I’ve never run out of gas…until now.

See that picture out on a Kansas farm road, somewhere in the middle of nowhere with a nice angle shot of my Suzuki Dual Sport?

Yeah…that was actually a picture that I took last night as I was testing out my bike after I made a few modifications on it. I don’t typically ride this motorcycle much, and I forget how much fun it is. I mention the modifications because I think it threw off my assumption that I had gas in my gas tank. Let me explain…

Firstly, this bike (Suzuki DR650) doesn’t have a gas gauge. So the best way to “know” how much you’ve got available is to reset your trip odometer every time you fill up and know that at about 100 miles, it’s time to pull over. That and you can give it the “slosh” test. Bikers know what I mean. I wasn’t hearing any sloshing at all!

Secondly – and the most important part about my mistake – is that I re-jetted the carburetor, twice. This meant disassembling the carburetor twice, dumping all of the gas out of it, and letting the bike sit idling while tuning it. This doesn’t add miles to the odometer; but it definitely takes gasoline out of the tank!

So once I was done messing with my new airbox, carburetor and exhaust setup I had to take it out and of course, run by the gas station. In fact, you can see the gas station in the distance of this picture, but I just wasn’t interested in walking the bike up and down the hill. I showed 86 miles on my odometer, and pop…it stopped running.

So I did what any good dad would do. I called my son to bring me a gallon of gas. I always keep a spare gallon in my truck (Google: “Rotopax Toyota Rail Mount” if you’re interested) and made him get out to Stanley, Kansas and let me fill up my tank.

All in all it wasn’t a terrible experience. I stayed calm, watched the sun go down and luckily had my phone…or otherwise I would have had to push my bike about a mile. Still, could have been worse.

Many of you might suggest that I simply move my gas petcock to the “res” (reserve) position but unfortunately I was running on reserve. Ain’t that my luck! 😉

Let it be known. I ran out of gas last night, and just when I thought only my daughter could do such a thing!

Have a good afternoon, Ryan