Judging by the number of times that we have been asked what the fuel consumption of a particular bike is, it is pretty obvious that this is an extremely important issue with the majority of motorcycle owners in India. To provide readers a ready reckoner where he/she can, almost at a glance, get the answers to the questions of how much from which bike, the Autocar India team took on the time consuming but necessary task of putting to the test ten motorcycles from various manufacturers.
  
Fuel consumption can depend on many factors, some of which do contribute to savings under certain circumstances. A common practise is to try and weaken the fuel mixture settings as much as possible. However, if done indiscriminately and without a consideration for smooth running and fairly easy starting, you can end up wasting fuel by having to observe excessive warming-up periods on cold starts and also needing to use more throttle to maintain proper speeds than would have been the case if the settings were optimum.
  
Developing good riding habits is one of the best ways of ensuring good Fuel Efficiency. Good riding habits, among other things, means curbing the tendency to rev the engine unnecessarily, especially in the lower gears. Idling the engine for long periods while chatting away with friends does not help economy either. Every small bit of attention that you pay to your riding and the maintenance of your bike to keep it in proper tune will pay dividends in the fuel economy stakes. Maintaining tyre pressures correctly may be critical to grip and handling and may seem like a small thing when considering fuel consumption, but every little adjustment contributes.
  


The rear drive chain adjustment is often overlooked and a slack chain not only makes for harsh power take-up, but it also reflects in the overall fuel economy. On their own, these factors may not be significant but when the best available kilometre per litre (kpl) is being sought then the accumulated contribution can be surprising.
  
As the bikes tested here are of differing capacities, there will be those who will point out that it is unfair to compare bikes with a difference in engine capacities. We agree! And we hasten to add that this is a comparison only by virtue of the bikes being tested together for reasons of convenience of testing, to ease the logistics complexity to some extent, and also to render as much parity to the test as is humanly possible, and in as identical conditions as possible.