Re: Buying new bike

I own a Bajaj Pulsar since 10 years and so has been the case for many friends of mine. These motorcycles are made to be a workhorse and the maintenance in general is very affordable.

A lot of friends own Dominars and one if not two have done 60k kms on it easy peasy.

My friends have owned Hondas, Suzukis, and TVS. For me the CBR150r has been a troublesome babe, issues crop up almost every other month and the spares are very pricey, above that they are hard to source.

For the record, the CBR hasn't done half of the kms of the Bajaj.

Repairability in general is more important than reliability when things go south.

Also, CBR has been discontinued, no point considering it.

For pure city usage, FZ25 fares well. For touring (provided you tour to cities and not remote towns) even a Suzuki is fine.
Just don't get a suzuki if you are into touring to far away villages of Himachal / Uttarakhand etc. We had a suzuki fail and there was no mechanic in a well known place like Chamoli. The mechanics refused keeping spares either. The next Suzuki mechanic was almost a 100 kms away. Just my little share of experience and I hope that doesn't happen to anyone.

If I were in your boots, I'd save up a tad bit more and get a RR310. Although again, the issue of spare availability crops up.

Bajaj is your best bet in regards to spare availability. There is a KTM checkpoint even at Hamirpur in Himachal.

Just my two cents.

Goodluck.

Re: Buying new bike

I bought P220 last Diwali, after 10 years with Honda Shine. I haven't had any issues with the ride, no matter how hard I ride and what not mods I've tried. I haven't been stranded in the middle of nowhere with 13k on the odo. Even my colleagues who have CT100 since 4 years haven't had any issues whatsoever. If I were to share the feedback on my Honda ride after 1 year, it would have had some major points.

Now, I'm just saying please don't hit at an OEM in general. Rather, share your experience& let OP be the judge. Recommending someone to buy a bike that is no longer in production, isn't something wise too. I've rode my cousin's CBR and it's a wonderful bike, but buying a bike that stood neglected at a dealership for more than a year, that's not ideal.

No offense intended, just sharing my views with fellow biker brother.

Re: Buying new bike

Nowhere am i suggesting to get a cbr250r. Rather i am suggesting to "have a look" at cb300r. Also, none bike will leave you stranded until you take care of it. I rode my calibre for more than a lakh kilometer brother and had it for over 10 years. Never in this entire 10 years was the caliber niggle free. Same thing with my brother's pulsar, and now with friend's dominor..

Re: Buying new bike

But you are downplaying a manufacturer constantly, my pulsar has done more than a lakh kms on the odo and never faltered or failed me ever. No reliability concern either.

Same has been the experience of my fellow riding mates.

PS i am from Uttarakhand and the hilly road climbs spare no engines. The block was replaced at 88k which imho is a considerably long period, also I have to wring that puny motor at redline, considering this, the motorcycle has been super reliable for me and same goes for my friends.

PS friends own p220, p135, ns200. All three have done a lakh without skipping a beat. The block on p135 was replaced at 110k, the NS is still running stock block and the p220 had a block change at around 79k.

Cheers