pratik.pat

yes you are very correct and i fully support you,
n if they cant increase cc then atleast increase the tech.
i mean the braking ,handiling n stuff and not just put another engine in a cycle.

niks_devil666

1.We all know how we get licenses ?
2.We all know what kind of stuff we encounter on the highways (as pointed out , people/cycles crossing dividers , driving in wrong lane , getting on the main road w/o looking at the approaching traffic)
3.No proper markings on the roads (imagine doing a 140 kmph and hitting a breaker)
4.no staged license system .Until and unless people upgrade slowly with cc and bhp , they won't undrstand the true power of these bikes.
5.where driving or riding simply means use of accelerator , brake and cluth.There is no need to know traffic rules.
6.State of roads
7.No fence on the highways to keep away stray animals
8.Highways going through the city , local people crossing everywhere.

there maybe more points too , I'll add them if I can think of any.

As long as these things can't be fixed (which I am sure won't for many years to come) a 200-250 cc , 25-30 bhp bike is more than enough.Rest of the other bikes , keep them as niche products.

ken cool

I suppose they forgot to look at fencing in the cows before nationally launching the R1 and the MT.

I can keep adding points too if I wanted even for countries Germany and France who have some of the most stringent methods of giving licenses unlike their dole. Banning motorcycles for example, going by the sheer number of R6 that drop off the mountain curve edges.

That is not my point. I am trying to highlight the lack of choices. There is not much to choose between 15Bhp and 189 Bhp.

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Xbhp's Indo-French Kashmir-Ladakh Tour

niks_devil666

yep I agree , thats why I said "niche products".Bring them here but it shouldn't be within the reach of every tom , dick and harry.Who ever has the passion for motorcycling , should get the money and buy it.And of course this doesn't mean that it should be priced more than double its price elsewhere.

dcs

yeah Ken.... we agree and understand your point. I had a 150 cc Pulsar and when I wanted an upgrade..only two machines came into my mind...Zma and Pulsar 220.!
I understand people's concern about bad roads, lack of driving/riding sense and all the related stuff...but are WE somehow forgetting that the same kind of Roads are there for the Caged Birds too.
if I wish to buy a car today...I have almost everything...from the lean mean 800 to the Top Notch...they use the same roads, so why not for Bikes!
well, lets understand.....when a Company plans to introduce a bike...it would always look for mass production and mass sale...they would perhaps never give a SH^t to a small fragment of Bikers who would want more then 13bhp Horse!
but believe me..things will change..as they changed in the 4 wheel segment.......dont know how many of us can recall but I remember it fairly well the times when we had only Fiats and Ambyz on our Roads, but then came the Suzuki and the scenario changed...it still is improving!
so what if we dont have Ferraris or Porsche, we still have a whole lot of choices to opt from. so its just a matter of some more time....it changed for 4 wheelers, and with the Bajajs and Yamahas doing their bit(would NOT count HH in it) I am waiting for the sun to shine on the 2wheeler segment too.
Things change, people evolve...its just a matter of time!
but till that warm and sunny Morning comes after this clod spell of Dark winter Night....I would Rather ride a ZMA or a Pulsar!

ken cool

Me too. I do believe that things will change. I really hope they do. For the sake of everyone out here and out there as well. Question is when! Two years, ten, twenty five. Several European countries had developed 1000 cc multicylinder bikes in the 1930s capable of going at 150. That was nearly a century ago. Lets see when our turn comes.

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The Wheel was a great invention; Two Wheels with a Motor in between was even better!


BMW Motorrad Days 2011

Xbhp's Indo-French Kashmir-Ladakh Tour

Old Fox

Ken has put up a pretty pertinent issue in ‘What Next’ and expectedly, the resulting give n take has shot off on a tangent.

The matter of getting ‘better’ bikes has actually narrowed down to getting more ‘powerful’ and ‘speedier’ bikes in the discussion here. Better does not = speedier necessarily but as any ‘wide-spectrum biker’ would understand, more power is always an asset on the road. The ‘wide-spectrum biker’ WSB here is the one who commutes, tours, drags and does occasional wheelies apart from loving and maintaining his steed. And a large majority of riders interacting on this forum are WSB’s.

Power is not all about top speed as is the popular misconception. Its about choice. The throttle is as much an important control as are the brakes and many-a-times it is the throttle that can save your neck rather than the brakes. And just having good braking and practically no throttle at your cruising speed means having half the control. Try and overtake a roadways maniac doing 90 on the highway, say on a ZMA or the 220 and count the tens of seconds and hundreds of meters you spend next to the speeding behemoth, at mercy of the driver’s whim and the bus’s maintenance crew back at the depot. As any rider worth his salt would know and realize every moment he spends moving on the saddle of his steed, that minimum time spent while overtaking is the safest. You need a safety buffer of space around you when you are riding and this is per se compromised while overtaking. And only surplus power, over and above what is needed to cruise, is what gets you that safety margin.

As for unsafe speeding when you’ve got more horses on the tap, don’t losers spend their dad’s ill-gotten wealth on drugs, alcohol or even junk food abuse. That doesn’t mean you stop people from getting rich. Power has the potential to corrupt but being corrupt is a choice, not an unavoidable inevitable consequence.

Large motorcycle sales is a statistical illusion in a market like India’s. And the illusion arises because the term ‘motorcycle’ includes 50cc mopeds through to 2000cc+ Triumph Rockets. Bikes are sold in LARGE numbers here but only in the narrow 50cc-250cc categories. And it makes economic sense for all makers to cater to that narrow category. Cause higher engine capacity beyond certain limits necessarily entails a penalty in terms of increased fuel consumption and higher pricing, which the majority apparently is not willing to accept. It’s the typical ‘what came first – chicken or egg’ situation where one might say that the low-capacity engine market exists only because higher capacities have never been really introduced here. Or vice-versa. It’s a multi-million dollar game where the minority consumer can only make relevant noises and keep his/her hopes alive.

Ride long and safe…
OF

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dcs

Dear Ken, Lets not forget that it took almost 20years for the 4wheelers to pick up from way back in 1980-82 to what the scenario is Today....so owing to the Fact that we, You and Me Live in a country that has all sorts of Hurdles for the Biking Community,....lets keep the Flame within and lets wait for the time being, else if I possessed any magical powers, then I would have whirled my Magic wand 5 times over the head, would have Hit Desi on his @$$ 3times and would have TURNED the dreams to reality, but Alas...am just a simple Human, with absolutely no Magical Powers, so Boss.... Lets give it some more time....!

P.S: Desi...Hope u r listening

ken cool

@OF: Some people just have inherent sense and sensibility and see and understand the perspective. A lot others have just pride and prejudices. You seem to fit the former category. How I liked your simple idea of getting in the right analogy of overtaking a roadways speeding trigger-happy moron driving a rolling coffin can turn your trip into a disaster for lack of a few Bhp coz HH (or someone else) does not think that we "need" those extra Bhp on "bad" roads!

@dcs:

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The Wheel was a great invention; Two Wheels with a Motor in between was even better!


BMW Motorrad Days 2011

Xbhp's Indo-French Kashmir-Ladakh Tour

greyanaroth

@Old Fox - Resounding Applause! I completely agree, in fact thats exactly the point I was going to make. In city conditions, sometimes even a ZMA can be pretty dangerous on high speed overtakes. You NEED that extra power on tap to just zoom past the offending vehicle in front of you and settle back into cruising speed. Trust me, when you're riding at 110 km/h with your bike maxed out, and suddenly need to get out of a tight situation, you're stuck in a BAD place because there's just no more power. In fact, post 100, in almost all bikes in India, there's very little power left.

Who the hell wants top speed? I'd want shitloads of power in the mid range to be able to just call on it whenever possible.

It's like this - you try and get a massive savings account, not because you need that money ALL the time, it's because you might need it in a lot of unforseen situations.

As someone pointed out - rich kids find all kinds of creative ways to kill themselves. Correction, stupid kids find all kinds of creative ways to kill themselves. The smart ones get richer, the stupid ones poorer, and hopefully dead!

This entire "don't sell high performance machines because people will misuse them" attitude IMO is absolute BS! It's the most redundant, unprogressive thought ever. Instead of focussing on education the people, we're just limiting them becuase we fear they wont be able to handle all that power. Who the fvck are you to make that decision? The entire point of living is to either learn from your own mistakes, or other people's, or die trying. I think we as a nation are mature enough to know what's gonna kill us.

@Leon - ever checked out the biking scene in US? It's way more dangerous than India, because

1. Almost everyone has a bloody powerful machine
2. Vehicles are cheap
3. People are idiots
4. Low density of bikes, so most cagers don't even look for bikes, and frequently swerve/crash/reverse into them!
5. People are idiots
6. Super fast expressways

But STILL, people have the CHOICE! Despite the fact that sales are very minimal, and the price of the bikes are less than half of what it is in India, you'll MOSTLY find big capacity bikes there because people HAVE ALWAYS HAD A CHOICE and they've chosen the BIG BIKES!!!!!

Why is everyone so hell bent on mollycoddling India? Open the damn markets, hell if Yamaha can whip out the R1 and recoup at what seemed like the end of their Indian tenure, then surely Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki can bring out their big machines?

Hell, has everyone forgotten that we can now buy LEGAL DUCATIS??

What is it with everyone?

I might not want to tour, but I'd definitely love to plonk down my hard earned money on a good BIKE, and not on a car because I have no options. I'd also like to do it legally, with comprehensive insurance, warranty, and official support. Not spend shitloads of money on an illegal import, no official support, no warranty, no insurance, and still pay DOUBLE of what the rest of the world pays.

Hell we should be getting a discount! We ARE a third world country arent we?