What makes a bike the ultimate riding package?

[kedar3223]

Having gone through a number of threads, ive seen people having conflicting views regarding the overall dynamics of a bike. This is bound to happen as most
people have their own sets of preferences.

So what i aim to do through this thread is to see what kind of characteristics people desire. For this purpose i intend
to use the 09 demo version of sbk the game(download link- SBK 09 Superbike World Championship - Download). I have chosen this as it runs on minimal system
requirements and the bikes offered are fairly diverse in their attributes. Lets confine ourselves to 3 bikes which are Ducati xerox 1198, Yamaha world superbike r1 and alstair suzuki gsxr 1000.
Lets also have a uniform setting as follows https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-c...cM/s640/vd.jpg.

Vote for the bike that you feel has the best attributes(handling, brakes and engine characteristic) amongst the 3.

Also share your observations of the bikes:
Ducati xerox 1198
handling:
brakes:
engine characteristic:

Yamaha world superbike r1
handling:
brakes:
engine characteristic:

alstair suzuki gsxr 1000
handling:
brakes:
engine characteristic:

apply the analogy to compare the mass performance bikes available in India. Lets have our very own shoot out

Sorry if it appears childish but i always wanted to do a comparo like this

[sunilg]

Discussion approved.

[kedar3223]

This thread will also see how good we are at understanding and differentiating between given set of bikes

Ducati xerox 1198
handling:Best of the two extremes, eager as well as stable.
brakes:better than gsxr but not as good as r1
engine characteristic: best at lower speed. has the lowest top wack

Yamaha world superbike r1
handling: feels nimble into turn-in but hate the mid corner stability
brakes: the best brakes
engine characteristic:feels like it needs to be revved hard

alstair suzuki gsxr 1000
handlingThough its not the most eager, i like the stable feeling offered by it.
brakes: weakest brakes
engine characteristic:a good wide powerband

So amongst the three overall i like the gsxr better. I like its laid back,predictable handling. This are the kind of characteristics i want in my next bike. So if we consider a below 2L bike as high volume bike, i would like to ride a cbr250r any given day. It to me gives what i look for in a bike.

[Satellite.kid]

@kedar3223: Though the thread should serve its purpose, it would have made sense if motorcycles upto 250cc were included that are sold in India as most of us here have zero experience with motorcycles mentioned above. With the given choices, most or almost all riders' opinion will be based on internation reviews or "personal preferences" than actual facts. Even the Ducati that is included is not standard version. Only handful of members may be able to provide any valuable inputs on overall riding experiences on these motorcycles. Even among them, there's a good possibility that none of them would have experience with all motorcycles to really compare and then vote for their winner. I would suggest that instead of these three litre class rockets, motorcycles upto 250cc are added that are sold here.

[Karthik Mathur (Orange)]

I had played this games 2010 version.
Ducati yeah has the bast handling no doubt about it but i felt the Aprilia to be the winner.
Btw in my opinion u would rather compare Indian bikes from all categories as a game is hardly a simulation.

[kedar3223]

@kedar3223: Though the thread should serve its purpose, it would have made sense if motorcycles upto 250cc were included that are sold in India as most of us here have zero experience with motorcycles mentioned above. With the given choices, most or almost all riders' opinion will be based on internation reviews or "personal preferences" than actual facts. Even the Ducati that is included is not standard version. Only handful of members may be able to provide any valuable inputs on overall riding experiences on these motorcycles. Even among them, there's a good possibility that none of them would have experience with all motorcycles to really compare and then vote for their winner. I would suggest that instead of these three litre class rockets, motorcycles upto 250cc are added that are sold here.

Wait your not getting my point. This is not about which of this bikes is the best. What i intend to find is what kind of package people like. for example, we have come across many r15 vs cbr250r threads. All of these end up with people with conflicting requirements arguing with each other. Some prefer the nimble r15 while some prefer the stable cbr. But reading some of the comments it seems that most people have not actually ridden the bikes but their opinions are based on online reviews. People term the cbr as a boat compared to r15 but i think its handling is not all that bad. Many of us dont get the opportunity to sample all the bikes available. So my intention with this thread is to see if people really are capable of distinguishing between the bikes and also to find which kind of character is to their liking. eg i prefer the characteristics of gsxr 1000 as i prefer predictive handling over knife edge handling. I also prefer the broad rev range of the bike. So applying this analogy to real world scenario, I would prefer the cbr or p220 over r15 or a180 or the likes.

You are right that there are better simulators but this game requires bare minimum system requirements and i thought this would help more people participate in the poll.

[Satellite.kid]

Got it Kedar. In this case, I feel that such a poll with litre class motorcycles may not serve the purpose of this thread fully. That's why I suggested that we should take references of motorcycles that we all are experienced with.

If done sensibly, then this thread can be a very good source of info. Otherwise it can easily lead to brand wars as it tends to happen normally with such topics. The moment you take the name of a motorcycle with the intention of highlighting its strong and weak points, someone always takes a pinch out of it. Human nature! But it turns ugly.

We Indians look at motorcycles differently. Due to our generic nature to save and to find the "value for money" part in almost everything, we want/expect the single motorcycle to do all the tasks and fair well at them too!
When it comes to motorcycles, for us, anything producing good power figures should be a good tourer as well! Considering the motorcycles between 150cc to 250cc present today, we want all of them to be good tourers and to take corners like a hot knife through the butter! We compare any two motorcycles if they lie in our purchasing power irrespective of what they are really meant for. As you rightfully say that some people find that CBR250R handles like a boat compared to R15 even when these two motorcycles are not meant to be compared with each other. Honda didn't build the CBR250 to go like that. For that they have the CBR150R! Here people get confused between R15 & CBR250 & even Royal Enfield!! The funny thing is, most of the guys don't even take the effort to test ride these motorcycles before they start such comparisons. I honestly believe, for example, that a person can't get confused between an R15 and a CBR250R. Atleast I can't. There are reasons for that too, first of all the price difference between the two machines, R15 you can get around 1,20k while for CBR you’ll shell out above 1,50k in Delhi, then the whole riding experience, performance and road manners that is absolutely different in both motorcycles, and finally there's the difference in design. The 3 motorcycles I mentioned above are just examples, you can easily find live examples of such comparisons and "confusions" here. Sometimes people even include the yet-to-launch motorcycles in comparisons, isn't it just great! And almost all the time, such discussions end with people suggesting a test ride of the motorcycles in question.

Take the latest case of KTM 200. People are highlighting its 10 litres fuel tank and saying that it's not suitable for touring. Even I highlighted that once! But I am sure that if you'll ask KTM/Bajaj about it, they'll tell you that it's a fantastic 200cc naked street fighter. But since it has two wheels and an engine between them, you can take it anywhere the road is available! The lifestyle of us Indians is not such that we like to keep multiple motorcycles for different purposes, there are people among us who do that, but I guess in general you won't find many of them. Considering this and taking example of KTM 200, we want it to be a good tourer as well. Why? Because we'll be shelling out above 1lakh 20thousand rupees to get it and it has a 200cc, 25 bhp engine good enough for around 140kph of true top speed! That's why! Infact I would say that it's not really appropriate for Rajiv Bajaj to say that KTM will compete with R15 and CBR250. KTM is an option but not really a threat for these two different motorcycles in my logical opinion. During the launch of KTM, death notes were written for R15 and CBR250 by some of the members. Now when things have cooled down a bit, people are getting back to realizing that the R15 and CBR250 are still special and pretty unbeatable "for now" in their own way. Unfortunately for CBR, it was plagued with certain quality issues initially that some people are still happy to make a joke on it.

The point is you can tour on almost any motorcycle. There’s a foreign journalist (have read about him on MotorcycleUSA.com and Visordown) who has done a world tour on his Yamaha R1, and he is full of praises for this machine. I have read couple of his articles where he has mentioned that motorcycles like Fireblade, GSXR1000, ZX10R, R1 and the likes are wonderful touring machines as well! But surely their manufacturers build them for a different purpose. It’s just a bonus if they are good touring machines as well. But if they are not, then we can’t highlight this as a negative point for them. Same goes for KTM. But who knows, it’s a motorcycle whose capabilities are still pretty much unknown, and it may turn out to be a fantastic touring machine as well. And that would be a bonus!

I believe whatever I have written above is not going to deviate from the purpose of this thread. I just wanted to highlight the fact that threads like this one can easily turn into war of "personal preferences" than anything. Let's hope that we'll have a good discussion here.

[kedar3223]

@Satellite.kid- totally agree with what you say. I feel that as of now there are no bikes in the 1L-2L bracket that can be considered to serve that serve the same purpose. Anyways if you have played the game am i right in my judgement of the bikes. To be frank, its like for the past two years or so that i have really been able to differentiate between bikes in terms of their feel. Earlier it was just looks,top speed,and gas mileage.

[Satellite.kid]

Due to our road and traffic conditions, we know that speeds above 130/140 kmph are not easily achievable and maintaining them is even more difficult. Hence, motorcycles like CBR250R are considered to be the best tourers given their extremely relaxed engine between speeds of 100-140kmph and a sportier but still comfortable riding stance. Outside in places like Europe and USA, CBR250 and Ninja 250 are beginner motorcycles to get into sport biking category. They'll consider them city motorcycles. ofcourse their traffic and road conditions are much different than ours.

Regarding the game, honestly i haven't really played this one though i am familiar with Motogp game. So i am not sure how good the makers of this game have been able to simulate different characteristics of these machines into the game. But i can talk about the honda Blackbird since i had it for some time few years back.