on board comuter question...average speed

[goo]

both my mazda and my r1200r seem to think it's mportant that i know this.
not sure i know what i'm supposed to do with that particular piece of data.

10-q

[ka5ysy]

You are doing the proper thing: Wondering what the heck we need to know this important piece of information for.

Actually, that data seems to be used for calculating the remaining fuel range, and somebody in Munich in the software department figured we might need to know average speed for rally runs thus we got a display.

[Talon Six]

I thought that was average speed over the speed limit or something...

[tinytrains]

It is a pointless feature, but it is free to implement because all the needed functions are already in the computer.

I would rather they redesigned the display to show more information at once.
Odometer
Trip meter
Temp
MPG
And Distance to Empty.

They could reduce the size of the gear indicator. You can see if from 3 lanes away.

Scott

PS, my average speed is always 36 MPH. I can reset it, but after a few days, it is back to 36.

[redwing]

It is a pointless feature, but it is free to implement because all the needed functions are already in the computer.

I would rather they redesigned the display to show more information at once.
Odometer
Trip meter
Temp
MPG
And Distance to Empty.

They could reduce the size of the gear indicator. You can see if from 3 lanes away.

Scott

PS, my average speed is always 36 MPH. I can reset it, but after a few days, it is back to 36.

Scott ... Does the 36 MPH cause an inflated MPG and Distance to Empty?? I noticed today a reading of "151 to empty" dropped to "141 miles to empty" after 4 or 5 miles of heavy excelleration.

Robert

[deilenberger]

It is a pointless feature, but it is free to implement because all the needed functions are already in the computer.

I would rather they redesigned the display to show more information at once.
Odometer
Trip meter
Temp
MPG
And Distance to Empty.

They could reduce the size of the gear indicator. You can see if from 3 lanes away.

Scott

PS, my average speed is always 36 MPH. I can reset it, but after a few days, it is back to 36.

Funny - someone once claimed my average speed is 37.5MPH, and named it an "Eilenvector" (or 1Ev - which IS different from 1eV..) And in many years of tracking overall average speed on my GPS's - he was pretty well dead on. +/- 0.5MPH, pretty much wherever I ride if I'm not doing exclusively slab... so it doesn't surprise me to hear you have a constant number. If you ride the same routes, the same sort of road, the same time of day - average becomes really AVERAGE and apparently varies very little.

BTW - I love the big gear indicator - but even as big as it is - it doesn't keep me from taking off from a light in 2nd (and once in a while 3rd.. gotta love torque!) Be better if it turned to flashing green for "N"..

[deilenberger]

Scott ... Does the 36 MPH cause an inflated MPG and Distance to Empty?? I noticed today a reading of "151 to empty" dropped to "141 miles to empty" after 4 or 5 miles of heavy excelleration.

Robert

Robert, I'm not Scott - but I actually doubt if the computer uses average speed for the distance to empty calculation. If BMW was at all smart - they'd do what Fuel+(plus) did (a popular OBC add-on for early K bikes).. they would know the remaining volume in the tank, and the amount of fuel currently being injected, then use some time-averaging function so it doen't wildly fluctuate. You get on the bike for 4-5 miles - your fuel use goes up, your distance to empty drops.

No reason to make complex calculations that would have to be based lookup tables based on average readings from multiple bikes in multiple environments, with multiple fuel characteristics when you have the needed data right at hand.

What sort of confirms this is the silly numbers I see on miles to empty when I first fill a tank and for the first 80 miles or so - until the gauge starts registering (first 80 miles it indicates FULL)..

One oddity I've found - lately mine has been reading 43-44 average MPG. The last few tanks I calculated my MPG - and have been getting a real 49-50 MPG. (Distance/gallons).. dunno what's up with that... but as I near the bottom of the tank (say 180 miles on it) it appears the distance to empty might be fairly accurate - at 180 miles I usually see about 70-80 miles until empty.. which if you use 50MPG works out to around a 5 gallon capacity (with probably 3/4 gallon in "reserve" when it reaches 0..)

[tinytrains]

As Don said, I don't think the average speed affects distance to empty. I believe resetting the average MPG does affect the DTE. While the DTE seems to work, I would not bet a "long push" on it.

Scott

[websterize]

Funny - someone once claimed my average speed is 37.5MPH, and named it an "Eilenvector"

37.5 is my average MPG. I reset all the readouts after every fill up. Filled up tonight, and my average speed after 99.9 miles was 17 mph.

To the original question, average speed is a reminder how slow commuting in the city can be.