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Stan wrote Needless to say, despite all the friendly chemistry in a bottle out there, there will never be ethanol containing fuel getting into those two bike's tanks.[/quote]

Good luck with that Stan. I bought an ethanol tester from EBay last week and decided to "test" all of the gas available in my area. I have an Esso station, an Ultramar station and a Shell station within 1 kilometer of my house. I collected samples right from the pump nozzle and tested.
Esso - regular fuel measured 5% Premium fuel measured 10%
Ultramar - the same regular 5% premium 10%
Shell - which is supposed to be nitrogen enriched fuel BIG SURPRISE regular 5% premium 10 % ethanol There is a belief out there that the premium fuel at Shell do not have ethanol in it and all of the guys in my subdivision have been told by their small engine repair guy to buy Shell premium and use nothing else in their lawnmowers, weed wackers chainsaws etc.

I have noticed that the tanker truck which drops fuel in Bobcaygeon IS THE SAME TRUCK seen at all 3 stations. You would think that if you bought fuel from a brand named company, you would be getting their brand. I know that all 3 gas stations here in Bobcaygeon are private owned stations and not franchised so I'm guessing that all 3 are buying fuel locally to reduce shipping costs and the common supplier is LiftLock Fuels out of Peterborough (45 Km away)

I guess what I'm trying to say here is "Do you really know what your buying these days?" This tester cost me $16.00 Canadian. Really it's just a 50ml test tube like bottle with graduations on it. You put in about 20ml of water and then top up with fuel. Give it a shake and let it settle. The ethanol comes out of suspension with the fuel and blends with the water and you measure the difference as a percentage as marked on the tester. Pretty simple.

Some of you might want to look into the price of race fuel. I don’t use race gas anymore, but I know I could have 99 octane leaded ethanol free fuel delivered if I wanted. My current race fuel (Ethanol) comes from a supplier in San Antonio, about 250 miles away. Cost is $145/54 gallons including the drum. I am guessing gas is twice that.

Cheapest way to get less than a drum is to have your own containers and go to a race shop/race track to fill them.

I personally transfer the drum to 5 gallon containers, put them in the trailer and give away the drum. A manual drum pump is $20.

Tonto,
If you look on the internet, it seems that you CAN still find ethanol free fuel in Britain. However, it depends which region of the UK you are in. Shell V Power 98 is ethanol free in certain areas, as is Esso Synergy 97. I only use Shell V Power in my humble Ford Focus, and I feel that it is better for it. Certainly, my experience of the E 10 s**** they sell in France is enough to make up my mind regarding fuel with ethanol added.

Kawboy - I bought that tester as well, right after your first mention of it I haven't tested yet, but of course I will.
I have no doubt there is cross contamination and from what you are saying the delivery by the companies looks to be on the shady side. I did some reading and apparently the Ethanol number is not written in stone from the beginning, but rather 'up to' a certain number, and that's on the hands of the fuel supplier. From what I gather, the gas stations are not obliged to check fuel for alcohol content. So it's really up to the fuel distributor - they mix ethanol into the gasoline. So, there could be cross contamination due to carelessness, or who knows, even intentional as ethanol is cheap and pure gasoline is expensive. Just extra 1% in a tanker would add up nicely. I'm not suggesting conspiracy theories, but look at the German automobiles scandals due to rigging computers in order to show clean exhaust gases. I'd bet someone somewhere would cheat if they could get away with it.

At the pump, I only buy if it specifically says 'contains 0% Ethanol'. Can I trust it? Not sure. But without academic lab testing, I guess my real life 'myth busters' type scientific experiment gave me simple results: using that proclaimed 0% - bike starts and runs smooth, using other than that - nope, or leads to 'nope' eventually. There is nothing else to it.
I usually go to Chevron, as apparently they do offer real ethanol free gas - which will be tested by me!

About Stabil and otherwise treatments. The bottle says to add a certain volume per fuel volume. Wouldn't it make more sense to add it 'per alcohol volume'? If you fill up with 50 liters and it contains 10% instead of 5, or even more, that can't work equally for all. Or does it? I wonder if there is any study to see how compounds like Stabil effect fuel/alcohol mix, form 0 to 100% alcohol. There has to be a curve.

I've read something about ethanol free availability in marinas changed in Canada. BC at least, meaning harder to get.

Gasoline comes to Vancouver from the USA, and that's where the mixing business is done, and documented it's all over the ethanol map. Also, do the gas stations rotate storage tanks?

Frank, I think that $145/54 gallons including $20 drum is a sweet deal! It's cheaper than regular 87 with 10% here.

Just a thought: The fuel you get in Europe nowadays is always without lead, the "normal" stuff may contain up to 5% ethanol and some years before they introduced a sort E10 with 10% ethanol.
But the minium octane you get today is 95. In the past it used to be 92, but they got rid of that sort. I believe the ethanol content has an impact on the starting behaviour, the running though is related to the octane.

What do you think ?
Holger

I found this 6 minute video presented by the Unniversity of Nebraska Lincoln which does a reasonably good job of explaining octane rating and the use of ethanol to achieve octane rating.