TravellingStrom

Big Grin. I know, sounds rude eh, but I have no shame. What I really mean is to extend the range on my Spyder. With me on it 🙂

This will probably be a long post, over time with multiple modifications, and will have some technical stuff in it. I may(will) blather, mainly about future expectations, of fuel availability, which is the main thrust of this post! I am just basically going to write some stuff, that may or may not be interesting to somebody out there. I have been to and kissed the Blarney Stone in good old Ireland, so I have an excuse. I will try to keep it as light as possible. But the ultimate aim, if I can do it, is to write about “a” method to extend the trip range I can travel on the Spyder at any one time. I would like to achieve around 500km+ before refuelling, if possible, so that means an increase of about 200km+

There are plenty of nay sayers out there. Fill up idiot. Don’t go past a servo. There will always be a servo within reach. You need to stop for a rest or a pee break, a photo, yadeeyahdeeyah. Most of those people are probably in the states, where easy access to fuel is a given, mostly. Or those riders back here who have never ridden beyond the black stump. The furthest I have ridden in Australia without available fuel is around 380km between Barkley Homestead and Cape Crawford. That was on the Vstrom and I had a 5lt fuel can as a back up and I think I may have lied, cos I am sure with the headwinds I had, I stopped and topped up with all 5lts anyway, just in case about 100km away. But the point being, I would like to stop when I “want” to, not when I “need” to and to not run out of fuel at any point in my travels.

Over the short period of riding the Spyder, (8,000km to date in 9 months), I have recorded a fuel economy of around 7lt/100km, which goes up to 8.2l/100km with the trailer. Now, this bike has, according to the specs, 26.5l capacity. Which gives it around 370km range, ( I am only going to do calcs based on bike only, no trailer). I have not seen that range yet, because I am wary of running the tank dry. There is also a slightly scary thing with the on board calculated fuel range. It is a computer controlled dynamic system, which is good because it compensates for slow economical riding, also with harsh riding(full throttle) and windy conditions. At around 70km range left to go, an orange tank filler indicator pops up, today it showed up at 61km range left, which is just to the left of the speed reading, which I blacked out.

There is also an on screen message. In the above picture, the left hand red circle is the tank, it is very low. The right hand red circle is the low fuel indicator, it stays there and up at the top of the screen, the pop up message only stays for about 5-10 seconds. Nothing wrong there, it is nice to have, BUT when it gets down to around 50km to go, the range indicator suddenly goes blank, just horizontal dashes – – –

So, now you think you have 50km ish availability, but how can you know, it is blind faith! It is a big detraction from the ride from then on in.

I tested this symptom on a short local ride. I had only about 110km range left in the tank from my previous ride, so I did a small coastal loop of around 90km, KNOWING I had a probable 20km range excess. When the gauge gave me the – – – , it had just previously said 52km range, and the closest servo was 29km away, so all good yeah? It was still scary even though I sort of knew I had plenty. I did get there and fuelled up, and it had heaps left in the tank. It took 21.11 litres, so I had about 5 litres left, which is about 35km range. Heaps, but still scary, it needs improvement!! Come on BRP, surely you can do better than that!

I am going to have to find a way to fix that triple dash indicator though, because out wide in the desert country, fuel range is paramount, especially if you are like me and travel alone. And, of course, I will take the path less travelled, then have to make a decision to continue on to where there “should” or “could” be fuel, or turn back to the only “known” fuel spot, where I just previously fuelled up, around 150km ago, back that way. I hate backtracking.

Some background – There is also the issue of some remote servos not actually having any fuel at all! This has happened many times down here, a normal part of life in rural Australia, due to weather conditions usually. You know, dirt roads, rain, oooops, now we have mud so no fuel delivery, which may take a while. And of course lately, (in 2026) we have this slight problem with an overseas dickhead causing a fuel shortage, so it also means the standard travel routes are not as reliable lately for fuel either, regardless of weather and road surfaces! Although, that situation is improving with the national reserve being increased recently and alternate fuel sources being found.

My overland riding background previously, as you know, is with the Suzuki Vstrom 650cc. Fully loaded, over around 250,000km the tank managed about 320-380km range. That depended on the type of fuel I used and the height above sea level. (This Spyder is a larger bike, with a similar tank size, so of course my actual range will be lower. It is 1300cc, so nearly double the Vstrom.)

98 octane, that is when I got the max of around 380, but only after a few tanks of this stuff. It seemed the fuel injection system needed to learn what it was being offered and performed better each time. But being a cheapo, I rarely used that.

80 octane was the worst I filled with here in Australia(no idea what some of that shit was overseas, definitely contaminated). Here it is called Opal. It is the only fuel available in the central deserts of Australia and it has NO actual go. I think I got around 200km with this and absolutely zero ooomph. I did not include this in the range mentioned above, because I only travelled the central desert once or twice. You can read about why this fuel situation is like that, let your fingers do the walking. One thing to note though, it is illegal to sell anything other than Opal in some areas!!!

Fuel. And this is starting to be an essay on it’s availability and use I think. Because what happens when there is none available? Let us consider the current situation(June 2026). The fuel from the middle east is shut down a lot, with no actual timeline for reopening to its prior capacity.

On the other hand we have to consider the EV market,(electric vehicle). There are more and more EV’s being imported, (Australia can no longer produce a car, any type). Also the fuel vehicles are facing higher barriers with regards emissions standards.

Extrapolate. There is less fuel available in Australia because of the idiots overseas, we cannot(or won’t) produce our own, we do some, but not enough to cover our market, it is not profitable enough. And multiple governments over the years have decided to leave this area to the open market. Thus there is NO incentive for investment in this area, our market is too small, read not enough profit.

At this time, there are more EV’s coming in to Australia annually and because of the higher price and lower availability of fuel, there is a reluctance to buy gas guzzlers, which means more imports of brand new EV’s. It is a Catch 22 situation. Higher fuel prices, less availability means more conversion to EV’s. And finally now, after a long long time(over 20 years late imho), there is currently a second hand market in EV’s. The batteries are proving to be quite good for long term life. This means the local servos will start running out of customers, for fuel anyway. But maybe an increase in demand for fast chargers? If they think ahead.

So, I personally have a timeline to consider. My bike uses fuel. Fuel supplies are becoming unreliable. The places I want to ride to, have issues with being supplied with fuel. I reckon I have another 8 years or so of travel, under my own steam, before I resort to ‘other means’.

During that say, 8 years, EV’s will become more prevalent, chargers for EV’s will become more in demand, which then become more available, and then suddenly, there will be a turning point, where as a gas guzzler, it becomes harder to find fuel, which means the range of your tank becomes important.

I see the death of the fossil fuel industry with regards to transport within 10 years. For private vehicles anyway, maybe commercial will last a bit longer. But I see some of those have already been converted to Hydrogen fuel cells, still internal combustion though. Others have converted to EV, so I guess yes, fossil fuels will be harder to find, in the remote regions.

But, I digress. So, back to the point of this post. I want to increase my range. Currently, I would say I have a 300km range, which is OK, but not great. Factor in my “known” fill up points, allowing for supply issues, and my brain says I am down to about 200-250km before opting to fuel up. It is called piece of mind, and on the road, that is a big factor. I am still learning this bike, but if I go off track, like I intend to, then having a fuel range I can rely on is a priority.

The options that are out there.

I guess the first would be only go where there is fuel, allow for supply issues and be prepared to camp out and wait if need be. Not ideal for me, but doable, especially if I have the camper with me. It would then depend on the time issues, how long until fuel arrives, when do I need to be at the next “wherever”, unknown, but covered by good planning.

The next obvious option is to take extra fuel with me, which is very doable, in many different ways. Some are convenient, some not. I could add a 20lt jerry can somehow, that would double my range. But, where to stow it safely? If I was dragging the trailer, in there maybe, or on the draw bar, then we get into weight issues. I mean, I can balance the draw bar weight, but if I added approximately 20 litres of fuel, that would mean 1 less carton of spring water, or other fluid substances 😉 The inconvenient factor being the transfer into the tank. Not an ideal solution, but basically the easiest, if I have a storage point. The main down side of this is, I would need the trailer. If I just want to go for a long ride, I am stuck to the 250km limit.

There are quite a few storage solutions on the market, the jerry can as mentioned is basic and bulky. There are some other smaller containers out there designed for motorbikes, from about 1litre – 5 gallons.

But, most involve storage in spaces not ideal for fuel, like side or rear panniers. I mean, those spaces are in my mind reserved for clothes, food, spares, normal travel stuff. I know someone added an extra tank and pump and installed it in the Frunk(front trunk), that is a solution, but complicated. It has pros and cons. Pro being it is sitting low down and out of the way, Con though because it needs a pump to get it up to tank level, also there is less storage space. I will consider it though.

I also would prefer the fuel transfer be done automatically. No problems stopping on the side of the road and filling the tank from a Jerry, or switching to an Aux tank and pumping it across, up down or sideways. But not ideal.

It comes down to the need to add an auxilary tank(somewhere) and pipe it into the fuel system, without, and here is the kicker, annoying the nanny that runs the bike. The damm thing has sensors everywhere, run by a computer, so it is going to take some skill to interact with the system

To be continued, watch this space 🙂