Normally on longer trips I judge how much fuel I have left in my tank by the miles covered, and I think that’s the best way to go. However, when commuting, I rarely count miles as my commuting is only a few miles one way, so the only way to know is by checking fuel gauge and reserve light indicators.

Trouble with xt660z is that fuel reserve is almost ⅓ of the tank, and with a capacity of 23 liters – that’s a lot of miles that can be covered on the reserve!

First when i got the bike i was a bit twitchy seeing that orange light on my dash, but after filling up and realising that i’m not using all the fuel available, I stopped. And with time started ignoring the orange reserve light, because once it kicks in, it starts a new count – count of miles on reserve or “F-trip”. So I was going by that, and as soon as it hits 50 miles, I know it’s about time for the petrol station!

And here is the funny part!

One day after work, I jumped on my lovely XT, and it just wont start! Did all the usual checks: spark – check, air – check, fuel – sort of check – reserve showed that i have covered only 10 miles or so, but still nothing… Tired, puzzled and disappointed, I called the taxi to take me home, and the next day when I came back I brought some additional tools with me so I could do more checks, however…to make it work again all I had to do is to put it upright again! Feeling dumb, started thinking how on earth did that happened!?

So here is how…

On the way to work, I have to cross a very bumpy railway crossing and when, to get to the workplace – a straight road down a fairly steep hill… Sometimes I go over that railway crossing a bit faster than I actually should…so I believe that a few days back, I probably shook up the fuel inside of the tank violently enough to lift the float inside of the tank, making it to think that I topped it up with fuel again! But when the float went down again it reset the count!

And obviously because I thought that I still had plenty of fuel, I kept riding it till that very last downhill, where the remaining fuel moved towards the front of the tank, leaving fuel lines empty, and then failing to start because I tried to start it on the side stand too!