I was to buy my first bike and I wanted a bike which had a feel of 150cc as well one which will not be harsh on my pocket i.e. on mileage and maintenance front on the long run. I had decided not to go for Bajaj pulsar for two reasons firstly because it is now so common on the road and secondly I was a bit concerned about the quality of the parts used in it and eventually the maintenance cost over the period of time.
This made me to go to Yamaha, Yamaha FZ 16 is a great bike with good engine refinement and with arguably (considering Apache) best in class performance. But performance takes a toll on the petrol consumption as it returns no more than 35 kmpl.
Turning to TVS Apache, the bike is a great performer but lacks smoothness and incurs maintenance cost at quite an early stage. As FZ, performance takes a toll on Apache’s mileage too.
Now, the bikes under my consideration were:
- Honda Unicorn
- HH CBZ Extreme and
- Hero Honda Hunk
Honda Unicorn has a silent and superb engine, quite actually the best in class, engine refinement that gives the rider a vibe free ride. It returns a healthy mileage of 55-60kmpl too. The vital factor that the bike lacks is initial pickup and acceleration. It performs well in low and mid range of speed spectrum, but losses out on high end too. As compared to other 150cc’s it takes longer time to reach 60-100kmph and maxes out at 101kmph. It has been made so to make it an efficient city commuter. Unicorn gives a comfortable ride with good handling (due to ‘unicorn’ i.e. its got a mono-suspension.) Hero Honda Hunk and CBZ-Extreme share same engine with some differences in gear shift assembly and some vibe control measures included in CBZ Extreme.
Hunk is one of the best looking bikes in 150cc with a comfortable seating arrangement and Hero Honda’s first bike to have SRS suspensions. Hunk and CBZ Extreme gives you smooth and silent engine, good initial pick up, competitive 60-100 kmph time and about 48-55 Kmpl of mileage. The reason I chose CBZ-X over Hunk were wider seats and vibe free ride in CBZ-X as in Hunk vibrations creep in at about 6500rpm. Hunk looks great but I personally didn’t like the bulky feel of its tank after getting seated on its saddle. It’s now 2000km since I have purchase my bike and is only one service old. I can say from my experience that it is good city bike as CBZ-X has comfortable though sporty seating posture and great handling capabilities. Also, one can take the bike to as low as 25 kmph in 5th gear without knocking, and 4th one can go as low as 20kmph. Thus, not much gear shifting is required even in traffic conditions. My bike gives mileage anywhere between 48-53kmpl in combined city and highway kind of driving.
Well, that’s all I have to say about my experiences about my first bike and thanks for reading my first write up.
– Ranjeet Takawale
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Just curious. Why didn’t you consider the GS150R? It seems to fit your requirements perfectly. Btw, CBZ is a great bike too. So congratulations.
The cbz is good but its really outdated. The Gs150r and apache 160 rtr also fit your requirements.
Regarding the fz, I have a fz 16 for the past 6 months and it returns a ‘healthy’ mileage of 45-53kmpl. Many people are under the assumption that the fz is a fuel guzzler.
The reason for mileages like 35 are rash driving. Given the comfort and performance its very hard to drive the fz at economy! But I have tried and now it gives me exceptional mileage without any modifications.
All the other bikes like apache, hunk and unicorn, if driven rashly would also return 35-40 only.
There is nothing useful in this review. You should have written more about your bike.But you have mindlessly compared different bikes.FZ gives a mileage of 40-45 even if driven rashly.Hunk is more comfortable than CBZ extreme due to GRS.Unicorn has same pick up as Cbz and hunk.Honda and Hero Honda claim 0-60 of 5 secs for the bikes. Both Hunk and extreme share same engine and both have vibes around 5000-6000rpm and not past 6500.How do you know that there is a difference in gear shift assembly and some vibe control measures in cbz extreme and not in hunk? Looks like you have added stuff just to make your comments look more genuine.Over all a baseless review.
Great decision to buy a CBZ-X. Congratulations.
But I don’t see much differences between CBZ and Hunk apart from the looks of the bike. Hunk is 3-4 kgs heavier than CBZ, but its a great bike.
You truly wanted to live of the edge, huh!
Hey man good choice but y didn’t you go for gs 150r i mean it fits your requirements easily even i was having this confusion of which 150cc bike to go but i went for gs all i can say is this bike has got major positive points like comfort ,mileage,handling,stability at high speeds,dual modes(power and economy),6 gears,superb refined engine,vibration free even at greater speeds ,top speed 132 which i got in power mode,fastest to reach 100 after r15 in 150cc segment and minor negative points like the bike gets noisy at high speeds not friendly for short radius turning and not too much service centres ,but i can say that no bike is perfect every bike has got some negative and positive points this bike scored many positive points so that is the reason y i went for gs and finally i am very much satisfied with this bike
In My opinion, The CBZ-X(Hunk) and RD350 are the Only two bikes whose Exhaust note will sound like Music to Ears. Where CBZ-X would be like a Sweet Melody and RD350 would be like a Thunder. Great Decision!
Hi Ranjeet,
This is just telling why u selected CBZ-X
In one word I would like to call this as “preconclusive (predetermined) review coz this review doesn’t looks like you really test driven the FZ, Pulsar, apache and unicorn
Apache and pulsar are better than this
Pulsar is the top selling 150 cc in india do you think those buyers are all idiots to buy a dumb machine bajaj spars are costly and the reliability of a bike depends up on how youi use it
I beleve u didn’t find any fault on the GS150R that’s the reason you didn’t writen about it
HEY RANJEET,
CBZ-X is a
great bike in 150 cc category even i have the same bike
@Vineeth
Even I own FZ-S and, even after normal driving (occasional traffic signal drag races and speeding), it gives me >42kmpl. This guy is just dreaming or bluffing…
@Rohan
I agree… Review is quite imaginary and baseless…
Cbz xtreme rocks has great mid range grunt n sweet sounding low engine note…
stupid review, imaginations of a typical indian customer….
Understood from Ranjeet’s story/review that acc to his requirements he needed a 150 cc, reliable bike with better economy w/o compromising on Quality
After reading his comparison between all Popular 150cc’s available in our market – is that after his surveys- eliminated atmost and later found himself confused between Hunk and CBZ
Definitely Hunk was down and cheers for CBZ-X for its performance -sans its GRS(GRS was stragically avoided in CBZ-X as i believe to enhance further sales of Hunk and make it a USP for Hunk). However, GRS is not a great point here as all of us are somewhat riding on roads – if not better roads
Thus, he justified by purchasing CBZ-X . Congratulations to Ranjeet..
With this, Lets put an end to this thread – as Mr.Ranjeet has already purchased a sensible bike, and lets not disturb his Choice– Cheers,
Vamsee
hiee harsh
pls help me frnds m thinking 2 buy HER HONDA HUNK is dis bike is gud in average..m really concios abt average/mileage of d bike..or honda unicorn is gud 4 me…n frnds hw much average i will get frm d both bikes…pls help me out….n dats me email id also adearora@gmail.com…..pls rply me soon…