Big Bike - Air Cool or Liquid Cool in Thailand?

[NDSinBKK]

I'm shopping for a single or twin cylinder dual-sport bike. It will be mostly ridden on the street, and a large part of that in Bangkok. Some is likely to be off-pavement, which is why I'm looking for a DS bike rather than a full street bike...

My air-cooled HDs did not like sitting in Manhattan traffic - in fact I'd have to shut them down in the worst summer conditions and let them cool off a bit.

Is there any reason to prefer air or liquid cooling for a large displacement bike in this climate under those conditions?

Tks for your comments.

 

[monsterman]

Certainly big aircooled bikes bont like BKK traffic , i have ridden HDs in BKK and there are hundreds being used daily in BKK and Pattaya , my Ducati is water cooled , on the open road it makes no difference .If u are doing a lot in BKK get a BMW 650 GS bullet proof rotax motor good off road and on the st.

jerry

 

[Franz]

Concur with Jerry, I have both a - F650GS Rotax single cylinder watercooled Beemer with no problems and an old XJ750Seca Yamaha 4-cylinder aircooled with a distaste for sitting on red traffic lights. Get a watercooled one that's for sure. Cheers, Franz

 

[Azoulay]

Hi Friends,

Nice to to see that there are still some big bike inconditional riders who prefer to ride a big big rather than an automatic Nouvo or others.

Personnally having a DUCATI Monster, pretty well tuned, I prefer to keep it for country rides and road travels than for BKK, as agree with you the temperature goes up quite quickly and on top it' s not confortable to ride it in BKK (power, driving position, fact that I have to press the clutch every 200 meters.. Even with a 15 tooth sproket, the drive is not so funny.

Once I'ld like to try these big scooters (Burgman and others) which have an automatic transmission you could change as well for semi-manual gears...

Think to it.

 

[mikerust]

Go water and get a fan fitted if it doesn't have one!! Some BKK lights have 200 second timers!

 

[Klaus]

Watercooling keeps the temperature of the engine at a more constant level, that way the internal parts need less space to expand. That translates into higher compression, which means more power.
That's putting it very simple. Any additional info is appreciated.
The downside is more weight for the cooling system, waterpump, radiator, lines, cooling fluid aso. But these days they're able to save weight in other places by using lighter and less materials so a new watercooled bike can be lighter than an old aircooled one.
Soon there will be no more aircooled engines for several reasons.
Even HD made the jump off the tree and onto the ground and now builds bikes with fuel injection and watercooling.