Motorcycle manual longer than Pride and Prejudice

[DaveM]

One of the first things your owner’s manual says is to read the manual first bed ore ring.

But who does, especially when it is often longer than the turgid Jane Austen historical romance novel Pride and Prejudice at 364 pages.

New research from the UK’s Scrap Car Comparison has discovered that many motorcycle owner manuals require longer reading times than some of classic works of fiction.

The research, which took word counts from each manual and used the average English silent reading speed of 238 words per minute to reach the results, found that the Kawasaki Z1000SX was the motorcycle with the longest manual.

Kawasaki Z1000SX

If you actually read it (whether in the printed or online version), it will take you about 8 hours 12 minutes it which is more than two hours longer than reading Pride and Prejudice!

I don’t know about you, but I would rather be riding than reading.

BMW manuals make up three of the top five longest motorbike manuals, with all sitting consistently between 47,000 and 50,000 words.

Honda manuals analysed fall within the bottom half of our list, with three featured in the bottom four.

The Vmoto Super Soco CPX owner’s manual was the shortest manual of all vehicles analysed, taking just 12 minutes to read.

However, be aware that some Asian motorcycle manuals have stilted version of English that can sometimes not only be difficult to read, but quite humorous.

Here are the biggest motorcycle owner’s manuals:

Rank	Motorbike Make & Model	Manual Word Count	Average Time To Read
1	Kawasaki Z1000SX	117,155	8 hours 12 minutes
2	Royal Enfield Interceptor 650	56,392	3 hours 56 minutes
3	BMW R1250RT	49,793	3 hours 29 minutes
4	BMW S1000RR	48,544	3 hours 23 minutes
5	BMW R1250GS	47,229	3 hours 18 minutes
6	Triumph Tiger 900 GT Pro	45,083	3 hours 9 minutes
7	Triumph Trident 660	37,800	2 hours 38 minutes
8	Yamaha Ténéré 700	28,685	2 hours
9	Honda SHi 125	23,438	1 hour 38 minutes
10	Yamaha NMAX 125	22,152	1 hour 33 minutes
11	Honda PCX125	21,083	1 hou 28 minutes
12	Honda CB125F	15,029	1 hour 3 minutes
13	Honda NSC 110 Vision	12,146	51 minutes
14	Vmoto Super Soco CPX	2,834	12 minutes

The post Motorcycle manual longer than Pride and Prejudice appeared first on Motorbike Writer.

 

[Dinney]

In these days of litigation and 'Ambulance Chasers' the manufacturers tend to not take anything to chance with providing information that several decades ago would be so obvious, that it would be hardly worth mentioning or emphasising so much.
Paraphrasing from my 2018 T100 owners manual, the book is littered with dozens of gems like, "check your brake fluid regularly, as low fluid levels may cause brake failure and lead to an accident". They've told the owner, so don't go back to Triumph and complain about brake failure if you ignore the basic checks. How about "observe all local speed restrictions and never ride in dangerous conditions - loss of control may lead to an accident and serious injury".........Really?
On top of all this there is the huge complexity of many bikes with all manner of relatively easy to engineer in soft options and which will need to be covered in some depth.
I doubt if the average rider uses 25% of the available settings available to them. Very much like so many other consumer good from TVs to mobile phones.
I do keep a downloaded version of the manual on my phone, just in case I forget something whilst out.

 

[HKChris]

If you think the Kawasaki manual is big, you haven't seen the Triumph Oracle, jeeze, what a tomb, look at the index, it's reaching 30,000 pages. If there's a competition for volume this has got to be out in front. Granted, it's not a manufacturers publication, and does cover an entire centuries production of classics, but do we really need it. Thing with manufactures filling text with the obvious, is there's an awful lot of riders out there that need to be told the obvious. Read some of the queries of website posts and it's clear some don't have a clue. Ok, we can all learn more, and we're the better for it, and everyone has to start somewhere, but yes, it's monotonous to cover the same ground again and again. You can't blame the authors, their just doing what they have to, and I'm sure if they didn't say, 'keep tires inflated', some one somewhere would sue them. Truth is, I'd rather have to much info, than not enough, even if it does confuse the un-informed who rely as fact on some strangers webpost.

 

[Rocky]

This is interesting because my new car has an owners manual of 568 pages.
I thought that was pretty bad, but compared to these, it's a brief read before bedtime

 

[HKChris]

There's another point to these manuals, context. You find the item your interested in, great, but there is no way of understanding the way in which it is dependant on other items unless your savvy with the entire machine. Another is, I have a massive manual for a BMW K1200GT, The ABS (sorry, 'advanced Braking System') takes about 30 pages, (and yes I'm guilty, take it apart, then look at the manual), that goes on to say, 'not' serviceable' replace as a assembly. Fact is, modern stuff becomes more and more user unfriendly, built to a budget, buy and throw away, beyond the reach of mere mortals. What price evolution.

 

[VABird]

The problem stems from the hideously complicated systems the bikes have today. All the rider modes, TFT screens, and garbage features drive up costs (and manual thickness).

I'd buy a new bike if it was not for all the junk.

 

[Qship]

The problem stems from the hideously complicated systems the bikes have today. All the rider modes, TFT screens, and garbage features drive up costs (and manual thickness).

I'd buy a new bike if it was not for all the junk.

The Bonneville line is pretty simple still. ABS and two ride modes I believe. Maybe cruise control if optioned(think new T 120 models have it stock).

 

[Vector]

My only concern is the fly-by-wire throttle.

 

[Qship]

Pretty well every modern car/bike/truck today is fly by wire throttle control. Hard to get away from and results in engineers being able to program in better fueling maps. Triumph are some of the best out there according to most reviews. I have no complaints.