Let me ask straight forward.

Does the TVS tyres make the RTR an unsafe bike..?

In other words, should one (ie, me ) stay away from RTRs just because of its tyres, with his parents bent too much over safety..?

Its not unsafe , the tyres are hard compund which gives less friction. YOu can always change stock tyres to Mrf ones or michelin or any good ones ,its just that with stock tyres you shoudnt race around the tracks(roads) in wet its fine as long its treated like a commuter bike

i personally dnt think d tires are much of a problem...yea they do skid under heavy breaking and in wet conditions but in normal to good roads they do the job...if you relli want to exploit d bike to its maximum a tire change is required but for normal usage it will work just fine..and to ignore a bike just coz of its tyres is quite unfair


p.s.i hav d 180...cant say for d 160 though

Umm.. RTR is kind of knee scraping race machine and its also true that it's one of the fastest cutting bridge through heaviest possible traffic but wouldn't it be better if you choose some ride which is better for your pillion and also kind of smooth like CBZ extreme or Karizma I guess. No Offense.
I would rather buy a cage (car) for my family safety and then I would also lock up one of Joel Sir's Ghost Apache in my secret garage to quench my thirst in my secret hours.

by the way:
RTR FI. Zapper Q 100/90/18 at the rear and Zapper FY 80/90/17 at front
possibly the best combination for RTR as my guru says






You can be okay bro but I guess most of us would be worried as hell in wet condition before entering a corner with stock TVS tires then after exiting the corner we thank god & all the bikers stars for letting us making it safely. Peace Ride safe.

My RTR broke down guys!

Oneway clutch was the culprit. it seems to have damaged the Magnet and the crank as well. its in a friends place. Will leave it at the SVC on monday. Will know the damage only after that! Arun was riding my bike when this happened couple of hours back!

Damn!

Thank you guys. I have been going through owner ship reviews of RTR for past 2 months almost on various websites. But it seems the overall experience and views expressed at these sites have not been very encouraging as far as driving RTR with a pillion is concerned. It is a great bike and no offnse to RTR owners, even I like it and that is the reason I have posted 13 posts prior to this just to clarify everything as only one person in my friend circle own apache and mostly have pulsars,hondas etc. As a family person I guess it will not suit me. I regret I will not be the part of the Apache tribe and I deeply regret it. I will try to convince my self and see if i can buy it in next 2-3 days but if i am not able to do so. I will have to compromise and buy P180 the next thing I like in terms of performance and looks.

@nfs_asphalt : Thanks bro for your inputs. I do plan to take a cage but it (bike) is for my daily commute to office and may be on weekends I will take wifey for shopping et. al. I do give importance to looks...as they say "wafashiyar (the one who is loyal) kai hai, koi hasin(beautiful) bhi to ho".
After listening lots of bashing about pulsars, I had made up my mind to buy RTR and started going through its ownership reviews.
But today...looks like..I am back to square one and will go for a pulsar.
Coz as compared to pulsar cbz,unicorn,hunk dnt look good only rtr did. Having said that I do not mean tht I like a bike purely because of it looks but among equally powered bikes i do choose the better looking one

Thanks again for your responses. Will check yamaha SZ-R also though it hardly comes in 150 cc category compared to competition. If nothing else will settle for a P180, however I am not sure how effective its self-starter will be considering it does not have a kick starter.

Have not ridden the HE, so cant comment on the vibe front but i have heard a lot that it vibrates far less than the older crop of 160's including the FI.

Every tyre will skid on the wet tarmac, the point is TVS tyres skid way more.
If you're gonna take a corner in TVS tyre in wet at 60kmph you'll be kissing a bone specialist in less than an hour, try doing the same in dry tarmac and you'll be in the showroom next day asking for new pairs of pegs.

Breaking hard and skiding is not an issue with TVS tyres unless you're gonna lock it, the moment the rear is locked the bike WILL go sideways, try doing this on emptly road and the bike will go sideways 8 outta 10 times, the RTR never breaks in a straight line if you're locking the rear.

The front never skids unless you're breaking in wet/gravel/snow/sand etc, or you're breaking like a MORON.
It'll make all sorta squealing sounds of the worlds under hard breaking but it wont be leaving its line with the same TVS tyres.

NO.

You should go and take a test drive of the thing first

The point here is TVS tyres are so bad mouth'd by magazines, purists, and the owners here that a guy who has never ridden RTR has this fear before swinging his leg over the machine that even if he's gonna tilt a standing bike it's gonna skid and fall cuz of the TVS tyres.

For track days, the TVS tyres are NO GOOD.
But for normal city and highway riding like a normal no stunt junkie, no track maniac like you and me TVS tyres serve the job pretty well, i for one am driving on TVS tyres for the past 3 years with 11500 kms on the clock, i have experienced all the scary moments on TVS tyres on wet only that too when i tried to take a lean at 40kmph when it was raining hard and the bike scared the shit outta me, 4 days later i took the same lean at 80kmph,3rd gear and it didnt scared me.

It didnt scared me when i raped the bike at the ghat section which was full of leans, that too while goin downslope.

On dry leans the tyre never inspire confidence and you got to come to the peg scraping limit after trying 10-15 times, gradually increasing your lean with every try.
Cuz everytime i lean on my bike i make sure i'am cutting my lean way before the limit of my tyre.

You have to cut your leaning before touching the limit of the TVS tyres which gives you a slight fishtail once you get to it.

And NEVER, NEVER downshift while taiking a high speed lean, NEVER.
NEVER in a TVS tyre.


Crank damage sounds bad.
how much on the clock ?

Answer and questions in Italics.

It's really nice to know that you liked the look of RTR.
ALWAYS Test Ride before buying your ride and don't forget that if you buy another bike the one you didn't fell in love with then you will not be able to take good care of it. You must take hell lot of care of your ride no matter what ride it is . so as you are not riding with pillion most of the time, you should test ride RTR with a pillion and check again if it suits you. There are many hardcore RTR family guys here so being a family guy doesn't mean that you can not buy RTR. Never hold yourself from not buying RTR if you think you will deeply regret ..then just go do couple of TEST RIDE with your pillion and fix your mind..you know what I've said.

TVS stock tires will give up on you at that speed while leaning inside a corner and dreaming of heaven.

4 days later the tarmac was possibly dry and the tire didn't give the feel of giving up confidence .
The Secret is the FEELINGS which eventually grow inside a rider about his/her rides. Leaning at 40kmph in hard rain and same or more leaning at 80kmph in normal dry tarmac in STOCK TVS tires gives different feelings (confidence about making out of the corner and enjoying it while being inside of it)

you not being the crazy guy believe the tires should be pretty fine , even in the wet ..at least you hope so...

come on dude give it a try like us being a corner junkie for one SINGLE day will not give you hard feelings. Never Mind ride safe with your RTR.

One-way

It is very much clear that there is major problem with RTR's one-way clutch. I could not understand why it is broke and why it is so fragile?
And further why didn't TVS not taking any steps to solve the problem? Many like Satish here faced this issue regularly, and further this item is beat costly too.
What could be the reason and rectification for this, please share your views..

almost 62k kms! Nt sure abt the crank damage, arun did say he heard a bit of crank noise! Am yet to check the bike.

Oneway clutch has been troubling for the past 6-7months. Me, arun and the senior mech have been postponing its replacement due to lack of funds and time. it had become serious in the last few week with slef not working when engine is cold, loud thud's etc. Was supposed to drop it at the SVC last monday but could'nt do it. Was planning for the coming monday and this happened yesterday!

Damn! Zma is still gathering dust in celluar, now RTR is out of commission (guess it would need a good 7-8krs) and splendor will be moving out in a day or two and Aviator is expected on monday. Am almost with no bike even with 3 bikes at home!

TVS did improve and kept modifying the one way clutch. They did manufacture 3 diff types of one way clutch. The last time i checked they were importing it from some country in Europe. My bike had this one. And it still failed. From what i heard this problem has been eliminated in Hyper edge!

Am thinking whether to keep the RTR or better sell it off. I had spent almost 18k on it last year and now this. and i dont rip or use it rashly. I just commute! Let me see!

guys even i had d one way clutch problem in my rtr 180 within a year of its purchase...i was relli pissed off coz i had hardly ridden it fr some 5k kms...d svc guys convinced me it was a manufacturing defect nd changed d parts free of cost...they said it was a problem in the older rtr's but it has been sorted out now...

Checked out the bike, I did here the crank noise, magnet was'nt working properly, no headlights. Guess the one way clutch is in pices....too much of noise. Very less pick up. After abt an hour arun did something and the magnet was working and the crank sound was gone as well. just the oneway clutch noise was there. Will leave the bike @ SVC on monday.

BTW i kinda made up my mind to sell it off and everyone at my home was convincing me on the same. But when i saw here, arun had neatly water washed her with polishing as well.....i just could'nt let her g....she is staying

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