How much gas do we really need to carry?

I will be the first to admit that I am not the most seasoned snowbiker. I purchased my bike and Timbersled kit last year used and already assembled. It's a very low mile 2010 KTM 530 XC-W. That being said, on my early snowbike adventures, the first few rides I dutifully packed around the full 3+ gallon Mountain Addiction gas can strapped to the tunnel thinking I would need all that extra fuel. That's roughly 25 lbs. of extra weight added to the rear of the snowbike.

After several rides, I noticed I was barely using any of the extra gas I was packing around. The extra gas I was using from the tunnel was dumped into the tank merely to get some of the weight off the tunnel. We seem to go to great lengths to reduce weight on our snowbikes and sleds and packing around way more gas than I could ever use just doesn't make sense to me. I didn't want to pack a half full gas can around, so I started packing the smaller Mountain Addiction 1.3 gallon can in place of the larger gas can. I still seem to have plenty of gas on each ride.

Maybe my rides are shorter than others? Maybe my stock gas tank is larger? Maybe I am not revving the bike to stay on top of the snow as much because I have a LT? Maybe I'm just not as big of a guy as some? For whatever reason, I just don't seem to need to pack that much extra fuel.

Are the rest of you seeing this as well?

I didn't buy my bike until the early season deep powder had settled so maybe that's part of the reason I am not using as much fuel. I found I use about 3 gallons of fuel per day as well but, my gas tank on the bike is just under 2.5 gallons.

So, for early season I will plan on bringing extra fuel and the 3 gallon can and as the snow settles I will switch back to the smaller 1.3 gallon gas can.