Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 i BIKE India

LEIIDOR MOTORCYCLE JACKETS ARE lightweight jackets, great for hot climate, with a primarily mesh construction featuring abrasion-resistant Cordura panels in high-stress areas. The Grandstand jacket is the company’s premium offering in the Road Sport range. These jackets come with world-class Knox Lite armour for the elbows and shoulders, while the foam back protector can be upgraded to CEcertified spec. All the models feature reflective panels on the back, YKK zippers and waterproof pockets to store a phone or money.…

AFTER READING THE brief for the college motorcycle design project I set last year, my students’ first question was to ask the target launch date. As someone who’s spent a lifetime being asked, “How quickly can you get this done?” it was something I hadn’t really considered. When I picked an arbitrary date of 2020, there was a communal slumping of shoulders and complaints of having their creativity shackled by the hard reality of..... well, reality. From where I stood, 2020 was generously advanced. Since technology has reduced the lead times for projects from several years to a few months, a five-year hence launch date hits the realms of pure fantasyland. For those of us who earn our living designing real products for real consumers, utopian dreaming is a luxury…

‘We are developing a lot of new products in our existing segments and also expanding our range in various new segments’ PAWAN MUNJAL IS comfortably seated in the cosy makeshift office at the Hero MotoCorp pavilion at EICMA 2016. Dressed in a fine tweed suit with a muffler around his neck, probably to protect his sore throat, the man in command clearly looks like he has been travelling a lot. Rightly so since Hero are involved in several projects at this point in time. It’s exciting times, as the brand has hired some very good talent from around the world and is headed in the right direction. We caught up with the man who has the burden of a legacy on his shoulders and huge expectations from his employees and…

THE INDIAN SCOUT WAS the stepping stone to the exclusive world of Indian Motorcycle. That title now belongs to a smaller Scout, called the Sixty. This new bike from America promises to be a lot like its elder, or may I say, bigger sibling. What’s the difference? you may ask. Well, we were just as curious and so we spent a day with the Sixty to find out how close it comes to the standard Scout. To begin with, a layman would not be able to spot the differences between the standard Scout and the Sixty. Take a closer look, however, and you will discover an array of changes that make for the visual difference between these two motorcycles. The Sixty is clearly the lesser of the two in…

A CHAOTIC AND rain-afflicted weekend appeared tailor-made for Marquez, now riding with the championship shackles off, to ably demonstrate once again why he has earned five world championships by the age of 23. Yet the Australian Grand Prix rarely follows the script, and come Sunday evening it was Cal Crutchlow’s battle-hardened brilliance, Valentino Rossi’s inspired comeback, Maverick Viñales’s continued emergence, and Marquez’s fallibility that dominated the headlines, showing that around these parts, where the unexpected is as certain as the regularity with which those dark clouds roll in off the sea, nothing can be taken for granted. MotoGP AS CURTAINS WERE DRAWN back on Sunday morning, a collective sigh was breathed. Finally, the rain had ceased. Thoughts quickly turned to morning warm-up, extended to 30 minutes to allow riders a…

RACE ONE It was a fierce scene at the first race of the weekend at Jerez, Spain, when championship leader and Kawasaki’s top rider, Jonathan Rea, took to the track with hopes to win the race and clinch his second WSBK title. Despite starting on the front row of the grid, however, the Northern Irish rider was unable to seal the championship. As the lights went out, Rea and Sykes took off like rockets with Ducati’s Chaz Davies and Yamaha’s Alex Lowes trying to catch up. As the race entered the second lap, Davies had made some really good progress and had overtaken Rea for P2. Sykes was still leading the race but that did not last for long; on lap four Davies went past Sykes taking the lead. From…

TVS RACING IS AMONG the few manufacturers who have given motor sport in India the importance it deserves, nurturing local talent and giving them international exposure. The tie-up with Sherco, the French high-end performance motorcycle maker for Dakar, is another feather in TVS’ cap. In early 2015, TVS became the first Indian factory team to take part in the Dakar rally: the longest and toughest rally in the world. Although the Sherco TVS Racing team has been participating in the gruelling cross-country Dakar rally for a couple of years now, 2017 will be a special year as the team will be joined by local lad Aravind KP. He is the first Indian to win an overseas Motocross Championship in Sri Lanka, apart from winning 15 National Championships in Dirt Track,…

We’ve completed 11 YEARS at BIKE INDIA, and YOU, our READERS, are the FUEL that drives us FORWARD. Your SUPPORT is the most valuable component of BIKE INDIA MAGAZINE, and we can’t THANK YOU enough. So here’s a tribute to YOU — the amazing #BICOMMUNITY. May our bond ever grow STRONGER. Ride hard, ride safe Send in Your Pictures with #BICommunity to: EMAIL bikeindia@nextgenpublishing.net FACEBOOK /bikeindia TWITTER @bikeindia INSTAGRAM @bikeindia POST Bike India, Next Gen Automotive, 401B, Gandhi Empire, 5th Floor, 2 Serene Estate, Kondhwa Road, Pune - 411040.…

APRILIA Dorsoduro 900 and Shiver 900 The premium bike-makers from Noale, Italy, came to EICMA with two new updates to their popular motorcycles: the Shiver and Dorsoduro. Both the motorcycles have received engine updates which now take their 90° V-twins from 750 cc to 900 cc. The rise in capacity comes from using the same stroke as in the old 750-cc engine and the stroke from the bigger 1,200-cc bike. Along with the bump in capacity, both the bikes also get an updated electronics package, something that the RSV and Tuono series got at Intermot. There is also the updated 41-mm Kayaba suspension on both the bikes. Apart from these major changes, much of the Shiver and Dorsoduro remain the same. Cycle parts like the frame and the steering geometry…

I STEPPED OFF THE aircraft to a muggy New Delhi morning and was ferried straight to India Gate, where the maroon Indian Scout was waiting for me, tanked up and ready to go. We had a long journey ahead of us and were scheduled to be at India’s very brink, the banks of the river Isamoti, in five days. After quickly checking all fluid levels and air pressure in the tyres, we were off for a quick jaunt around the capital. We shot a few pictures along the historic Rajpath between India Gate and the majestic Rashtrapati Bhavan before heading into the hustle and bustle of Connaught Place where we stopped for a quick snack. The Indian Scout cruised through the streets of Delhi effortlessly and we even visited…

 BIKE INDIA READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS 2017 VOTE & WIN Nominate your choice and WIN. To vote, e-mail to biawards@nextgenpublishing.net with your choice mentioned in the subject line. Voting open till 31 DECEMBER 2016 Winners will be announced in the March 2017 issue 1 GODREJ GOLDILOCKS 2 WIRELESS BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS FREE 10 SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR 12 MONTHS TO BIKE INDIA Dear manufacturers, please ensure that employees and other associated personnel refrain from participating in this vote so as to maintain the integrity of this award.…

ANDREA DOVIZIOSO, THE LATEST OF THOSE TO triumph, deserves high praise for a ride away from Valentino Rossi during the closing laps of a race that goes some way to compensate for the heart-wrenching disappointment of watching team-mate Andrea Iannone end Ducati’s 100-race winless streak in Austria. Then, mid-way through the summer, many questioned whether the Bologna factory had retained the right man for 2017. But two-and-a-half months on, and three heartening results in as many weeks, and Ducati’s decision to keep hold of the calm, considered Italian appears wiser with each passing day. Dovizioso’s post-race comments, “my style, my character is not to do everything in the first race, it’s to do it step-by-step”, bodes well for the forthcoming year. MotoGP Post qualifying, each of the top three had…

WE ARE NOT USED TO SEEING A BRITISH motorcycle with styling that originated… well, sort of, in the USA. In fact, British motorcycles and, more importantly, Triumph Motorcycles have always been a mark of practicality with appropriate styling. Deviating from convention, Triumph have come up with this beautiful motorcycle, dubbed the Bobber. In fact, the Bobber marks a radical departure from the Bonneville platform on which it is based. It uses the T120’s high-torque 1,200-cc parallel-twin albeit in a very different state of tune. For the frame, however, the Hinckley firm have pulled out all the stops and created a brand-new chassis. This bold move was aimed mainly at giving the bike a proper bobber look. Practicality was also accorded high priority at the same time for the ergonomics have…

Buying or selling a pre-owned vehicle can be a big hassle, especially when it comes to the pricing. Whether a buyer or a seller, most of us fail to understand the fair market value of a used vehicle. In this case, it becomes very important to consult experts or trusted sources who could suggest the accurate price of any used vehicle. But what if consumers could get a fair price of a vehicle within 10 seconds, right at their fingertips? And this is where Orange Book Value (OBV) by Droom, India’s pioneering online automobile transactional marketplace, comes in. Orange Book Value is an initiative which was highly needed in the rapidly growing used-vehicle market in India. It has brought transparency between buyers and sellers, and along with that, OBV has…

WE’RE ALMOST back at Hinckley when I finally get a chance to see whether the Bonneville T100 lives up to its name. After miles of twisty roads and traffic, the A46 suddenly opens out, clear tarmac stretching ahead. So I tread down a gear and wind open the throttle to discover whether the Triumph is really good for 100 mph (161 km/h). The Bonneville pulls crisply and fairly hard from about 3,000 rpm in fourth, its speedometer needle sweeping past 130 km/h as I flick back into top gear, then crouch down with my chin nudging the blue-and-white tank, and take my feet off the foot-rests to stretch my legs backwards to help by cheating the wind in time-honoured Bonneville salt flats fashion. As the hedges flash past faster,…

“TECHNOLOGY IS a word that describes something that doesn’t work yet.” said Douglas Adams, the brilliant and witty author who wrote the ridiculously popular and frankly hilarious sci-fi series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is a little weird that this particular quote popped into my head in the context of this article, because the science men (and women) over at Continental definitely know what they are doing, and even the brand-new, not-in-production-yet technology they showed us (don’t worry, I’ll tell you what it is in due course) seems to be moving in the right direction. However, I think the quote makes sense here because the future tech is just that: innovations and technology that require a certain amount of time and groundwork to be laid out before they…

MotoGP EFFECTIVELY, THIS was Rossi’s last chance to stop the rot on Marquez. If he could beat the youngster here, he still had the slimmest chance of causing an upset at the last three races and taking the title. Marquez got the hole-shot into the first hairpin but Lorenzo somehow found a way through to lead. After the first couple of laps he looked like he was running away; but this was 2016, not 2015. He couldn’t find the necessary pace with the Michelins; so much so that Marquez and Rossi were soon catching, even though they were tripping over each other, passing, re-passing and passing again. Marquez soon got tired of this caper, so he put Rossi behind him and soon caught Lorenzo, riding past the world champion who…

MotoGP THIS WAS SHEER perfection from Lorenzo, even more so than his 2015 victory. This time no one got close to him. By the end of the first lap he was already four-tenths ahead of the pack and by two-thirds distance he had stretched that advantage to more than five seconds, an aeon in an ultra-close MotoGP season. But it wasn’t that easy. “I knew Marc would be strong so I worked hard to open a gap at the beginning, but then I struggled during the middle of the race,” he said. “I had to be very precise to save the left side of the rear tyre. During the last laps the rear was sliding so much through Turn 13 [the long, fast left-hand sweeper that precedes the slow final…

APRILIA to BAJAJ AUTO BMW MOTORRAD to DUCATI FAB REGAL RAPTOR to HONDA HONDA to KAWASAKI KAWASAKI to ROYAL ENFIELD ROYAL ENFIELD to TRIUMPH TVS to YAMAHA APRILIA to TVS TVS to LOHIA AUTOU NEW THIS MONTH Harley-Davidson Road Glide A new name in the Touring line for India, the Darth Vader look-alike of the range happens to be one of the most capable mile-munchers too Moto Guzzi V9 Retro-modern Italian classic now available in India at Rs 13.60 lakh (ex-showroom). Choose between two flavours: the Roamer and the Bobber…