fantic 200 and the brakes are poor. This seems to me to be the big problem with old twinshocks. Power delivery and all that stuff is what it is but having wooden brakes is just too much for me, I wouldn't bother with an old bike as a serious ride (maybe 2nd bike for the odd day, just for fun if you can afford the indulgence). If you want to improve and end up riding well I would stick to a modern bike.
Electric trials toys are irrelevant really in terms of the world, it really doesn't matter if they are petrol or electric. They are first world toys. The bigger concern is in places like India and Africa where motorcycles are basic transport and ridden / worked to death every day as basic transport. Is the world going to go over to electric instead of a petrol Honda Cub or CG125 ? Then you have a bigger set of questions to address...
I can't see the fleet of old Honda Cubs retiring. At 100mpg they are not much of an issue in terms of CO2. Besides they last for ever.
Converting "classic" cars to electric is fine for Morris Minors and VW Beetles. There are loads of them, they're relatively cheap and originality is not highly valued. I can't imagine anyone doing a conversion on a Ferrari Daytona or a Bentley Continental though.
Many of the people I know in trials are Pre-65 or Twinshock riders and for them "old" is a virtue that outweighs nearly everything else. They are unlikely to change. EM in particular have bent over backwards to woo petrol riders by making their bikes behave like petrol. Personally I think that's a mistake and they should embrace the benefits of electric. However the biggest obstacle is price. It's what stops me chopping in my '21 EM for a newer one or a Mecatecno. I understand the high development costs that the manufacturers have incurred but perhaps they should spread the amortisation of those costs a bit more thinly and then they would sell more bikes.
For sure a lot of old classics (cars or bikes) are "worth more" in original condition. There is a sizable market for better classics though and some pretty expensive cars (and expensive conversions) These guys do a lot and have an interesting YouTube channel https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/past-projects
We have a few old timers at the club, BSA and so on and I agree the engine is part of the ride. That said if a twinshock floats your boat and you want electric as the fuel there isn't anything stopping you.
Price is the issue for me too. I love the idea of an electric twinshock but the donor bike is two grand plus and the kit is the same sort of money. Five grand buys a EM with all the modern kit, Tech forks and braktec brakes make it a formidable machine. Not sure I want to ride too much with drum brakes. EM are a small French outfit and probably not in a position to access much finance. One of the disadvantages of being an early mover. We bought ours at a good price as it had a bit of cosmetic damage. Friend wanted the old Beta and was willing to pay the correct price as well so that helped. 10 grand for the Dragonfly is too much for me, plus there is another development cycle to go through for that model I think?
... Actually thinking about it, this is probably it for me regarding trials, since a switch to electric is never going to happen for twinshock events and that's where my interest is.
If you look round there are conversion kits and DIY electric components for older bikes. I don't know if the one for Gasgas would fit older bikes but worth a look.
Such a conversion makes a lot of sense as engine components might be hard to come by and alternative cycle parts easier to find. The only issue I can see is if you ride in a competition they will not know which category to put you in. There is a very big industry putting electric motors into classic cars and making a vehicle that is useful for day to day driving. Mega bucks though.
For road vehicles the batteries are not quite there yet unless you can afford a Tesla, but for trials the capacity is more than enough. The missus' EM has impressed me and Konrad's website is fantastic as a resource for owners. You do need to adapt your riding style and get used to the machine which takes a while and is probably why the electric bikes are being made to be so much like an ICE. The EM gets a lot of interest when we ride at the club events and at the practice ground. I honestly think people will move over to EV if the cost is right. At least 4-5 people at our club would do so if they could find a reasonable priced bike.
But I'm unwilling to attempt my most difficult obstacles with it. I find it really difficult to generate lift without velocity.
How high are you trying to lift? I agree this is the worst part of the bike's ability and I can see it being a problem for really good riders. If you compress the forks it tackles up to half a metre without any issue. The factory riders do much bigger stuff than this.
The TRS gives front wheel lift with a tiny bit of clutch and the EM does not, but my old Rev3 needed fork compression. Just that the TRS is a whole lot easier and I have become lazy.
There is a good long term review of the EM on IRC Tire USA Moto on YouTube. (He is using it indoors like me). Some guidance on vertical lift on that - he is about 3,000 times better rider than me to be fair. (ref BZV-UnGhyhE if you want to watch it)
We are all going to drive electric powered vehicles to save the planet? 🤔 Can't see it happening that way, too many wars in the works, the planet is doomed unless you can first eliminate human conflict.
Electric is perfect for trials bikes. Nothing to do with any ideas of pollution or climate change - if you care about that then give up motorsports/cars/bikes altogether. My TRS barely uses a litre per trial so the "fuel" is neither here nor there in terms of CO2 or NOx.
The benefit is not having to go to the petrol station with a little can, then mix up some 2T then have to replace the spark plug, clean the carb, decoke/repack the exhaust, change the coolant and repair all the moving parts as they wear out. Just charge it up and go. If you are right about the planet then the batteries will outlast our species.
As it is raining and cold I am riding the wife's EM in the warehouse (not catch me going out in this). It is brilliant for me to practice my nose wheelies on and I have even got the hang of low speed turns now (front brake is the secret).
I am happy with my 250RR TRS for sure but if the battery bikes' can get down to the right price I think they will become the biggest seller by a long way. The advantages of battery are bigger than the advantages of the petrol engine. But - for sure - we are not there yet. The new EM is ten grand versus 7 for a new TRS. The EM is not quite "sorted" (maybe newer ones are better? Our is '21) for me the CoG is (slightly) too far forward. (Battery weight).
At the weekend we met some folks at the practice ground with a couple of young kids. The girl was a good rider and could be very good if she keeps at it (let's hope so), Her first bike was a little Mecatecno kids electric. There is another family that ride there and their kids have the more common Oset. All the kids like the wife's EM and by the time they are grown up will be competent with a battery bike. For us oldies the switch (sorry) is harder as you have got used to a petrol engine and the technique{s} that goes with it.
I don't think it is the petrol users' market as such but the cost and choice that is the brake on battery bikes right now. The Dragonfly could be a game changer. But not for me at ten grand - bit too much for my budget. I will have one when the secondhand ones get down to 5-6 grand. IMHO battery will be at least half the bikes competing in 10 years time. (I am hanging on to my petrol road bike though)
Thinking about it, I wonder if thats why all the "old" manufacturers have dragged their heels on electric bikes, because then they'd have to do some serious development work
The other factor is that you need to sell as much as possible of the old technology to recover the development costs from the old engines.
My missus is really getting to like the EM and it has made me think my next bike will be a Mecatecno. The Yam TYE is still awaiting launch but might be interesting. Most of the big names do a kid's version.
Unfortunately since Brexit importing anything from the UK is a massive headache, the last two things I tried to get just didn't turn up and I've given up on getting anything from Britain for the forseeable.
LOL. We've given up trying to export anything at work as well. Its all going so well ☺️
Also note that you will have to pay import duty to the carrier if you manage to get stuff shipped out to you. I sent a front door key to my estate agent in France and had to fill in an invoice - I declared the key as made in France (true) and its value at £1.00. It cost 12 quid to ship (UPS) and the agent had to pay €12 to release it from customs. All for a Yale key. (I dare not post it in case it got lost).
We've stopped sending christmas and birthday gifts to a relative in Ireland for the same reason.
Biometric passports/visas next year and the Port of Dover is building new facilities to deal with the queues. Should be fun.
Thanks for your replies fellas. I will have a look into a keihin but will try the Billy t mod first and go from there. I only found the leak the day after I bought the bike. 🤦♂️
My old Rev with the Mikuni was OK for a while but after a few weeks started to dump petrol out the overflow pipe some times. We are lucky to have a mechanic a few doors away where I work and I dropped it in to them to strip and clean the carb and check the jets etc. He found a nail in the float chamber, so presumably the previous owner had thought that would help (it didn't). Once the carb had been set up properly it was OK. The biggest problem with old trials bikes in my experience is the person that owned it before you bought it ☺️
My old Rev 3 had the Mikuni and it was not hte best carb. I sold the bike for an Evo and looking back I would have replaced the Mikuni with the Keihin if doing a carb swap. There are some cheap Chinese copies of the Keihin on ebay which might be worth a try if you are not looking to spend too much on an old bike. The Keihin model is PWK28. Jets will depend on the Rev engine size. The ones on ebay are about 20-25 quid. It cost me more than that to have the carb ultrasound cleaned on my TRS.
Cool. Really interesting. The EM is the wife's ride and I only use it a very small amount. The real big thing you notice is the lack of flywheel effect. My engineer friend has retired otherwise I would try to get a heavy flywheel like yours machined up.
I like the Dragonfly but it is out of my budget. Also I see a lot of people saying there is new battery technology coming soon, so I will hang back for a while.
This is hte future I am sure and maybe 5-10 years it will be the normal for trials.
The above post is correct. You can get more fuel with the versions of trials bikes that are designed for general off road riding. The more you want to entertain yourself with the bike the more fuel you need, the more you want to watch wildlife the more you need a quiet bike. I agree with the above that the electric bikes would be very useful for a "stealth" mode to observe wildlife. More of a pain if you run out of battery than run out of petrol of course.
You are looking at two different needs and you will not find anything that does both well, just a bike that 'sort of' does both but is not good at either.
I have just bought an electric bike for the wife and if you do not ride it hard or fast the battery life is very impressive. They (Electric Motion) do a version with a seat (and larger battery). If you keep the speed down it makes very very little noise at all. https://www.electric-motion.fr/en/models/escape
Not cheap though.
Any modern trials bike will be great fun. You probably need to take some spare fuel in a can and refill it if you are riding any length of time. Depending on how young and fit you are your body will give up before the fuel runs out ☺️ (Mine does)
Look at smaller engined bikes too. My 250 is a lot easier of fuel than my old 280. The 125cc machines would be better and are more than enough to just have fun on.
I don't have a compatible bike (😪) but I decided to download the iPhone version of the app anyway, just to have a poke around. When I tried to sign-up I found that it won't accept UK phone numbers. When you click to select country (rather than using the phone's default) UK isn't there. I tried switching to Spain and it tried to send the confirmation text message but obviously I don't actually have a Spanish phone account. Something of an omission there Mr EM.
Ethanol free petrol or lowest ethanol content petrol
in General Trials Talk
Posted
It is generally agreed that oxidisation is a minimum of a three to six month process. Ethanol free petrol has a storage life of perhaps a year. If you intend to leave any engine for any length of time it is a good idea to drain off the fuel. My old VFR gelled up many years ago (long before ethanol) when I left it standing for about 10 months.
This is why youcan buy Aspen fuel for hand tools with seasonal use at most garden/timber outlets.
It is a very good idea to run any engine at least once a month. I run both the road bikes every 3-4 weeks enough to get the engine hot and the thermostats open. I have understood the need to do this for at least the last 40 years. Modern petrol - with or without ethanol - seems to last a shorter period of time than when I first bought a motorbike.