As an owner of a RX100 and a Shogun, all I can say is while the RX is a "cool" customer, a gentleman's bike with an excellent handling, the Shogun is a powered beast that does not like to stay under 40 kmph.

RX100 is my everyday bike. I call it "my moped". 98cc after all. I feel like riding the stairs on it. I can get into the narrowest gallis with it. It is like a powered bicycle. Easy to maintain. Even if you do not pamper it, it will not give you any trouble. Ride on and on and on. I have never rode my RX100 beyond 50Kmph except once, when I wanted to test its gear ratios. The RX ride is cool in the 30 - 50kmph range. Besides, if you are having a well maintained RX, give sometime for the passers by, to stare at your bike. If you zooom away, you loose.

The Shogun is a whole different story. It is a bad guy's bike and I prefer to ride it alone. No pillions whatsoever. Whenever I feel I want to have a Gun ride, I do a few kilometers on it and return.

When you start a Shogun, it is best to rev the bike at 2500 rpm for 3-4 mins, before you engage the gear. Then ride steady in 1st gear @10-15Kmph for 1 Km. That will warm up the beast from it's stone cold position. After the initial warmup, it will send signals to you to whack it up or make it scream, if you do not do that, the engine gets utterly dissapointed. You do not need to race at 80Kmph on a Shogun, just use the tall gear ratios and make it scream, shift from 1st to 2nd at 30Kmph and 2nd to 3rd at 65kmph.

You will find the traffic infront of you letting you pass. Once you touch 65, come down to 35 again. Shift to second. Shift to first. The bike will shake the air around you with a thunderous sound. Throttle up to 40, shift to second again. When you are throttling, use a melody pattern. That is what a Shogun is all about.

You do not need to race, do not need to defeat any Pulsars or ZMAs, the melody from its silencer, will define your ride on behalf of you. If someone zooms past you on a FZ-16, remember it's not worth catching up with him. Either he knows what you are riding or he needs to know a bit of Indian biking history. Both ways, it's not worth for you.

The bottom line is, I find it useless to wonder about the top speeds of these legends. They are in a class of their own and if you ride them like the way they are meant to be, you are in Style.

If top speed thrills you, get a Mitsubishi Cedia

Damn !!!.... I dint know we were supposed to ride in 1st gear for 1Km, that too for a warm up. Looks like you have been watching too much of F1 or MotoGP.

Jokes apart, SHOGUN was a really nice bike, one of my favorites too.

I would anyday prefer a Honda City (Old Vtech) or a Baleno for speeds. I know the 2.0L cedia is one hell of a performer, but the above two which i have mentioned are more mod friendly. Or else try the EVO series, guess now we are talking sense.

No, being with the bike for 12 years, I know exactly what it needs to be in shape. Just as you cannot play football, right after you wake up from sleep, you will utterly piss off a 'gun's engine if it is whacked and screamed from a stone cold position. A little warm up is necessary to get those lubes in place specially when it is parked for 4-5 days without any activity.

This is the case with any 2-stroke my dear. In layman's terms this is called fluttering. (Have experienced this on a Hero Puch, RX, Shogun, Samurai, Scooty). Rather with any IC engine !!!!!

It can also happen if your bike is parked overnight in outside ambient conditions with temperatures really low.

Lot of it can be minimized with good engine tuning, if not fully.

I do not think so. Does not happen on my RX. Never faced it on my AX100 either. You must be aware of the fact, a Shogun's engine is a very pamper friendly engine. You can make it scream, you can take it to it's limits provided you maintain certain norms. Abuse it and you get well deserved results. It just needs a bit of extra care than the others, since the engine is quite a "stressed" one.

My point is, do not put it inline with RX, Samurai, Scooty etc. You can keep these bikes in a desired condition with proper care. For a Shogun, you need to replace the word proper with "extra". Otherwise you will end up with an engine that runs rattle - tattle.

A RX CAN withstand a cold start whack. A Shogun simply cannot and wont!

Tune it up with the best tuner, whatsover.

Swingarm.......I felt your heart out in that write-up,you are really a man who can ride legends the way they are........

But I think RX100-is not a moped,it was a power-commuter back in its days.

The Shogun in comparison was a fully blown race bike,developed by TVS Suzuki with things in mind..........that are similar to the R15 of nowadays.It is really The Boss of Bad bikes

No,Shogun doesnt needs to race,just make its presence feel.But I definitely think,that stuffs can be tried on the Shogun,the way it is-to make the 220s and RTR180s of nowadays a bit nervous...............to the extent that they can wonder,why is this smoking devil not vansihing from the RVMs....even when they can feel their engine's heated up to the extent that their blocks might melt right away Bikes like Shogun takes power mods a little bit personally

Zooming past a Shogun on a FZ16...........!!!!! The guy on the FZ16 never got grades on history in his school and he is wasting his bike good time now.While the Shogun is sedating,the FZ16 is screaming and running.Because if the Shogun roars.......its not the FZ16,its those Rocket Buses that would be feeling anxious.FZ16 would be nowhere by then

Top-speeds on these legends were not meant.......back in those days.Our Shogun has extremely high Final Drive to assist in out of this world acceleration.A bit lower Final drive on a beefed up Shogun,can make the bikes on sale below 250cc here in India now,wonder.........

If top speed thrills me,I will get a GSX750R.........for the Indian roads,it will bid most of them goodbye while running towards its admirable 280....

Swingarm..........you are really someone who connected to the Shogun-in a big way Great buddy

Nice write up Basu Since i am also using a Shogun, i know what you mean by ever word from your heart

Cheers!

Basu Sir..i know your are a TRUE Shogun Die Hard Fan !! keep roaring the dream machine

Totally agree with you....Swingarm

^^^ is the punch line; be it Shogun or Rx or R1, that statement fits everything!!!

I rode Shogun once when I was in high school and I have no doubts as to who is the BOSS

Nice to see so many Shogun (2-stroke) fans here. Had used this bike during engineering for 3Yrs (My friends). We used to rip like crazy. The feel, the sound, the smoke, man, its still very fresh in my memories. This was the first ever Performance bike which i had the opportunity to test until i crashed into RX135 5-Speed. I only wish that spares were available for RX+Shogun, we could had that golden era back.

Even to date, i can see many well maintained Shoguns & RXs at my hometown. Love the way these machines are shining head to toe with lovely exhaust note.

Life has changed some much here in B'lore, there are only 4-T bikes all over, i feel like an outsider when driving in city, with most guys giving stare for god knows what !!!

Keep rocking guys.

The Boss

Yesterday morning, while searching around for a 135-5, me and my friend came across a Shogun, in pristine condition regarding bodywork and cycle parts. The engine needs a bit of TLC, but then it always does. We though about it for a minute, and then, in a moment of wild abandon, purchased it.

I will upload the pics soon. The story goes that the original owner bought back in 95, and stopped riding it circa 2000, so it was gathering dust. Now it has a new home, and new hope.

Already contacted fellow Shogunites from Calcutta (Swingarm and Mach50), and they have agreed to help with the restoration.

All I can say is that when the clutch doesn't slips (plates are shot), the sheer mind bending acceleration (we tested it on the highway yesterday evening) feels like physical pain.

And then it went one better on us, as suddenly it refused to start, completely and absolutely. After checking plugs and engine kill switch in the street light at 10:30 in the night (both were okay), I got angry and shook it, and found that the tank was empty.

It vaporized 2 liters of petrol, and dumped us on the side of the road at the dead of the night, and we still love it!!!! We pushed it home.

congrats

check the tank for rust. rust will kill the engine like cancer.

oh that is a very common thing with shogun n shaolins
especially if u rip it gulps like crazy
my shaolin gives me around 20kmpl but its worth every metre of it