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Hello folks,
New member here in xbhp community. Glad to be here. Little about myself - 29 years old lad, bachelor and an IT guy like most of 'em in Pune right now. No wonder I walk around with a ever fagged face even though we sit in AC half of our day.
Though not new to biking, I consider myself a perpetual learner as far as riding is concerned. Bikes I have owned since I was 14 will be in order-
HH Splendor 2001 -> RX135 2006 -> HH CBZ Xtreme 2007 -> FZ-16 1st model 2009 -> TVS Jupitor 2015 -> R15S 2016
I've been a Yamaha fanboy as far as I know myself, so keeping true to the tradition however after keeping a lot of parameters in check, just bought an R15S on May 18th which apparently was my Birthday as well. Boy, at this age you'll have to gift yourself to keep your vigor eminent. Aye! my girlfriend sits at her home and costs me money so..
My views of squids, jaywalkers, chhapri stuntmen on public roads, always on high-beamers are told to be a little extreme, so I'll rather not post'em here. But hey! staying in Pune since last 7 years has taught me that it can't be blamed always on people as we don't have proper infrastructure and law & order. Also we lack common sense, full of total disregard to each other on roads.
Everyone is expected to break traffic rules here, can you imagine? Can't count how many times I got rear ended while stopping on a yellow and Red light and got into road rages for following the basic rules; Riders from Pune will agree. This city wasn't and isn't prepared for bikers and yet it has one of the largest bike population in the state. Even I'm forced to break some on daily basis, I don't mind now but it hurts a little.
Enough rant. I used to be active in bcmtouring till some 5 years ago and I think I still have my ID activated there. I haven't been there since ages for no reason. My first and last review of the FZ-16 "Dodo" luckily is still there for anyone who's interested in reading a pure shittery of a tale without even a single pic (I'm going to do the same here I know)-
Mid Term review , FZ -16 "Dodo" | India Travel Forum, BCMTouring
I watch and think much, click less and write even lesser and that's the reason I could never keep a diary of my solo tours across the ghats of Konkan and across. The FZ-16 I sold in Sept 2015 because it started to show it's age and it was my bad for not keeping her in good shape. I had honestly lost my biking game since last couple of years for whatever reasons. However one sudden morning I woke up scolding myself and craving for a new bike, so here I am.
A little about my 6 years experience with FZ-16 - Awesome bike for city it had been. I covered some 30K KMs in first 3 years on it without breaking a sweat which included mostly long weekend tours on highways and ghats. Then suddenly I stopped caring and the bike was left in the parking garaged most of the times just to be rode on weekends. In her last 2 years, I was barely able to pull 70+ kmph, it just didn't go further and less than 25 kmpl of a milage no matter how good the servicing was done. So she had to go after some 50K KMs in the odo. It was my onus totally, and I miss her.
The Jupitor is the odd one out in my rides but it served a purpose. It made me realize I do not want to own an automatic moped for good, I want to own a bike. A bike which does it all. Very difficult to find, however I had my own checklist of parameters, and a few bikes which I absolutely loved and test rode before making a decision by selecting one bike which covered most areas from that checklist.
*Please note, whatever I'm going to present here about the bikes I wanted to test and did, are my own personal opinions and not to taken personally at all. I know we all are adults here.
First, what I was looking for in a bike; a few things, not all extremely compulsory -
1. A *better pillion set than most of the performance bikes we have currently - No, please don't tell me why a sports bike should not concentrate on pillion comfort. This is India and we can't buy 2 bikes for serving different purposes. I need to take my girlfriend into consideration as well, I don't want her to look like an ape hanging on a tree branch which I see on the version 2.0 R15 and the RCs. Now you know why would Yamaha would roll down aother version of the version 2 when there's only one selling okay!
2. Power delievery - I'm not into high speeds and shit. In my opinion, our roads, expressways and highways for bikes are not meant for speeds like 120 or 130 kmph. People and fellow tourers are doing it daily but I will always maintain this. I ended up touring short distances (~500kms - 1000kms) with almost 80 to 100kmph all the times and I'm still okay with it. All I want is a bike with good mid range grunt and an easily available grunt at higher speeds when needed.
3. Tubeless tyres - Nope, I won't and can't do without tubeless tyres in 2016. Just to give you a hint, tubeless tyres on my FZ saved my ass at a freezing December mid-night on a national highway when a 2 inches nail decided to screw the treadless rubber of the infamous first gen tyres. I had no option to push it inside, ride back to Khandala from a lane into the farmlands, in the morning forget about the nail and ride back to Pune 100+ KMs with that nail. That's just one of the times it happened.
4. Good headlight - Lets agree all the 12V/35W OEM lamps suck on all the current bikes. Its near impossible to ride the bike in city at night safely, especially when there's a kaafila of incoming loony toons with hig beams on all the times for some reason. I at least wanted a 55W lamp in the bike by default or 2 35W lamps.
5. Good disk breaks and a rear disk.
6. ABS - Well, on gravel and wet roads I have been very careful so far with all my bikes with occasional slips but nothing major but I've seen what ABS can do specially when there's a rear disk break which is prone to lock most of the times. But here came the budget restrains.
7. Lesser maintainance - People who give absurd reasosn for owning bikes which in reality is making their lives miserable but consider it macho to fix the niggles by their own hand on daily basis, should leave everything, start living in jungles, kill for food with bare hands, and have sex with chimps. Because that is macho. This is not, this is waste of time.
My budget really was at max 1.5 Lacs so I knew I'll have to compromise on one or two parameters, luckily the bikes I had in mind were falling almost in that range. In last 3 to 4 months, below are the bikes I test rode and read/watch a lot about. In order of test ride -
1. Gixxer SF - I wasn't and am not a fan of naked Gixxer. But this one was different. However it wasn't an upgrade to FZ-16 except it's claimed top speed on highways, which I'm not into at all. The bike was smooth as Ganges even in short gears but it was just a too good boy. Also, almost every owner complained of extremely poor headlights in web. So nope.
2. Pulsar AS200 - Test rode in traffic on purpose for some 5 KMs. First 5 minutes, I knew why I never bought a Bajaj so far*, returned to the showroom and parked the bike with all due respect.
*Read - Long-ass turning radius, higher saddle height for a short piece of shit which is me, trademark Pulsar vibrations.
3. Thunderbird 350 - A little over my budget but it was just a long lost dream of owning an RE. Also a few of my friends own RE 350/500. Big miss was tubeless tyres, even if I could ignore that, this isn't a proper tourer just because it has ape handle bars poorly fitted. The 350 one was meh! but the 500 pulled like a truck, too good of a torque. But the projector is average as well, riding with the owners at night has shown me that. So it lost it's selling value to me. Also, see the "maintainance free" part.
4. Classic 350 - It only had it's looks to sell on me so I kept it in reserved. Plus I could handle it way better than TB.
5. Duke 200 - Because Duke 390 with ABS is well out of my budget, I had to test it out. Pure madness. I was on a short test ride so couldn't really face the engine heating issue first hand. But boy, this bike except the small tank, small seat and the sweet sound of an auto rikshaw, was brilliant and could make a tiny tourer along with a city friendly bike. Great Metzelar tyres as well.
6. R15S - Thanks to the invisible (wo)man in the skies up above, Yamaha actually listened to their customers and rolled down this model. Lack of ABS is heart breaking for sure. I'm one of those minority who actually disliked the ugly ass and impractical seat of the V2.0. Why would they even provide one. Hey, just my views, don't get offended. It looked hideuous to me at best. Yeah yeah, razor sharp R6 looks, aero dynamics etc, but not for me. I finalized and booked the Cyber green color without even a test ride, and that's where I made a boo boo! More on that in my initial impressions later, once this first thread gets approved and all.
Thanks and regards.
New member here in xbhp community. Glad to be here. Little about myself - 29 years old lad, bachelor and an IT guy like most of 'em in Pune right now. No wonder I walk around with a ever fagged face even though we sit in AC half of our day.
Though not new to biking, I consider myself a perpetual learner as far as riding is concerned. Bikes I have owned since I was 14 will be in order-
HH Splendor 2001 -> RX135 2006 -> HH CBZ Xtreme 2007 -> FZ-16 1st model 2009 -> TVS Jupitor 2015 -> R15S 2016
I've been a Yamaha fanboy as far as I know myself, so keeping true to the tradition however after keeping a lot of parameters in check, just bought an R15S on May 18th which apparently was my Birthday as well. Boy, at this age you'll have to gift yourself to keep your vigor eminent. Aye! my girlfriend sits at her home and costs me money so..
My views of squids, jaywalkers, chhapri stuntmen on public roads, always on high-beamers are told to be a little extreme, so I'll rather not post'em here. But hey! staying in Pune since last 7 years has taught me that it can't be blamed always on people as we don't have proper infrastructure and law & order. Also we lack common sense, full of total disregard to each other on roads.
Everyone is expected to break traffic rules here, can you imagine? Can't count how many times I got rear ended while stopping on a yellow and Red light and got into road rages for following the basic rules; Riders from Pune will agree. This city wasn't and isn't prepared for bikers and yet it has one of the largest bike population in the state. Even I'm forced to break some on daily basis, I don't mind now but it hurts a little.
Enough rant. I used to be active in bcmtouring till some 5 years ago and I think I still have my ID activated there. I haven't been there since ages for no reason. My first and last review of the FZ-16 "Dodo" luckily is still there for anyone who's interested in reading a pure shittery of a tale without even a single pic (I'm going to do the same here I know)-
Mid Term review , FZ -16 "Dodo" | India Travel Forum, BCMTouring
I watch and think much, click less and write even lesser and that's the reason I could never keep a diary of my solo tours across the ghats of Konkan and across. The FZ-16 I sold in Sept 2015 because it started to show it's age and it was my bad for not keeping her in good shape. I had honestly lost my biking game since last couple of years for whatever reasons. However one sudden morning I woke up scolding myself and craving for a new bike, so here I am.
A little about my 6 years experience with FZ-16 - Awesome bike for city it had been. I covered some 30K KMs in first 3 years on it without breaking a sweat which included mostly long weekend tours on highways and ghats. Then suddenly I stopped caring and the bike was left in the parking garaged most of the times just to be rode on weekends. In her last 2 years, I was barely able to pull 70+ kmph, it just didn't go further and less than 25 kmpl of a milage no matter how good the servicing was done. So she had to go after some 50K KMs in the odo. It was my onus totally, and I miss her.
The Jupitor is the odd one out in my rides but it served a purpose. It made me realize I do not want to own an automatic moped for good, I want to own a bike. A bike which does it all. Very difficult to find, however I had my own checklist of parameters, and a few bikes which I absolutely loved and test rode before making a decision by selecting one bike which covered most areas from that checklist.
*Please note, whatever I'm going to present here about the bikes I wanted to test and did, are my own personal opinions and not to taken personally at all. I know we all are adults here.
First, what I was looking for in a bike; a few things, not all extremely compulsory -
1. A *better pillion set than most of the performance bikes we have currently - No, please don't tell me why a sports bike should not concentrate on pillion comfort. This is India and we can't buy 2 bikes for serving different purposes. I need to take my girlfriend into consideration as well, I don't want her to look like an ape hanging on a tree branch which I see on the version 2.0 R15 and the RCs. Now you know why would Yamaha would roll down aother version of the version 2 when there's only one selling okay!
2. Power delievery - I'm not into high speeds and shit. In my opinion, our roads, expressways and highways for bikes are not meant for speeds like 120 or 130 kmph. People and fellow tourers are doing it daily but I will always maintain this. I ended up touring short distances (~500kms - 1000kms) with almost 80 to 100kmph all the times and I'm still okay with it. All I want is a bike with good mid range grunt and an easily available grunt at higher speeds when needed.
3. Tubeless tyres - Nope, I won't and can't do without tubeless tyres in 2016. Just to give you a hint, tubeless tyres on my FZ saved my ass at a freezing December mid-night on a national highway when a 2 inches nail decided to screw the treadless rubber of the infamous first gen tyres. I had no option to push it inside, ride back to Khandala from a lane into the farmlands, in the morning forget about the nail and ride back to Pune 100+ KMs with that nail. That's just one of the times it happened.
4. Good headlight - Lets agree all the 12V/35W OEM lamps suck on all the current bikes. Its near impossible to ride the bike in city at night safely, especially when there's a kaafila of incoming loony toons with hig beams on all the times for some reason. I at least wanted a 55W lamp in the bike by default or 2 35W lamps.
5. Good disk breaks and a rear disk.
6. ABS - Well, on gravel and wet roads I have been very careful so far with all my bikes with occasional slips but nothing major but I've seen what ABS can do specially when there's a rear disk break which is prone to lock most of the times. But here came the budget restrains.
7. Lesser maintainance - People who give absurd reasosn for owning bikes which in reality is making their lives miserable but consider it macho to fix the niggles by their own hand on daily basis, should leave everything, start living in jungles, kill for food with bare hands, and have sex with chimps. Because that is macho. This is not, this is waste of time.
My budget really was at max 1.5 Lacs so I knew I'll have to compromise on one or two parameters, luckily the bikes I had in mind were falling almost in that range. In last 3 to 4 months, below are the bikes I test rode and read/watch a lot about. In order of test ride -
1. Gixxer SF - I wasn't and am not a fan of naked Gixxer. But this one was different. However it wasn't an upgrade to FZ-16 except it's claimed top speed on highways, which I'm not into at all. The bike was smooth as Ganges even in short gears but it was just a too good boy. Also, almost every owner complained of extremely poor headlights in web. So nope.
2. Pulsar AS200 - Test rode in traffic on purpose for some 5 KMs. First 5 minutes, I knew why I never bought a Bajaj so far*, returned to the showroom and parked the bike with all due respect.
*Read - Long-ass turning radius, higher saddle height for a short piece of shit which is me, trademark Pulsar vibrations.
3. Thunderbird 350 - A little over my budget but it was just a long lost dream of owning an RE. Also a few of my friends own RE 350/500. Big miss was tubeless tyres, even if I could ignore that, this isn't a proper tourer just because it has ape handle bars poorly fitted. The 350 one was meh! but the 500 pulled like a truck, too good of a torque. But the projector is average as well, riding with the owners at night has shown me that. So it lost it's selling value to me. Also, see the "maintainance free" part.
4. Classic 350 - It only had it's looks to sell on me so I kept it in reserved. Plus I could handle it way better than TB.
5. Duke 200 - Because Duke 390 with ABS is well out of my budget, I had to test it out. Pure madness. I was on a short test ride so couldn't really face the engine heating issue first hand. But boy, this bike except the small tank, small seat and the sweet sound of an auto rikshaw, was brilliant and could make a tiny tourer along with a city friendly bike. Great Metzelar tyres as well.
6. R15S - Thanks to the invisible (wo)man in the skies up above, Yamaha actually listened to their customers and rolled down this model. Lack of ABS is heart breaking for sure. I'm one of those minority who actually disliked the ugly ass and impractical seat of the V2.0. Why would they even provide one. Hey, just my views, don't get offended. It looked hideuous to me at best. Yeah yeah, razor sharp R6 looks, aero dynamics etc, but not for me. I finalized and booked the Cyber green color without even a test ride, and that's where I made a boo boo! More on that in my initial impressions later, once this first thread gets approved and all.
Thanks and regards.
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