Thread: Suzuki Bandit 1250 or Triumph 800XC?

So the other day I read that Triumph has confirmed that it will be selling bikes here starting in 2012. The list of models available included the Speed Triple, Street Triple, Daytona 675, a few cruisers, and the all-new Tiger 800XC.

I had been all set to buy a Bandit 1250 here in a few months. I was going to strip it down to the bare essentials and turn it into a streetfighter. I had already lined up a seller for the Pirelli tires I wanted, and had contacted Holeshot Performance in the states to confirm that they could put together a one-off streetfighter version of their slip-on exhaust systems for me. I had put together a list of other parts I needed, and found suppliers for most of them.

I live in Bhubaneswar, where the traffic is still pretty chaotic, and the roads are not very well graded/designed. There's a lot of sand/gravel in the corners, and many side streets are not even paved yet (at least outside the center of the city). I felt that a streetfighter was going to be the best solution to a high-performance machine that would still be suitable to the environment. The only other machine that would give me the performance I wanted, be able to survive the occasional low-side, and handle the wide range of surfaces I face is the BMW 1200GS. The problem is that bike costs upwards of 20lakh, which is outside my budget. Plus the BMW looks a little weird.

The official arrival of the Triumph Tiger has changed all of that. The new Tiger is light-years beyond the old model. The old one was basically a street bike with longer suspension travel. The new one, especially the XC version that will be coming here, is far more capable. Even better, Triumph will be bringing their bikes in as CKD and assembling them here, so the price will be reasonable. The Tiger already sells for the same price as the Bandit out there in the real world, so the price might even be a little lower here. It does everything I need it to, plus it has a version of the fabulous Triumph Triple motor. I would still be able to do the longer rides, plus I wouldn't have to worry about the occasional low-side as much, since the Tiger is pretty much designed with that in mind. I'll also be in better shape during monsoon season, since the Bandit is heavy and not really all that great on questionable pavement. Also, as has been shown time after time, a well-ridden dual-sport will walk away from pretty much every superbike out there everywhere but on a track.

So, in short, here's the pros and cons:

Pro Bandit:
Can buy as soon as my finances are ready
There's a dealer here in town
Already have the parts lined up for my conversion
Big-ass motor/nothing like winding out a big inline-four, especially with a performance muffler
Huge support community world-wide

Con Bandit:
To get the bike I want, I have to do some frame cutting and buy some expensive parts
Will probably lose the passenger seat during the conversion
Dubious performance on muddy/dirt/gravel roads (heavy)
Low-siders are risky, as the bike is more likely to be damaged, and is heavy to pick up afterwards

Pro Tiger:
Much better suited to the multi-surface roads here
Still good at long tours
Can keep the passenger seat
Will be better in wet weather
Price might be lower
That triple-piston sound

Con Tiger:
Have to wait for it to be available
Not likely to have a dealer in BBSR
Smaller motor


So, what does xBHP think? Which should I go for? The purchase budget should be about the same, so that's not really the consideration. The Bandit will cost a little more in aftermarket parts, but will have correspondingly more performance. The Tiger will work better on the roads here "out of the box", but I'll have to wait to get one, and might have to go to one of the big cities to buy it.

Edited to add also: The actual price of the Tiger is announced at 11.34lakh, far above the 6-7lakh price I anticipated, so that's a big "Con" there.

Thread approved

if going for Superbike ... i will Prefer Suzuki over Others ... Go for Bandit 1250 and start Fast Touring

With an 800cc triple, I'm pretty sure the Tiger can do 120km/h all day, which is faster than pretty much every highway in my area (and probably every highway bikes can legally ride on in India) will accomodate. To me, top speed isn't going to be a factor, since there aren't any roads here good enough to safely ride that fast. At best, I'll be able to hit 120 on some of the longer straights. As far as that goes, the Bandit is likely not much faster than the Tiger. The Bandit allegedly tops out somewhere past 200km/h, and the Tiger can probably do 160 or 180. In town, the Bandit can probably accelerate a little harder too, but the lighter Tiger will be really close, and most roads in Bhubaneswar are too clogged for stoplight racing anyway.

To add to my original list above, one other pro for the Tiger is the tall seating position, which makes it easier to anticipate traffic.

From one confused soul to another:
the Bandit is no real-life bandit, in its original form, it looks very staid. But if you are going to strip it down and add some spice to it, then it is going to be a very different matter.
A big pro for the Bandit would be the dependable Jap inline-4 motor, plus Suzuki has already been here for quite sometime.
And do not forget, 450CC is a big difference, you can have some wicked fun boosting performance and stuff.

That's a good point; Suzuki has been in-country a while. The dealer/parts network is probably pretty stable. And yes, the Bandit isn't exactly stirring in stock form (though it sounds pretty good even through the stock exhaust). But, while 450cc is a big difference, it's not insurmountable. The Bandit motor is pretty mild. Redline is under 10,000rpm. A supersport 600 will run rings around it, even with a 600cc deficit.

Since I don't plan to do more than put a slip-on exhaust on it, I'm not going to see huge gains in performance. Even in the US, it's easy to tune some bikes beyond the point where you can use all of their capabilities. That limit is lower here, mostly due to heavier traffic and generally-poorer road conditions. So, while it may be possible to wring 140hp out of the Bandit motor, there isn't much point. My after-purchase bill for the Bandit was already close to Rs.50,000, and that's for modifications I knew I'd be able to see benefit from. I'm not going to spend money on things I can't use, just to look cool.

I should probably clarify something that might not be immediately obvious. I'm originally from the US. Before I came here, I was debating whether to buy an R1 or a Buell Lightning XB12 as an ordinary commuter, because bikes like the Bandit were slightly boring. Exotic bikes to me were Bimota Tesis and Confederates. Bikes like the Hayabusa, CBR1000, VMAX, Ducati 1098 and ZR1400 were common, everyday sights (well, maybe the VMAX was a little interesting, but only because it was a redesign of a bike that hadn't changed in forever), and the Bandit wasn't even worth noticing. Hayabusas were even kind of cliche in the sportbike world because *everyone* seemed to have one. Harleys were (overpriced) bikes that overweight accountants bought in a failed attempt to recapture their youth, and the joke was (and still is, as far as I'm concerned) that Harley Davidson was a clothing seller with really expensive accessories. I passed three or four $30,000 custom choppers pretty much every day going to work (and never really saw the point; they're loud, uncomfortable, and hard to control).

I'm not buying this bike as a status symbol. I have very little regard for people who buy expensive bikes/cars/boats/etc just so they can show off the money they spent. I'm spending this much on a bike because it's the only way I can get the kind of performance I'm used to; I don't have a choice. Bragging about the new Akrapovic exhaust or the race-spec tires you just put on doesn't carry much weight with me, since my first question is "yeah, but where can you use that extra performance?"

I understand that, to riders accustomed to "big" bikes having 220cc, something like the Bandit is almost incomprehensible. However, I'm approaching this purchase from a practical point of view, since neither of these bikes is particularly spectacular from my perspective.

A good way to think about my perspective is this: To me, buying an elephant is almost incomprehensible. It would easily cost more than a house to buy one in the US, if you can even find one for sale, and *no one* else would have one. But here, you can get one for less than the cost of a new Pulsar, and they're considered pests, since herds of them invade villages around here every week, it seems. Imagine my purchase as if you were buying an elephant: costly, but not that big of a deal.

You may be used to a certain performance and not want to compromise on that, but where is the space on our roads to run a big bike like its meant to be, on every day commutes? where is the joy in running it on our patchy, potholed, unpredictable, ill mannered roads?

I expect you'd be stopping for a cow, dog, dung, pothole, unmarked\broken speedbump, idiot listening to music while crossing the road, some other idiot who cant maintain his lane, one other shithead who's in his own world speaking on the phone while riding\driving, bus and truck drivers cutting left and right like theyre driving ferraris and spraying spit in every direction in tandem with all their passengers while they swerve around, etc, etc; just as just as soon as you'd salivate at a rare stretch to wring open the throttle. Of course, early mornings and laaate evenings are an entirely different story. But thats half the fun gone for me when Im out of the obstacle course of city traffic. I wonder how much frustration Id be having if I owned a big bike in these conditions. Im having enough on my 150 cc in our roads.

From your perspective which I cant see too clearly, Id go with the triumph or a similar dual sport....mostly because it would, as you say, suit our roads better than a bandit without any extra work or expense and at a similar performance point where it matters. And it looks better and FUNNER!!!! Spares and service could be a sore point with triumph being a new entrant, like someone else pointed out. The Vstrom also looks like a good alternate to me.

But be it any capacity, Id prefer a bike with suspension and handling capable of running motorcycle parkours....From whatever Ive seen here in South India, Im inclined to think that power is secondary on our city roads and traffic compared to handling.

From my perspective, Id rather buy a much smaller, well behaved bike and enjoy running it, tuning it or upgrading it if I eventually get bored; without worrying about the gaping hole in my pocket that Id be making for a bigger bike that I wouldn't know how to make good use of. Of course my perspective might be severely limited by my experience with no bigger bike than a CBR 250R and an RD350. One bored me and the other scared me.

Originally Posted by 2strokerama

You may be used to a certain performance and not want to compromise on that, but where is the space on our roads to run a big bike like its meant to be, on every day commutes? where is the joy in running it on our patchy, potholed, unpredictable, ill mannered roads?

I expect you'd be stopping for a cow, dog, dung, pothole, unmarked\broken speedbump, idiot listening to music while crossing the road, some other idiot who cant maintain his lane, one other shithead who's in his own world speaking on the phone while riding\driving, bus and truck drivers cutting left and right like theyre driving ferraris and spraying spit in every direction in tandem with all their passengers while they swerve around, etc, etc; just as just as soon as you'd salivate at a rare stretch to wring open the throttle. Of course, early mornings and laaate evenings are an entirely different story. But thats half the fun gone for me when Im out of the obstacle course of city traffic. I wonder how much frustration Id be having if I owned a big bike in these conditions. Im having enough on my 150 cc in our roads.

From your perspective which I cant see too clearly, Id go with the triumph or a similar dual sport....mostly because it would, as you say, suit our roads better than a bandit without any extra work or expense and at a similar performance point where it matters. And it looks better and FUNNER!!!! Spares and service could be a sore point with triumph being a new entrant, like someone else pointed out. The Vstrom also looks like a good alternate to me.

But be it any capacity, Id prefer a bike with suspension and handling capable of running motorcycle parkours....From whatever Ive seen here in South India, Im inclined to think that power is secondary on our city roads and traffic compared to handling.

From my perspective, Id rather buy a much smaller, well behaved bike and enjoy running it, tuning it or upgrading it if I eventually get bored; without worrying about the gaping hole in my pocket that Id be making for a bigger bike that I wouldn't know how to make good use of. Of course my perspective might be severely limited by my experience with no bigger bike than a CBR 250R and an RD350. One bored me and the other scared me.

Your point about the condition of the roads is what I've been saying. It's why I had planned to modify that Bandit to be better suited to inner-city riding, and why I believe the Tiger is well-suited to this kind of riding. I believe there is room on Indian roads for big(ger) bikes. Whether those roads are good enough yet to support Hayabusas or GSXRs is up for debate.

Thank you for a mature view on what bikes are appropriate here.

I would recommend an 800 XC since you won't be modifying it like you'll do it to a new Bandit. wait for Triumph to reveal prices in AE2012 , it might even come cheaper than bandit.