I had introduced myself as an Industrial Design student of NID in your "Who are you" section and had explained what i was doing with Project X-Spec. You can know more about it in it's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/XSPEC.MX or visit that thread: http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/who-you/27205-quick-introduction.html
So what's really going on?
As an avid off-road enthusiast, i see this country has everything (topographically) to become the mecca of off-road motorsports and adventure touring. I kept experimenting and learning through enhancing the Hero Impulse in ways that could make it a Commuter, Adventure Tourer & a Rally Raid motorcycle at the same time. This was one of my classroom projects in college which was like a bit of background homework for my thesis. So this grad project of mine, deals with understanding the needs of tourers like you and the needs of rally raiders in India.This time though, i'm not following any specific chassis or making something that's fully functional. I'm building on a concept that attempts to rethink on how we can help off-road motorsports grow in India. The end product will be a full size clay model like you must have seen of the BMW 1200GS (http://www.ridermagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/web-P90104556_highRes.jpg).
I'm lucky to have the support & guidance of 4 eminent personalities who've created history in this area and they are CS Santosh, Anand Dharmaraj, Vijay Parmar & Bharadwaj Dayala.
The reason i'm posting about it here, is due to the fact that during my research stage (which is happening right now) i would have questions or surveys that i would want you guys to answer, so that i know the expectations of a professional, enthusiast & an aspirant (in both segments). This is a 6 month long project and it has officially started since 30th March, 2015.
I've been going through the "Tourer" section of xBhp and its been quite a journey i must say. The travelogues are great but to read them all would take me a year! Especially coz i need to find where the problems lie. So that's what i'm looking for to gain insights and develop my detailed design brief. Contrary to popular belief, design is not only aethetics. That's the last part of the process. It tries to understand the need first and the target audience and helps in conceptualizing the end product that may be unconventional but would have a direction that could be of use. This stage of development happens when a company starts off a project. Its when the designers finish a stage of conceptualization, the engineers come in and collaborate. That is when you see a concept in an expo. But i'm not starting any company or doing this for one. This is what i chose for my thesis as i'm very passionate about this subject.
You guys have been through a lot of adventures and have shared every detail of it. If you don't mind, could you share some crucial factors that deal with adventure touring in India and what, according to you, needs to be the features of such a motorcycle if ever there is one. Your thoughts could be non-feasible, crazy, stupid, etc to other people but they would mean a lot to me as it would help me understand the real need. Yes, I've studied adventure touring motorcycles but i'm more interested to know things that are contextual to India and i feel you guys are the best people to ask for the same.
Looking forward to you feedback and the start of a real insightful thread.
Cheers!




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