I ran out of gas on the freeway

I'll keep it short and sweet.

Before coming home from work today I shook my bike and heard a resounding slosh of gasoline. I knew it was on the lower side, so I flipped the reserve as a preemtive measure (meaning i had 1 gallon left, about 36-45 miles worth).

well, about 1 mile from home, i change into the fast lane and try to accelerate, it holds steady, not slowing down, not speeding up; I had miscalculated my fuel level. I realized what happened and briskly pulled over to the inside emergency lane (too much traffic to make it over to the far right). Pulled in the clutch as I slowed down, engine died.

I call my friend, he tells me he's coming.

Three people stop for me, the last was my friend. The second was a rider who was caging (he had an inline 4 block for a bike in the back of his truck).

Now, the first person to stop for me

My MSF safety coach from a few months back.

We chat a bit about why I'm stuck and I note that I remember her from my safety course.
...
"We taught you how to utilize the on and reserve functions on your bike... how'd this happen."

"well, I thought I had it, but I didn't"

"you must not have been paying enough attention during that lesson"

"I suppose you're right. well, if it's any consolation I thought you were a great coach. Needless to say I'll make sure this doesn't happen again."
....

Lesson learned: when your msf coach calls you on your stupidity, it really makes an impact! haha, I think I'll send her a nice thank you email for stopping.

 

At least the stupidity was realized in gas usage and not cornering or obstacle evasion and she was not visiting you in the hospital. Some days are better than others.

 

I kept waiting to see my low fuel light come on during a track day....well on the back sweeper I started to bog down and pull to the side.....looked and no low fuel light was on. Open the tank and yep, no fuel! I trusted the previous owner, who was at the track with me, about the fuel light. But it was not working.... Had to push the bike back to the pits about 1/12 mile thru the dirt in full leathers and gear! I passed out when I got back

PS: I fixed that low fuel light now!

 

I think that running out of gas is something that happens alot, maybe not to the same person more than once, Ill admit that it happened to me, once. Im much more careful now tho, damn inop fuel lights. You find out who your friends are.

 

If you calibrate at stick that you can slip into your tank, mark it with your fuel level before/after your hot laps, you can do a reasonable job of gauging your mileage so you end the race on fumes and not carry all the extra fuel/weight... but that's on race day.

 

For whatever reason, I just hate to take the time to stop and gas up. For some other perverse reason, I also like to push it as far as I can to see just how low the gauge indicator will actually go before I'm "really" low on gas. As a result, I've run out of gas a few times over the years, but only once per vehicle owned. That "once" I guess was to satisfy my irrational need to find the limit. By the way, I've only done this with cages, never a bike. No, I don't know what's wromg with me.