My office is 22kms from my home. I've been riding the R15 for the last 8 days now. Takes me 30-35mins. My journey is all on the outer ring road and a good grunt is needed to have some fun. The max I could pull from the R15 in a decent upright mode was 118kmph. I never crouch on these stupid roads. Would leave such antics to a speed test or Track session.
So my RTR is now eating dust at home and the battery has also drained out(ignition is direct and circuit is always connected). Gave a jump start with a spare battery to power the self starter (no kicker assembly now, infact broke last week ...so installed the self starter back!) and rode to work. It felt like a long gap after stepping on the RTR.
But from the word go, it would wheelie ahead. Had a ball riding it to work and this is what I was missing on the R15 all these days. No punch at all. My RTR would get into an addicting band once past 4k and head all the way till 10k. Was effortlessly doing 120 tops on the same stretch. Speedo error was 1kmph lesser on my RTR than a stock R15 when we tested.
Reached office is 25mins today.

@ mithun -On the chennai track, you need a bike with sprinty performance and thats where the RTR excels. R15 is def a good corner carver, however when you try to get somebody in a shoulder to shoulder fight you need something that can respond to throttle twists a lot better.
During the UCAL race, Killer was faster than the experts and all the group D riders on the RTR. He smashed the lap record for a group D bike on the RTR(1:15.7) and he would not have done that aboard the R15...his personal view.
Vishwa is an excellent rider and Killer was advised not to overtake them as they were experts. However he set his own lap record. It was not any difficult to smoke that R15. Anyways, the gap between the TVS factory expert rider's RTR and the R15 was hardly anything. Almost neck to neck the fight was.
If Killer was let loose, Vishwa would have seen stars, so would the other experts.
It all boils down to better riding skills than the bike alone.
The reason why I picked the R15 is to get the best of both the bikes to brush my riding further. R15 has superb handling/dynamics and RTR has a punchy motor.
There is a reason why the R15 is good and so is the RTR. This is not completely better than that and vice versa.
I own both so I can comment on both. Its easy to be biased, but even more difficult to make proper judgements.

Makes sense, even killer said in dog fight RTR is better than R15 so he choose RTR

No doubt both are beautiful machines and not to mention only these two bikes that can be handled in track. as i said earlier R15 is good learner bike, we can learn lot from this bike, when i need a grunt i will take a ride on my shogun as you do on RTR

For the next grunt levels, I'm missing my Fiero. That 145kmph nirvana is something else. All this coming from a Fiero, puts others to a even bigger surprise.

Am i missing something here?? since this is coming from you i assume that the fiero you're talking about is full-out modded!?!

Oh, many might not know. Its a fully blown Fiero, that too ia streetable bike . Top speed attained is a true 145kmph. All those threads are lost now.

Joel

Here is the engine of that Fiero.



I still remember looking at this Fiero beating Comet in the drags.

Nope. Thats the Fiero V-twin. Please dont mix things. This bike did a best of 129kmph, ridden by me.
Mine is a 195cc Single cylinder Fiero.
This is it, its its 145kmph form.




Joel

^^I was one of those guys gifted with the oppurtunity to look at the beast and ride it first hand. I still remember the first time that Venu Sir gave me the keys and asked me to ride it. I thought "ok, its a bike with a free - flow". Poor me, little did I know. First gear...some 20 - 25 kmph, second gear and whack the throttle, the rear was slipping and sliding to the right, trying to overtake the front....One scary moment... I will never forget it. BTW, Joel are u still running that megaphone exhaust ? And what happened to that 100mph aim of urs ?

^ My Fiero is no longer on the roads. I'm currently working on the Fiero to race it in the upcoming drag races. It will be a thorough bred Drag Race bike and no more of street fun on it. We are working on a new set-up which would be a lot more radical.
The 145kmph set-up was a lot different from what you rode, I'm sure you remember how we celebrated the attempt at the Bar
No megaphone now, infact no engine on the bike itself now. The last time it ran, was 5 months ago. However in its full race form, it will be loud as hell. Or I'll have to run a secondary muffler to arrest most of the sound for testing within city limits.
Its an exciting project, but the progress is really slow offlate.

Hello joel .. where do you work ? .. do you do this stuff as a hobby ? I am pretty curious man.

.:. Archi

^Started off as a Hobby about 5-6yrs ago. Been a mechanical nutter all my life anyways. But its getting on me too much. I need to find a way out now .
I sure work at a reputed office

So True!!

Even i have similar feelings for both the bikes.I haven't ridden both the bikes 'extensively' but difference between the response of both these bikes is huge. Both these bikes seem to be made for different turfs.But it's the RTR which can adjust itself in both the turfs without making the riders sweat. R15's a gem when it comes to engine refinement and handling/braking package but some spark is still missing which would have definitely made it more fun-to-ride!!

Now this is what i'm talking about, some real home-grown rides, Masterpiece, dude make sure you tell us when you come here to Chennai i'm eager to meet you

Will be there at MMSC on 18th.

I'm there, PMing apar now............