Fuel Issue

Fuel Issue:

When a not just specifically made for India Kawasaki Ninja 250R can run on our "desi" fuels, a "developed and made in India" KTM 200 Duke would have surely taken that into account during the development stage as well.

+1 exactly.... KTM will definitely only need desi fuel...

A sportsbike makes you look like an uncle ji?
I am afraid your reasoning doesnt make sense. An R15 v2/Ninja/CBR will appeal to a college goer anyday over a tiny naked. The KTM looks good, but its not
going to have the road presence that these bikes command.

And a naked that comes for 1.4+? Forget it unless it is a Royal Enfield.

Then there wont be any monsters, duke 690's and many others on road that we are seeing... There would only be this royal Enfield...

Where do you stay man? I have to see like a hundred Bullets before I am lucky to see Monster, havent EVER seen a Duke 690. And you obviously have missed the point.

Then there shouldn't be any 'de-tuning' as well

The KTM should be powered by all its 25 mad ravaging horses!

I only meant that looking at the Duke 200, the R15v2, CBR250R and Ninja 250R look bland in comparison. And now I must clarify that comparison is to be done when an average joe is riding either bike with zilch riding gear and just a helmet. The rider of the KTM will 'look' younger. Just IMO. So, I dont need to explain it to anyone.

For fully kitted riders, the rules of 'looking younger' change drastically. Again.. IMO.

As for it being priced @1.4l, I don't think so either. I expect it to be bang in the middle of R15v2 and CBR250R if not a bit lower(due to the cost saved by the missing full fairing). So, pricing could be anything between 1.2 and 1.3lac.

No fairings...
150mm suspension travel

Its perfect for Indian city driving conditions...

Govt should give subsidies to hybrid on\off roaders (and heavily tax track machines to make people like me understand the actual road conditions in our country) (specially in Bangalore) ...

And yes I too agree, it looks quite swift to attract young blood and Ninja\CBR look more sober, R15 V2 looks more sharper then the other 2. Still Duke has a league of its own just like Ducati (yes it resembles Ducati way too much) ppl who like FZ will love this also...

From point of view, the young generation always tend to prefer for the "Look at me, please" stuff.. to make a statement.

..full fairing was "Breaking News" stuff in 2008 when the R15 was introduced in India. But now in 2012 (almost there) with full faired bikes like the ZMR, R15, CBR250R, Ninja 250R.. full fairing is not as jaw dropping a feature to scream "Look at me" everytime.

The KTM "Baby" 200 Duke has the kind of in your face, "current anti-fashion" stuff going for it. The Orange color, the minimalistic off road / super moto inspired styling definitely helps give the bike a youthful appeal.

I am somehow who is definitely knocking the doors of "uncle-hood" but is "youthful at heart".



[P.S: It's perfectly human (and OK) to be a poser]

@Payeng +10000. And the reasons for being a 'poser' are purely biological .

eg. The ultimate male poser:


Off Topic: I see an ad for '250cc motorcycles $1999' at the bottom of this page. Why don't we get such bikes in India?

We should not forget that the Duke has got a 150 section rear rubber which would heavily attract masses including posers.
Most of the people I know have chosen Fazer over R15 beacuae of the rear tire.

Just like the FZ took the Naked styling to a whole new level the DUKE has also done it.Its radical,fresh and rare and that definitely makes it more appealing to the general mass than the Fully Faired bikes,I kinda hope its slightly more premium so that posers wont buy it :P

Should be a very good bike for Indian City road conditions and weekend touring..

There won't be many takers if they price it above 1.3 (on the road). It's not a fully faired bike. In general perception, Honda is a bigger brand and CBR is a fully faired bike, which is considered as bling-bling in India. Duke 200 surely won't have top speed similar to CBR as it isn't fully-faired. We sure do like Duke's design but for the rest of the India it's kinda hate it or love it. Most of them, power to weight ratio doesn't matter and KTM is an unknown brand. They aren't Jap or Italian to brag about.

Look at Renault, Fluence is selling merely at ~ 100 units per month and that translated as big flop. They thought bragging about F1 success and their inventions through newspapers will make brand successful, but they went wrong. On the other hand, have a look at the success of VW, Within a year of launch, less priced Vento is selling as much units(~4000) as multi JP-power award winner Honda City with having less than 1/3rd Showroom/service coverage area on the hand (It even once sold 4 times units than ANHC).

95% of R15 owners - who are not xbhp members - bought R15 just because it was very great to look at (bling effect) and it was Yamaha. Honda and Yamaha products ask for premium because they can, on the other hand Hero, Bajaj, Maruti etc,. are here to cater the masses. And sometimes over-priced premium products like Kizashi from a non-premium company, utterly fail.

We xbhpians - technical dudes - do acknowledge and appreciate the potential of duke 200 but we're not even 1% of total customers who might feel like buying a KTM. The rest of the KTM customers don't understand our language. They know it's just 200cc ,which won't do more 35 KMPL and non-faired. They would think it as astoundingly priced even at 1.3 L.

Let's be rational guys, Bajaj-KTM don't have many things in the plate that those 99% other customers feel any need of. Think of the other way, it will be (almost) localized bike which saves some money, no-fairing which saves another 10-15 grands, lightness which means less metal went into for producing so the cost is minimized to a great extent.

This bike is targeted towards youngsters or those who fill young by heart. Average 'young' Joe starts earning good very late to own this bike on his own. I think not all parents would pay hefty amount for 200cc bike which potentially looks like a stunt bike. Typical Indian mentality is Heaviness = very rugged = best suitable for Indian roads and this is where duke looks delicate (only we know it's opposite)

We can drag tech spec, performance all day long but when it comes to pricing we need to look at this aspect through those 99% 'other' non-technical customers' perspective. Bajaj has invested with upper hand in KTM(literally). To get that money back the only key is selling this bike in large volumes. And only way to get there is to keep pricing considerably low. We all know this is where Bajaj is really good at.

Let's not exaggerated the pricing. Bajaj is reading this thread.

My next buy...I will book it on december...Am so happy that due to my university exam,i did not book any bike after selling my R165...Special thanks to PAYENG bhai :-)