hi. I spoke with "sales" at Acerbis Italy last week about making a longer range tank for the Adventure 640. I have a 40 litre tank on my Honda XR650L and would switch to KTM with a 45 litre tank if one were available. I reckon that a larger tank would make the KTM the ultimate long-range bike and that many people using XR650L, Tenere or Africa Twin would switch over.
Acerbis sales told me that their minimum production run would be 100. I guess the UK market might need 10-20 so the UK importer really isn't so interested, yet. I think that across Europe, 100 customers could be found.
for Acerbis to do something about it in 2004, they'd need numbers in September 2003. what do others think?
I'd go for a design along the following lines:
- must fit with existing mountings, seat and handlebars, but allow for handlebars to be raised 3cm using standard bar raisers. (if I had an Adventure, I'd raise the bars at least this much for extended riding stood up)
- translucent, orange design so I can see fuel level through side. it'd be nice to have graduations along, say, the front so you can read the remaining fuel. I'd also like a fuel resistant, plastic green fish swimming in the fuel ;-)
- reserve taps set so that I go onto reserve with 10 litres remaining
- bottom corner of tank moulded to protect the fuel tap in case of a fall