WALLPAPER DAN MOTOR

Monday, April 4, 2011

Hyosungs in India by 20th April : The Korean Assault

Picture : Bobby Roy Chowdhury

Remember Hyosung? It was the same company that gave us, Indians, a chance to own and ride a proper full fledged 250cc motorcycle some years back. The same Korean giant is now back in India with Pune based Garware Motors and will soon be launching the GT650R as well as the ST7 models in India.

To be commercially available from 20th April, the GT650R is a proper sports bike - fully faired and with a powerful 650cc engine. The ST7 on the other hand is a proper Yankee cruiser and comes with a slightly larger capacity engine. It is also the one I would pick from among the two machines.

No pricing has been announced but we feel the GT650R will go on sale for around Rs 4.5 to 5 lakh whereas the ST7 will come with a sticker price of Rs 5 to 5.5 lakh. Fingers crossed till 20th April 2011

WORTH A READ
1. THE PIMPED UP AQUILA 250

Stupid biker - how not to ride your bike in a truck!

We all go through this at some point of time - shifting homes.
Apart from the usual house-hold stuff, we also need to shift our prized possession, our motorcycles. However, the way this guy does it is so bloody wrong. We couldn't stop laughing at his way of crashing his cruiser!

So if you are looking at shifting your house, and your prized set of wheels, better learn a thing or two from this video!!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Vyrus Superbike launched in India.

Is this freaking true? In India? WTF!
Exactly - we too had the same feelings until we finally got the official news just an hour back. These are the first two images, right from the launch ceremony here in New Delhi, India.
The radical Superbike Vyrus has gone on sale in India and while u might wonder why such a bike in India, trust us, there are enough millionaires in India to make our country this bike's best market easily!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

WTF: Changing tires on the move - all the way from Saudi!

People from this part of the world are known for their crazy antics. They are also known to drive their big SUVs on two wheels but what in the world is this?

Words can do justice to what you end up thinking once you see this video..

Honda VFR1200F and CBR1000RR : Mumbai to Delhi ride - Day 2

While riding to Ahmedabad on day1, it had started drizzling lightly. My last ride on a Superbike on this route (on the Hayabusa) came back to my mind - that time too, rain gods hadnt been kind of me!

By morning, the roads outside the hotel were all wet! We still had over 900km to go to Delhi and reluctantly, we were back on the road. The 245km stretch to Udaipur has its own set of long sweeeping curves. The roads however were wet which meant we had to force ourselves to ride 'slowly' at speeds between 105-110km/h only. At these speeds, a twist of the throttle was all it would take to spin the rear wheel madly!

Passing the 'Line'

We stopped for a few pictures whenever the drizzle stopped but eventually before we got to Udaipur, we were shivering to the core. Wind blast on high speeds (when you wet) is bad, very bad! We almost ended up taking a night in Udaipur itself but that would have been a shame for us...

Photo-shoots at the Chittorgarh turn-off

So we contined to Chittorgarh and within a few km had to take shelter in a road side restaurant. The cold was simply too much. A few cups of tea, spicy and hot meals and we decided to ride to Chittorgarh for the night. We had no option but to ride on. The bikes in the meantime, though dirty, were proving to be our companion - they adjusted well, sipping a litre for every 20km. Though the roads were wet, they instilled confidence in us and made us eat the miles slowly but steadily.

370km were all we did that day. It took us around 8 hours for the same - blame this on long and numerous breaks to fight the cold. The bikes wore a mucky look outside in the parking and all our luggage was wet to the bone. What next we asked ourselves...

Our clothes scattered all over the room in Chittorgarh!

Day3's log coming up : the last battle to New Delhi

Read Day 1 here

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Honda VFR1200F and CBR1000RR : Mumbai to Delhi ride - Day 1

Riding a full blown motorcycle is one thing. Riding it for over 1400km through congestion, rains, cold and single lane stretches is another.

India is known as the land of commuter motorcycles. Eight out of ten motorcycles on the roads are from the 100-125cc category. Superbike manufacturers have starting showing interest in the Indian market but slowly but steadily, lucky individuals can now catch a glimpse of these in big cities. But, are these only meant for the occasional ride or can they take on long distances as well?

Our aim was simple - pick up two of the best models in the history of Honda and take for a ride - a long one. The bikes were the iconic VFR1200F and the sexy CBR1000RR. The route was a 1450km ride from Mumbai to the capital of India, New Delhi.

Blame it on hitting the bed late, but we managed to get out of Mumbai's mess by 11am. Ahmedabad was roughly 500km and in all probability, it seemed to be our night stop.

Even though we were just an hour and half into the ride, roads like these greeted us once in a while

The first 100-150km out of Mumbai are average. Diversions and lotsa traffic means our average speeds were low. However, past the cut off to Silvassa, things improved.

A restaurant looks on - somewhere on the highway where we stopped for a quick bite

The VFR1200F which till now felt heavy and lazy suddenly seemed to come in its own. Superb is an understatement for this machine. The CBR1000RR surprisingly was uber comfortable for Bobby Roy Chowdhury, the man also responsible for these pictures.