Hoaaaah!!!! Is exactly the first impression when you ride this green little baby; whatever else you write around this, however you play with words, is just secondary. You just end up in a state of elation once you dismount from this bike (in case you want to dismount).

The first impression when you see it in its full glory, the Ninja Green, leaves you mesmerized. A look at it and you have an everlasting image on your mind of a bike which is so aggressive in its styling that you find it admirers in all age groups and genders in the society. Be it a beautiful girl walking down the street, the kids playing on the back seat of a car, the autowallahs, the parking lot attendants, the neighborhood aunties, the heads were turning everywhere it went. Two kids even followed me for a kilometer or so and rang my doorbell just to have a close look at the bike.

The rev-happy engine is as smooth and fine as you want it to be, never showing any signs of stress when ridden at higher RPMs. It has got enough low-end torque to make your ride during the rush-hour traffic lot more comfortable, and the FI makes it even better. But then, this bike is not made to be ridden in slow speeds, this machine urges you to take it to its limits. Cross the 5 K mark on tachometer, in any gear, and you scream past everything running on the road while the parallel twins are humming that sweet one-note song.

With great power, you also need greater control, and the Ninja doesn’t disappoint you in that field either, 290 mm front and 220 mm rear discs perform their job without any hiccups. The bike stops where and when you want it to, without ever losing traction or sliding on the road. The suspension and chassis work perfectly to give the rider a smoother handling and better maneuverability.

Though 3 lac tag seems a bit too much for a 250-cc bike in India, but when you look at the overall ride quality and the fit and finish you get in turn, it would never make you feel like you wasted your hard-earned money. Even the rear-view mirrors are so stable at high RPMs that you can almost read a newspaper while cruising at 80+ speeds (provided you can read inverted alphabets) . Hope Bajaj learns something from their Japanese partners and fits their flagship product 220 with RVMs that show vehicles in the rear too and not just the shoulder of the riders.

Anyway, coming back to the point, this bike that I got to ride belongs to Sunny and is still in running-in period, so I couldn’t ride it as hard as I wanted to. Poor me, had 33 horses pulling me on a 8-lane highway inviting me with its arms wide open, but I couldn’t , had to control myself so hard that I gave the Ninja to my friend Salil to ride and I was happy riding his pulsar 180. And this agony reminded me of a famous bollywood dialogue by Ajit, one of the most popular villains in the Indian film industry:
“Robert iss ko liquid oxygen may daal do ! Liquid issay jeenay nahi dega aur oxygen isse marne nahi dega!” (Dump this man in liquid oxygen. The liquid won't let him survive and he oxygen won't let him die). So morale of the story is, Do not take a running-in bike to Taj expressway or any other highway, it might be injurious to your mental health.

P.S.: I would like to say thanks to Sunny for having faith in me and letting me ride his brand new Ninja and the Canon 7D to take the pictures.

and this would not have been possible without the help of my friend Salil who helped me during this photoshoot.





the view from my bed, Ninja calling me to ride.