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Re: The Big Bang R1 is here.!
Good to hear bro kidu [emoji28]
Good to hear bro kidu [emoji28]
Originally posted by krish2778
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Where it all began
It was in the year 2008-09, I can’t remember which one, that I happened to be left speechless looking at the BikeIndia magazine which had the Yamaha R1 India launch feature, they had a white-red color scheme bike featured. I just had to have that magazine. I still remember the pictures that were featured in the article, can’t remember much of the content though, apart from one fact that has stuck in my head since then, the bike capable of hitting triple-digit speeds on the first gear. I was just awestruck blown away by the looks and capability of the bike as written in the magazine. Around that time I was just graduating from school and back then the superbike scene in India was just taking baby steps and was pretty much non-existent in Kerala or where I lived(a rural village in Palakkad Malappuram dist border area). But having been raised in the middle east I was not new to the concept of big bikes and being a car and bike nut right from when I was small I had the interest and knowledge on what the offerings from different manufacturers where. I just hadn’t had the chance to see them in flesh a lot.
Years went by and the superbike scene in India started to mature, the dream to own a big bike one day also had started growing slowly in my heart and head.
Even though the R1 always had a special place in my heart, it was classified as unobtainable in my head. I mean, it was something that just seemed way ridiculous a dream that it just can’t be achieved. So I had set more “realistic” dreams.
That’s when Kawasaki launched the Ninja 650 in India. I had just started working and started saving up for the Ninja 650 fund. Thanks to my father’s advice, I had always grown up learning the importance of saving and setting goals and the goal I had set was to get the N650 in cash without any loans, and the savings were going strong. But just like any middle-class person, priorities changed and life happened and the money kept aside for the bike always found a way to more important things. Not that I regret it but long story short I never ended up getting the Ninja 650. Then Triumph made it’s way to the Indian markets and I had a new dream bike, the Daytona 675R and as luck would have it the story repeats, saving funds were made and as quickly the fund grew the money found its ways to for the more important stuff.
All this while I was pretty lucky to own and enjoy some of the best small-capacity motorcycles that was available in the market. During the duration of the superbike dream, I did own the Pulsar 220F, CBR 250R, First Gen Duke 390 and the Yamaha R3, of which the CBR still remains with me and parted ways with the rest of them. It did hurt, not being able to buy something I was so passionate about and I used to discuss this with a few close friends of mine all of whom I got to know from our common interest of biking. And it had become a running joke that every few years, I’d come up with a different dream bike and hype it up and then, in the end, nothing actually happened.
Then I thought enough is enough, I am not going think of a big bike until I am in a position where I could just go purchase one of these bikes like purchasing chocolates from the supermarket, on a whim. That resolution lasted until the next youtube video I saw of one of these bikes and then the vicious cycle starts again.
Pic: Collecting the bike from a friends house where it was stored for a week awaiting RTO procedures to get sorted.
Which Bike to Buy?
Time went by and around Jan of 2019, I told a very close friend of mine(I know you are reading this :-P) that whatever happens, I will have a superbike in my garage by May 2020. Alas by that time the Ninja 650 was not of much interest to me anymore as I had outgrown the Twin pot engine phase and wanted a triple or 4 cylinder bike. And as luck would have it the Daytona was also not available anymore.
Brand New Bikes
I had no other plan than going for a brand new bike. So know I was left with the prospect of choosing from
I was looking for a supersport so the CBR did not fit the bill and also I wanted something that was not a Honda. Moreover, when I contacted the Honda dealer in Bangalore they did not even have a display bike available, let alone a bike for a test ride.
As much as Kawasaki makes clean, smooth and bulletproof engines. Owning Kawasaki was a scary prospect with the spare parts cost and service charges but only they had another option in the 600cc market, so that was my only real option, even though I hated the way the front end of it looked. Now again here comes the kicker. I went to the Kawasaki showroom for getting a quote and to do a test ride. And I couldn’t have been dealing with a more lethargic set of people there at the showroom. They had no interest in filling us in about the bike and when asked about test ride they said I could take a less than 1km route and that too with not even a single free stretch of road. Needless to say dejected I walked out from there.
I love everything about this bike, but the OTR comes to around 18L plus. Yikes! So that was not something I could pull off.
Get a used bike!
Now as 2019 progressed I became more and more serious about the plan, started really thinking of deciding on the 6R but the problem was that I still had my doubts about the 6R as I was just not sold on the looks of the bike. The thought process was that if I am spending a huge amount of money on a bike, at least I need to like the way it looks.
That is when the idea of getting a pre-owned bike came into my mind. As much as I hated the idea of a second-hand bike, the reality was that was my best bet to get the bike that I needed. So with that started the days of going through various Facebook Superbike classified groups and OLX listings, almost any bike I found was either too old or too high mileage or too high an asking price that I started looking at them just for the laughs. The fact that I wanted strictly a KL or KA registered bike made the search even tougher as I was not interested in going through the hassle of re-registering the bike.
So now as far as second-hand bikes go, these were the options I was looking at
I could not find any within KL and KA on any classifieds, I had no interest in going through any dealers so did not even bother that route.
Came across a beautiful SP edition bike, KL registered IIRC. The bike used to be owned by the friend’s friend but had been sold off to someone in Thrissur. But soon a few red flags popped out. The bike was still in the name of the previous owner, needed new tyres and the guy who “owned”
It now wanted the same price for which he had purchased it(I got to know the price at which he had bought the bike). So I dropped it like it was a hot plate.
The irony here is that I was never really considering this. Any listing available was just too high asking price and with way too many kms on it or had some shady stuff up with the bike and its owners, and not to mention finding a KL/KA bike was tough. Like I said I had no interest in going through dealers.
So so far from the 3 options, nothing was materializing and I was all but ready to drop the idea of a second-hand bike for good and just suck it up and save up for a brand new bike hoping that I would have more options available to me in 2020, that is when I heard that a friend might be parting away with his 2013 Yamaha R1, it was a 2013 WGP limited edition one of 2000 units produced and the bike was kept in immaculate mechanical condition, this was just too perfect an opportunity to let go. I asked my friend to talk to him and revert back and I had already jumped the gun and started dreaming and imagining myself owning a Yamaha R1 and it just seemed too good to be true and as it turns out that is what happened, got to know that he was not willing to let go of the bike. Well, in the process of licking my wounds I just casually told my friend to let me know if he ever changes his mind and in a few days, things were back to normal.
Decision Time!
Months had passed and I happened to visit my friends at Trivandrum and got the chance to ride another friend’s ZX6R, mind you that was my first superbike riding experience and I just loved it. I was head over heels over the way the bike rode, even though I hated the way it looked from the front, I called my friend and told him that I have made a decision and that I will have a ZX6R in my garage by May 2020 and preparations for saving up for the bike started again.
And as fate would have it sometime towards the end of December on a Sunday, I got a call from another friend saying that an R1 that belongs to a mutual friend has been put up for sale. When enquired it turns out to be the exact same one I had looked into a few months back. Thinking that this is just another cruel joke being played on me by life. I called my friend to confirm the news and what do you know the bike was indeed on sale, I immediately called up the owner of the bike and enquired if the bike was really up for sale and he said yes, yes it was. It was just unbelievable, this was too good an opportunity to not try, I enquired about the rate and it was very reasonable what he was asking for considering that the bike was in immaculate mechanical condition and had complete service history available and moreover it belonged to a friend and the bike was basically vouched for by a lot of my other friends too.
Now the rest of it just happened way too fast. Something in me had changed and I lost sight of everything else, I gave my solid commitment to the current owner that I will buy it from him and I even went so far as to arrange for loans even before doing the test ride. I know, not one of my brightest moments.
Within a matter of days, funds/loans were arranged and the same week my brother and I drove down to Trivandrum, Test rode the bike(came off the bike post the test ride shivering and made up my mind, this is it, this is going to be my next bike), initiated the ownership transfer process the very same day, wired the money to the current owner and collected the bike and kept it at a friends house and off I went back to Bangalore early morning next day.
Left Side Controls
Right Side Controls
It took a day of recovering from a Bangalore-Trivandrum-Bangalore 2-day drive for the fact to sink in of what I had just done.
Logical thoughts started flooding in
I have just taken on a huge financial commitment.
I had just purchased my first superbike and that too a liter-class ballistic missile.
Where will I ride this bike?
Where will I get this serviced?
How do I get spare parts?
What will the maintenance cost be, I just bought a 6-year-old discontinued model bike.
The bike is literally unrideable in traffic.
I know right, I am not a smart man.
And as all these thoughts started flooding in my head, my anxiety level started to shoot up, but then suddenly that memory of me staring into that BikeIndia magazine suddenly came up to my mind and immediately I knew, I just realized a long-time dream of mine and nothing else mattered.
Adding 2 video clips here.
One is the cold start up of the bike with stock cans and the second is the sound it makes with slight blips in the throttle.
The crossplane sound note is just something that is so much different from the tradition I4 engines , it has that deep rumble and growliness to it, not quite like a V4 but somewhere in between.
Cheers
Ride Safe
Krishna
It was in the year 2008-09, I can’t remember which one, that I happened to be left speechless looking at the BikeIndia magazine which had the Yamaha R1 India launch feature, they had a white-red color scheme bike featured. I just had to have that magazine. I still remember the pictures that were featured in the article, can’t remember much of the content though, apart from one fact that has stuck in my head since then, the bike capable of hitting triple-digit speeds on the first gear. I was just awestruck blown away by the looks and capability of the bike as written in the magazine. Around that time I was just graduating from school and back then the superbike scene in India was just taking baby steps and was pretty much non-existent in Kerala or where I lived(a rural village in Palakkad Malappuram dist border area). But having been raised in the middle east I was not new to the concept of big bikes and being a car and bike nut right from when I was small I had the interest and knowledge on what the offerings from different manufacturers where. I just hadn’t had the chance to see them in flesh a lot.
Years went by and the superbike scene in India started to mature, the dream to own a big bike one day also had started growing slowly in my heart and head.
Even though the R1 always had a special place in my heart, it was classified as unobtainable in my head. I mean, it was something that just seemed way ridiculous a dream that it just can’t be achieved. So I had set more “realistic” dreams.
That’s when Kawasaki launched the Ninja 650 in India. I had just started working and started saving up for the Ninja 650 fund. Thanks to my father’s advice, I had always grown up learning the importance of saving and setting goals and the goal I had set was to get the N650 in cash without any loans, and the savings were going strong. But just like any middle-class person, priorities changed and life happened and the money kept aside for the bike always found a way to more important things. Not that I regret it but long story short I never ended up getting the Ninja 650. Then Triumph made it’s way to the Indian markets and I had a new dream bike, the Daytona 675R and as luck would have it the story repeats, saving funds were made and as quickly the fund grew the money found its ways to for the more important stuff.
All this while I was pretty lucky to own and enjoy some of the best small-capacity motorcycles that was available in the market. During the duration of the superbike dream, I did own the Pulsar 220F, CBR 250R, First Gen Duke 390 and the Yamaha R3, of which the CBR still remains with me and parted ways with the rest of them. It did hurt, not being able to buy something I was so passionate about and I used to discuss this with a few close friends of mine all of whom I got to know from our common interest of biking. And it had become a running joke that every few years, I’d come up with a different dream bike and hype it up and then, in the end, nothing actually happened.
Then I thought enough is enough, I am not going think of a big bike until I am in a position where I could just go purchase one of these bikes like purchasing chocolates from the supermarket, on a whim. That resolution lasted until the next youtube video I saw of one of these bikes and then the vicious cycle starts again.
Pic: Collecting the bike from a friends house where it was stored for a week awaiting RTO procedures to get sorted.
Which Bike to Buy?
Time went by and around Jan of 2019, I told a very close friend of mine(I know you are reading this :-P) that whatever happens, I will have a superbike in my garage by May 2020. Alas by that time the Ninja 650 was not of much interest to me anymore as I had outgrown the Twin pot engine phase and wanted a triple or 4 cylinder bike. And as luck would have it the Daytona was also not available anymore.
Brand New Bikes
I had no other plan than going for a brand new bike. So know I was left with the prospect of choosing from
- Honda CBR650R
I was looking for a supersport so the CBR did not fit the bill and also I wanted something that was not a Honda. Moreover, when I contacted the Honda dealer in Bangalore they did not even have a display bike available, let alone a bike for a test ride.
- Kawasaki Ninja ZX6R
As much as Kawasaki makes clean, smooth and bulletproof engines. Owning Kawasaki was a scary prospect with the spare parts cost and service charges but only they had another option in the 600cc market, so that was my only real option, even though I hated the way the front end of it looked. Now again here comes the kicker. I went to the Kawasaki showroom for getting a quote and to do a test ride. And I couldn’t have been dealing with a more lethargic set of people there at the showroom. They had no interest in filling us in about the bike and when asked about test ride they said I could take a less than 1km route and that too with not even a single free stretch of road. Needless to say dejected I walked out from there.
- Kawasaki Ninja ZX10R
I love everything about this bike, but the OTR comes to around 18L plus. Yikes! So that was not something I could pull off.
Get a used bike!
Now as 2019 progressed I became more and more serious about the plan, started really thinking of deciding on the 6R but the problem was that I still had my doubts about the 6R as I was just not sold on the looks of the bike. The thought process was that if I am spending a huge amount of money on a bike, at least I need to like the way it looks.
That is when the idea of getting a pre-owned bike came into my mind. As much as I hated the idea of a second-hand bike, the reality was that was my best bet to get the bike that I needed. So with that started the days of going through various Facebook Superbike classified groups and OLX listings, almost any bike I found was either too old or too high mileage or too high an asking price that I started looking at them just for the laughs. The fact that I wanted strictly a KL or KA registered bike made the search even tougher as I was not interested in going through the hassle of re-registering the bike.
So now as far as second-hand bikes go, these were the options I was looking at
- Triumph Daytona
I could not find any within KL and KA on any classifieds, I had no interest in going through any dealers so did not even bother that route.
- Honda CBR1000RR
Came across a beautiful SP edition bike, KL registered IIRC. The bike used to be owned by the friend’s friend but had been sold off to someone in Thrissur. But soon a few red flags popped out. The bike was still in the name of the previous owner, needed new tyres and the guy who “owned”
It now wanted the same price for which he had purchased it(I got to know the price at which he had bought the bike). So I dropped it like it was a hot plate.
- Yamaha R1
The irony here is that I was never really considering this. Any listing available was just too high asking price and with way too many kms on it or had some shady stuff up with the bike and its owners, and not to mention finding a KL/KA bike was tough. Like I said I had no interest in going through dealers.
So so far from the 3 options, nothing was materializing and I was all but ready to drop the idea of a second-hand bike for good and just suck it up and save up for a brand new bike hoping that I would have more options available to me in 2020, that is when I heard that a friend might be parting away with his 2013 Yamaha R1, it was a 2013 WGP limited edition one of 2000 units produced and the bike was kept in immaculate mechanical condition, this was just too perfect an opportunity to let go. I asked my friend to talk to him and revert back and I had already jumped the gun and started dreaming and imagining myself owning a Yamaha R1 and it just seemed too good to be true and as it turns out that is what happened, got to know that he was not willing to let go of the bike. Well, in the process of licking my wounds I just casually told my friend to let me know if he ever changes his mind and in a few days, things were back to normal.
Decision Time!
Months had passed and I happened to visit my friends at Trivandrum and got the chance to ride another friend’s ZX6R, mind you that was my first superbike riding experience and I just loved it. I was head over heels over the way the bike rode, even though I hated the way it looked from the front, I called my friend and told him that I have made a decision and that I will have a ZX6R in my garage by May 2020 and preparations for saving up for the bike started again.
And as fate would have it sometime towards the end of December on a Sunday, I got a call from another friend saying that an R1 that belongs to a mutual friend has been put up for sale. When enquired it turns out to be the exact same one I had looked into a few months back. Thinking that this is just another cruel joke being played on me by life. I called my friend to confirm the news and what do you know the bike was indeed on sale, I immediately called up the owner of the bike and enquired if the bike was really up for sale and he said yes, yes it was. It was just unbelievable, this was too good an opportunity to not try, I enquired about the rate and it was very reasonable what he was asking for considering that the bike was in immaculate mechanical condition and had complete service history available and moreover it belonged to a friend and the bike was basically vouched for by a lot of my other friends too.
Now the rest of it just happened way too fast. Something in me had changed and I lost sight of everything else, I gave my solid commitment to the current owner that I will buy it from him and I even went so far as to arrange for loans even before doing the test ride. I know, not one of my brightest moments.
Within a matter of days, funds/loans were arranged and the same week my brother and I drove down to Trivandrum, Test rode the bike(came off the bike post the test ride shivering and made up my mind, this is it, this is going to be my next bike), initiated the ownership transfer process the very same day, wired the money to the current owner and collected the bike and kept it at a friends house and off I went back to Bangalore early morning next day.
Left Side Controls
Right Side Controls
It took a day of recovering from a Bangalore-Trivandrum-Bangalore 2-day drive for the fact to sink in of what I had just done.
Logical thoughts started flooding in
I have just taken on a huge financial commitment.
I had just purchased my first superbike and that too a liter-class ballistic missile.
Where will I ride this bike?
Where will I get this serviced?
How do I get spare parts?
What will the maintenance cost be, I just bought a 6-year-old discontinued model bike.
The bike is literally unrideable in traffic.
I know right, I am not a smart man.
And as all these thoughts started flooding in my head, my anxiety level started to shoot up, but then suddenly that memory of me staring into that BikeIndia magazine suddenly came up to my mind and immediately I knew, I just realized a long-time dream of mine and nothing else mattered.
Adding 2 video clips here.
One is the cold start up of the bike with stock cans and the second is the sound it makes with slight blips in the throttle.
The crossplane sound note is just something that is so much different from the tradition I4 engines , it has that deep rumble and growliness to it, not quite like a V4 but somewhere in between.
Cheers
Ride Safe
Krishna
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