I crossed 700kms, three states in 7 hours. What better infrastructure do you want? Tell me one Indian bike on which you can do this please!

Do you think that the manufacturers really care if there is infrastructure or not! Read the posts by Hash.

The Hard Torque articles are meant for a larger public.

i agree on hunger for power, performance and style on bigger bikes in india, but where are the roads! I too belong to Delhi and i had same thoughts as you do, but rest of india i see no potential on HAL road in bangalore i cannot take my bike beyond 52! reason potholes and SPEED BREAKERS! we have water logged roads, no care for quality and low end engineering knowledge, how many ppl can repair bike on a tour if it goes bad!

I still believe its easy to complain abt manufacturers etc etc but do you think somebody would invest money uselessly for 350cc+ bike! we need infra for that first and for that ppl like us need to take concrete steps with media to point out the faults! and remember in india biking for fun has just taken off, its mostly for commuting, why do you think bajaj has gone to back 100cc DTSi discover?

There are ppl on xbhp like hemank who are trying to make a difference by building something in electric tech for bikes and much more.

I would like articles posted when we make a difference and stop complaining.

Disclaimer: this post meant no offence

I hope I'm wrong of course. I'd love to see bigger, better motorcycles appearing here. So lets see and hope they do something.

Yeah, well...had to keep it simple in order to avoid boring people to death! and even the "over-simplified" version is quite morose.
Anyway, I will have to disagree on the bit where you say that duties will stay for a long time to come. I do not believe that the status quo will continue for too long. The international community is quite serious about the trade restrictions in place and even India has, of late developed a lot of clout at the global stage. In fact as per the various rounds and negotiations, we can be quite optimistic about duties being reduced in some years. India and other developing countries are at present trying to get the others to agree on a path to globalisation where they will be able to keep duties on some items that are considered necessary for the economy while allowing imports for ather products. Since the sustenance of our farmers does not depend on vehicles of the two-wheeled variety, I am quite optimisitc that the government would reduce duties at an appropriate time.
Besides, the kind of bike manufacturers that we are discussing here do not pose a danger to our local manufacturers. I doubt they will be able to completely obliterate the Indian companies in the low price segment. However, if the chinese are allowed to enter the market unrestricted, then I am sure the Bajajs and TVSs would have a tough battle on their hands!
Anyways, this is just my opinion, and I am absolutely certain that there are a lot of people out there that hold opinions contrary to mine and I love that because that provides opportunities for debate and exchange of views and information. It's just that I have noticed that optimisitic people tend to smile more often!

I am from a small developed country where the whole of agriculture actually survives on only subsidies. Now the thing is that there's plenty of these farmers, no matter how you twist or turn it. If the subsidies were to be dropped, a lot of them would go bankrupt in a matter of months or a few years at the most. The other side is that they might be able to reorganize and come up with a business model that works without support. Unfortunately (or depending on your view fortunately), they are, just like in India, a large enough population that they can vote for the ones that uphold this system.

The simple fact is that our countries since exist in a deadlock situation that cannot be broken unless significant numbers of people and business change their ways. A gradual removal of measures such as subsidies and duties might be a way out. But it takes only one party to go ahead and upset the entire deal. It's not like it has not happened before, it's why we've arrived at the point where we are today.

Protectionism is the prime reason for any subsidies or duties, because countries do not wish to be at the mercy of any other country without having mutually assured destruction as a safe guard. We all know about human nature, even though most are good, it doesn't take too many to spoil a party.

So I think we're going to be stuck with situation for a long time to come. Indian manufacturers are not going to build high end bikes, since there's no market. And the duties will stay, since it is a bargaining chip in a much larger game. (I'm talking bikes here, but you can substitute any other product you like.)

@hash101: I think you're pretty much hitting it spot on. Perhaps a little over simplified. The same issues that cause Indian politics to be dominated by the farmer vote bank very much exist in other countries as well. In the end every one is trying to safe their own skin.

Thanks Ken!
Well it's really hard to describe what i really do, I am a mechanical engineer who has an MBA in marketing from a college renowned for it's expertise on Foreign Trade and who is now working (more like chained to a desk) in a bank and trying to grapple with the intricacies of the financial world. So, you see I know a little about almost everything and yet know very little about any one thing! More importantly, I am also a biker who knows very little technically about bikes but nevertheless wants to go for long rides. Ever so often i try to jerk myself and try to go for long rides, but that chain pulls me back to my desk!
So, as a substitute, I visit this community almost everyday, read about the various trips taken by the members and try to derive a little vicarious pleasure from the exploits of others. Sometimes I come across a topic that really kicks the lethargic writer in me and then, I am afraid I yield to verbosity.
Anyway, since I have been visiting this site for about a year now, I have read a lot of your threads and always find them to be extremely informative and inspiring. And I absolutely love your trip logs.
I promise that from time to time you will find a few of my posts strewn about this community.
Thanks!

My opinion is not a reply to any of above posts.....

Well, Japanese concept of looking at product is different, they think about sustainability of product over longer periods of time. This translates to less exploitation of mother earth of her resources. Some household goods japanese purchase lasts as long as 30-40 years. This is a very nice concept compared to US, where 3 year old accident met car is simply crushed into a cubic piece of metal for smelting, this way more cars get sold, car companies benefit, more oil is burnt to melt these junk metal to get fresh steel, more energy spent, i.e. more resources are drawn from mother earth to just satisfy business of car companies. This is mindless.

Take for instance 15 year M800/CD100, Japs make available spares for these old models so that the product life extends and hence avoid strain on mother earth's resources.

In far east market, there is Honda Tiger (a 200cc, minted in different forms like tourer/cruiser/commuter/sports/economy etc etc) with same engine, the model is existing since 1995 and still a popular model. The benefits of longer shelf life is enormous, first sustainability, money saved by not investing in new products, spares cheaper, manufacturing cost lower per bike, cost per bike lower, higher customer satisfaction due to streamlined proven manufacturing, lower complaints, trouble free usage, better reliability etc etc etc.

I would like similar thing to happen in India, and I think the typical Indian 'what next' attitude is due to sheer ignorance, more easy earned cash in his wallet, no concern for mother earth, just greed to move faster and show off nothing else !! Where is the infra for bigger bikes in our country, even if infra is developed it is at the cost of poor people of this nation who still kill themselves if rain fails.

Brilliantly written! You know your business.

As I said you know your business. You have penned it down perfectly. With clarity and lucidity. I don't know what you do, but you should visit and write more often here. Your ideas of economics are pretty clear!

Nice article there.

Duty "bound"

Hi Guys! It's afternoon and unfortunately for you, I am free again today. So let me bore you with a long winded post again. This time let's take a look at the high import duties on bikes and why i think they are important.

I agree that globalisation is the order of the day. It is seen as the phenomenon which will rid us consumers of the inefficiencient producers/ service providers while it will also open new vistas for our competetive firms to explore overseas markets and hence grow bigger.

I also agree that we, the consumers, should be given the right to buy a bike we want to at a price that is not inflated just because the bike is manufactured in another country. I mean, why should we have to pay for the fact that our companies, after continued protection from the government for over 50 years, haven't been able develop cabalities good enough to complete with the big companies of the world?

But I do not believe that the people who are responsible for making these decisions are fools. Infact, if we make the mistake of dismissing them as idiots or lazy, because they are the ones responsible for all the obstructions we face in buying our dream bikes, then I believe that we are taking a very myopic view of a subject that is perhaps the most important one facing the country today. Moreover, we must also remember that the so called babus are the very same people who have been selected after a qualifying procedure that is widely accepted as the toughest in this world. India has a whole ministry dedicated to foreign trade and commerce. It has established instutes that research this aspect all the year round and help device India's strategy for the negotiations that take place from time to time. Surely they are not all fools and there must be an angle to this whole situation that we are missing. So let's look at this issue from a perspective that is a bit larger than being merely related to bikes.

At Trade negotiations, India and other developing countries are repeatedly pressurised by EU and US to reduce our duties and make our markets open to their exporters. They say that this would ultimately help us since it would mean that we would get better quality products and would also force our manufacturers to improve out of compulsion.

Now, of course India has way higher duties than say US or EU, but we must remember that duties are not the only side to the coin that is foreign trade. The other side is the oft forgotten issue of subsidy. Unfortunately, India is not as rich as the US yet and while it does have higher duties, it cannot bring them down because it cannont match the amount of subsidies that US gives to it's own manufacturers.

Now the prime bone of contention to this whole subsidy issue is agricultural subsidies in the US. According to USDA (United states department of agriculture) USDA subsidies for farms in United States totaled $177589000000 for the 1995-2006(boy it takes you a while to figure out how much that is in words!). Now I hope you realise that India is primarily still an agricuture based economy( much as we would want it to turn into a biking based economy, those days are still quite some distance away). Should India reduce it's duties to the levels demanded by the developed countries, the market would be flooded with US agri products that, due to the huge subsidies, would be priced at half(or even less) than what Indian produce would be priced at. The Indian governement would not have the coffers deep enough to match these subsidies and hence Indian products will continue to suffer a price disadvantage. When this happens, us consumers with our now affordable superbikes will obviously buy the cheaper and higher quality US import flour, bread, fruits, etc. This will send a wave of starvation across the farmers and on the people whose livelihood depend on agricuture. Such people are very very much higher in number as compared to people who are pro-globalisation and pro-sportbikes,cars,etc. Due to our country's one-man-one-vote system, this also means they have more votes than us. They are also more prone to start a large scale bloody revolution(a la Russia in the early last century) across the country in case they feel that their children just might die of starvation because people in the cities wanted cheaper designer clothes, exotic vegetables and vehicles that could go 0-100 in about the same time it takes for them to shout "murdabad".

So, you see our clever little babus have developed a strategy to stonewall all these cries of duty reduction. They say to the developed world, "yes, we agree that globalisation is a necessity, so why don't you start by removing subsidies in you own countries and allowing mod4 to our IT companies(those in IT would understand this) and then we will reciprocate in a similar manner." I mean, if US is so pro-globalisation and free market, then why does it raise such a hue and cry against outsourcing? The only reason it lets Japanese and Chinese companies operate freely in US is because these are huge markets for US companies too and they know that if they create trade burdens for these companies, the governments of the countries that these comapanies belong to would respond in a similar manner.

Let's take two hypothetical countries, Jap and Ind. Now suppose Ind has a lot of fertile lands and can grow a lot of agricultural commodities but is technically backward while Jap has no or very little fertile lands but it does have great engineers who make great bikes. As a result, when isolated, the prices of bikes in Ind will be high while food will be in short supply in Jap while it will still have great bikes. Now as per globalisation, if these countries were to engage in trade and remove all duties, the people in Ind wil get access to those great bikes while the people in Jap will get to eat. However, i hope you see that how the scenario is not quite so simple in real life when things such as subsidies come into play.

By the way, US and other developed nations also have another weapon in their hands in order to stop third world countries' products from entering their market. It's what is known as "safety standards". Safety standards are made so stringent that adhering to them makes the cost price for the seller go high and hence the product becomes incompetetive.

So, I hope you see how this works, we stop their banks, automobile companies, designers and retailers from accessing our markets so as to use it as a bargaining chip in order to force the developed countries to provide a level playing field to our agri products and IT cos.

Well that ends my lecture. Since this frum is titled "Hard Torque" which, I take it, is word play for Hard Talk, in my opinion this is a suitable place for a bit of dispassionate talk where we put aside our own beliefs, convictions and passions and look at topics of importance from a perspective that does not just serve our own selfish purposes, but also seeks to address bigger issues that are associated and entangled with such topics( as things usually are in real life). We owe our country and it's people at least that much( no matter how bad the roads...he he)

On that note,I hope the developed countries remove their subsidies soon and that India removes it's duties to reciiprocate and then I am really sure that you guys will see yours truly on an affordable superbike riding with a clear conscience, a smile and a twinlke in the eye...

So tomorrow afternoon it is then , for the next piece of writing?

Oh by the way, I also have a theory about why the high duties on bike imports are justifiable. but i would save that for later when i am free again or when someone incites me to produce it...
Don't get me wrong... I am all for premium bikes....just playing the devil's advocate here . After all everyone has a right to be heard....even our so called "lazy" babus (as someone called them,but I beg to differ).

Hi!
Some very pertinent points have been put up by people here. However, from what I have read so far in this thread, most people have focussed on mainly on the safety issues involved, lack of supporting infrastructure and the individual responsibility of the owners of the bike. However, when we discuss the current paucity of options in the premium bike segment for us, we must also discuss it from the perspective of the bike maker. This has been touched upon well by a few members but i feel i should maybe elaborate a bit more.Perhaps i can point out a few important points having seen such decisions being made from close quarters.

Now I believe that when we see this from a corporate's point of view, the issues such as safety, infrastructure and rider capabilities get thrown out of the window. Having personally been part of a few product launches( though mosly in the banking sector), I can personally vouch for the fact that such dilemmas are non existant for most corporates. Only the top line and bottom lines count. Now typically when a new product is proposed to be launched, the following is the chronological order in which the process charts out.

First the product is coneptualised and it's attributes are put down on paper. Next, the various costs of production are worked. For example, while launching a financial product, we would work out the size of the team required to launch it, maintain it as well as the amount required in making it accessible to the customer and give it what is called as "top of the mind recall" ( The goal is that say when a customer has to buy a bar of soap,your brand must be in the 5 brands that would instinctively spring to his mind).

After this, usually a market research company is hired to painstakingly identify the target market(geography, demography,etc of the customer likely to go for the product). Once this is done, exercise such as focus group discussions are held with people from various walks of life being presented with the product and then asked to speak freely about it. For a bike that would mean calling uncles, students, young executives and then giving them an idea about the bike's features, a look at the concept design, it's price and then asking them to speak freely about it. We would also bring in the gatekeepers or influencers(people who though not users of the product, are an important part of the customer's buying decision). This means we would bring in uncle's aunties, your mothers, sisters, fathers and girl friends too. After this discussion we are able to segment exactly the kind of customers who would be ready to buy the bike at the given price.

Now we bring out the latest census results and look up exactly how many people in India fall under that segment. We would then remove the people who have bought a bike within say last 1-1.5 years as those unlikely to buy our bike. after that we would remove a sizeable chunk (may vary depending on the type of product and pricing) just to account for the fact that a majority of people simply say that they would buy a say 500 cc bike for 5 lakh but when they actually have to buy it, they chicken out. I mean it's easy to say that I would give my right ball for an R1, when I know that such a deal is unlikely to be proposed to me ( moderators please excuse). However, if such a situation does present itself, would i really be as accomodating? At such a moment it's natural for people to start thinking about the financial issues involved, practicality, etc.

So, after removing this last chunk we finally arrive at our Target Market. Believe me for the kind of bike that we are discussing here, the target market would be really really niche. Since we have such a small taraget market the company would then see the kind of returns that they would if they were to launch a product vis-a-vis the costs involved. Believe me the fact that road conditions are bad or whether the people can safely handle the machine would never even touch anybody's minds (the roads would be considered at the time of designing/conceptualising). With hardly any successful lawsuits ever filed in India against motor companies like they are in the US, no one is likely to break a sweat about whether the brat born with a silver spoon in his mouth has the requisite head on his shoulders to drive such a bike.

Anyway, after such an analysis, if the results show that such a product has a demand in the market good enough that the product will break-even(the point when sales=expenses) in the near future (large comapanies are usually ready to take losses for years, if they see a possibility of making profit say 5 years down the line), then the product will get the go ahead and would be launched.

Now, I seriously think that in order to make profit from a bike which has a very niche market, the company would find from their analysis that they would have to sell the bike at a higher price than they previously thought. And as soon as they raise the price, from renewed market research they would find that now even lesser people are willing to buy their bike at the new price. Believe me, it is a circle vicious enough to cause severe heaches to a regiment of analysts.

So, as per the current scenario, most bike makers probably don't see launching a premier bike as a step that would add to either their top line or their bottom line even 5 years down the line. As soon as they see that the market may become receptive to such a bike after say 3 years, they would immediately launch the bike and would be ready to take losses for the 3 years, in hope for making the profit when the market improves (this is done so as to gain what we call the "first mover's advantage).
So, no matter how much us bikers may rave and rant, we must realise that that bike makers make bikes to earn money and no one would be ready to stake their career on the fact that a few sentimental bikers like us are raving and ranting on an online community to launch a premium bike. And I don't really blame them. I don't want a product manager being rendered unemployable just because I am crazy about bikes!

Chalo, I didn't mean to offend anyone here but I just wanted to bring in this perspective to the discussion (that and the fact that with the recession hitting the banking sector, I have no work for me in the afternoon!). Gosh! this was a looooong post..he he

ot:jasmeetji by the end of next month maybe, raipur will have a probiking.We talked to that guy who owns the bajaj outlets

what i want to say that even if there is a decent costing well powered motorcycle out there(somewhere in someone's gray cells), there will not be a good service backup, especially in the smaller cities or towns.So the bikers here, although they might have the financial requirements to buy such a machine, ight just stay away from it, to avoid the after sales problems

Leave a 400 cc twin Bajaj has still not properly made a channel of Probiking showrooms.
Speaking about Raipur C.G. There is no probiking in Chhattisgarh the Bajaj dealer brings P220 from Frontier Bajaj Jabalpur M.P.
TVS is the same RTR Fi can't be serviced by Mechanics here they call mechs from Nagpur to service the RTR Fi.
First these kind of service issues need to be resolved. Here we have A Hayabusa, CBR 1000 RR, 600 RR, Aquila, Comet etc. So why we are behind on the Manufacturer list.