A Honda Transalp xl650 might suit you...although the mpg is about 50ish.

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Dean

Got a TA600 at the mo'. Mine will manage 55 or so. No more.

Still seems low for an under-tuned twin. Shame, as it is otherwise a sterling bike: I love it!!

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Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

I have a nearly 3 year old DL650 which gives me around 60MPG this is on Autobahns though it does drop a bit on back roads.
The V Strom is a great all round bike though I would recommend a fork brace as it transforms the handling.
I got the GT version which came with hard panniers & top box but have since replaced all the luggage.
Good luck with your choice & enjoy the ride.
Andy

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Andy L

From the midnight sun to the silk & rhubarb roads, 2014
I am not an adventure rider, just a biker that has adventures.

55mpg isn't that bad. Depends I suppose on how hard you have to work to get it up that high. My 1100gs get's consistently 47mpg. If I work at it I can squeeze 50mpg. The GS650 reportedly can do 65 mpg.

I think if you really want something that sips fuel you'll have to downsize to 250 or less, like a WR250R, DR200SE. My 30 year old 100cc Honda step through get's very close to 150mpg, at about 60-70kph.

The hard aerodynamic facts are that a motorcycles and especially dual-sport bikes are very blunt instruments through the air.

Honda here in Thailand for several years has been selling fuel injected 125cc bikes which get great fuel economy while being reasonably peppy.
I think that's the way of the future, smaller will be more. People will just have to slow down a tad.
Not too likely I know.

True but they also have half the engine size, and a fraction of the weight!

The truth is technology is improve yet bike MPG is getting lower...

I know that my TA is not the worst, and agree that smaller cc may be the way forward for me.... still irks me that this is not being addressed by the manufacturers!!

I could live with a 250, or a 500 EFI Enfield!!

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Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

Bikes aren't designed for efficiency any more. They are principally designed for ease of manufacture, emissions and (in some cases) performance. There is a global push towards burning as much fuel as possible because the people in charge of the oil industry are also in charge of politics but that discussion is best kept to other forums.
Anyway, BMW makes a good effort to keep their bikes basically fuel efficient but they're still only now getting as good as bikes were 15 years ago with a well set-up carb. Smaller might be better, I don't have much experience with small bikes but I will say that in my experience small enduro machines tend to be competition oriented and economy is the last thing they're built for or they're really commuters in which case they're not much use off road. I have a soft spot for the MZ Bhagira 660. It uses the slightly older, carbed Yamaha lump and I've heard it's quite efficient in a tough chassis. I have not had one myself but it's a bike I've always fancied for that reason. Not having one myself I could be talking utter rubbish. As for smaller bikes, it depends where you are. Asian bikes built for the Asian market are quite different. In Thailand bikes tend to be 200cc or smaller due to tax laws so the small bikes are built much more efficient than the bikes we get in the west where they don't really expect us to buy them or care about them. In Japan 250cc bikes are very popular and 400cc is the cutoff for licensing laws. Again the smaller machines are more invested in there so they will be better than what we get here in the west. Maybe they are worth checking out? Grey imports are worth a look as they tend to use basically the same engines but with modifications so spares are usually not a big problem. I've had a few "grey" bikes over the years and had no real problem with them. They were also really good bikes.

Not commenting on politics... but from a technical point of view, that is a weird claim.

4 years ago, when all new motorcycles sold in the EU had to comply with the Euro-3 emissions norm, this new regulation was about 60% tighter than the previous Euro-2. Emissions and fuel consumption are naturally always connected (though there are many variables at play).

I bought a DL650K7 new in 2007, and it had, for example, new twin spark cylinder heads, as well as other modifications to the fuel injection and exhaust side. All aimed at burning the fuel more efficiently. And while the K6 model was not regarded as thirsty, actually there is, if not very significant, but still a clear improvement in fuel economy. All other Euro-3 bikes, that I´ve ridden far enough to calculate their consumption, seem to have gone the same way.

With cars over here (and in many places in the EU, I believe) you have to pay taxes based on their emissions these days. And fuel in Europe costs serious money, too, as we all know. So making vehicles burn as much fuel as they can wouldn´t exactly help selling them.

There are cars capable of 200mpg and yet we're riding motorcycles delivering 40mpg on average. Bikes are actually giving less mileage than cars in most cases.
The figures you quote are actually part of the problem. There is a skill in life in being able to view things as they really are instead of how you think they should be (or how you're told they are).
Let's not hijack this thread. There are plenty of places to discuss this outside of a travel forum.

If you take performance into account then there aren't any cars that beat motorcycles. Honda Insight (car) does 83 mpg - the best you can get in the UK. Performance is comparable to the Honda Innova bike which does about 114 mpg. To imply that you can buy a car from a dealership that delivers 200 mpg is a tad glib to say the least!

If you're ragging it a blade will give less than 20mpg and to get the same performance out of a car you need a seriously expensive piece of kit and will get less than 10mpg on a track.

I very much doubt that the big eveil oil multinationals exert any sort of political pressure on vehicle manufacturers to make their engines use more petrol! Why would Japanese manufacturers be affected when Japan doesn't even have petroleum production capacity?

To bring it back on topic - if economy is your number one concern get a 125 and pootle about. If going fast on tarmac is your number one concern then get a litre class superbike (that'll lose your license in 1st gear!), everything else is a compromise about where you want to be on the speed vs cost spectrum. There's a similar spectrum of speed vs comfort when it comes to road bias vs. off-road capability - where you want to sit on that spectrum is purely personal.
Personally I want a bike that will do 200 mph on tarmac, weighs less than 15 kg is fantastic off-road and does 1,000,000 mpg so I only have to fill it up once in this lifetime!

Although you've commented that you seem to be coming around to a smaller machine, capacity wise, my F800GS will do 60mpg no matter how hard I ride it!

It's not the comfiest for distance in the long run, but I've replaced the seat and bought a larger screen; now touring is a dream, and no less fun!

There have been cars capable of 200mpg but they don't make it into production which illustrates my point.
The BMW electronics have some clever stuff that makes them run lean. They are he most economical bikes in their class and don't sacrifice performance to do it. They have their faults but the engine management is second to none. The F800gs seat is awful after about 50 miles and the screen is too low. Sort that and it's a very nice touring bike. They do have issues though.

MPG is a bit of an obsession of mine and if that is true, given the way the worl is going meteorologically and financially, it really does seem to represent the very worst of profits before principles.....

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Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

Indeed. Economy is important to me too and economy equals range which is very important also. You can't change the world but you can change yourself and travel does that. If you're interested look up "brown's gas". It's low grade hydrogen from water by electrolysis. It's not enough gas to power the bike (yet, although people claim to have achieved that) but it does possibly make a difference of around 10 to 20%. This technology requires catalysts so is not particularly efficient yet. It's fairly well proved and water kits are even available to buy on ebay. I would recommend doing your own research and experimenting carefully on a proven machine you are familiar with if this is something that interests you. My opinion, for what it's worth is this stuff is still not efficient enough for travel but it's interesting stuff to look into.
What I want is an LPG tank on my bike. It's not common in the UK yet but is much more so elsewhere. It's literally half price fuel although you lose a bit of performance and efficiency. I have an LPG car and this stuff works very nicely. On an enduro bike with a single exhaust you tend to have a natural gap the other side ideal for a pressurised tank of liquid gas. It wouldn't give massive range but it would save money and lots of it and offer redundancy while traveling.