How I Acquired My Steed – A Short Write-UP by Ranjeet Takawale

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