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ADV 350 RPM / Road speed Now with graph.

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2025 10:39 am
by roadster
Here is an observation for the technically minded ADV owners. In the owners manual Honda have provided some gear ratio figures and I have used these to make a chart showing engine speed versus road speed. Unfortunately I don't think I can embed or attach it here but to cut a long story short, if when running at a steady speed on the flat the rpm meter is at 7000 then road speed is a true 70mph. This is just below peak power ( 7500 rpm ) and shows that Honda have got the gearing about right even if the speedo is hopelessly inaccurate.

This is born out by my bike and testing also shows that the variator halves are fully closed at this point irrespective of load. In other words encountering an incline and/or opening the throttle does not immediately increase rpm although rpm will continue to rise in proportion to speed.

Superficially the variable pulley transmission may seem crude but in fact it has been refined over more than 50 years and should be appreciated for the brilliant engineering solution that it is.
Here is the plot.
ADV gearing graph

Blue line applies theoretically if front pulley was stuck at maximum diameter, red line if it was stuck at minimum diameter. In practice I know that the blue line applies at 70 mph and above but I'll need to run the scooter in and do a lot more testing to get more intermediate information.

Re: ADV 350 RPM / Road speed Now with graph.

Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2025 9:56 am
by Defender 100
Thanks, that's interesting and most informative, especially the graph/plot, as a newby to (bike) CVT systems I'm picking up knowledge where and when I can.
I echo you comment about the speedometer inaccuracy, mine is reading between 3 & 4 mph high at any measured speed on a GPS.