This snippet is shared by our avid reader Varun Puri where is shares his love story of bikes and his journey from the humble Splendor to the mighty Kawasaki Z800. You can also share your stories to get featured at BikeAdvice. (Send a mail to saad[@]bikeadvice.in).
‘Cool’ Bike
An avid lover of Bikes since my childhood, I always dreamt of owning a cool bike. As I grew older, the definition of a cool bike kept on changing from time to time.
Let me talk about a time when I was in school (10th grade), a cool bike for me at that point of time was Hero Honda CBZ which took the entire nation by storm courtesy it’s stunning looks. I had never seen a bike as gorgeous looking earlier. But coming from a middle class family I consider myself very lucky that my father got me a (not CBZ) Splendor 🙂 which was also a good looking bike in the year 2000.
So that’s when my bike journey started, but it was not long enough (about 7 months) when I was brought to the ground the day when I found out that my bike had got stolen. Post that for quite some time (about 2 years) my ride was a BSA Hawk (Bicycle) which also I enjoyed a lot during my school time.
Passion
Finally my Motorcycle life was again back on track when I joined college and got a Silver Hero Honda Passion. I relished it for a good period of 5 years (4 years of college + 1 year while at work). One of my 2 besties had a Black HH Passion and the other one bought a LML Freedom (god knows why).
But we spent a golden era of our college days on our respective bikes. We used to go to Chandigarh which was like 140 kms from my College and also went for long rides in the Pinds (villages) of Punjab. Considering now that it was just a 96cc mill with just ~7 bhp of output, still it was a time I enjoyed a lot with my machine but the “Cool bike” definition had already changed with the launch of HH Karizma.
Karizma R
Here comes 2008, I graduated and moved to Bangalore and the thought of moving on started eating my head. And after about 10 months I had a Black Karizma R in my hands as my first ride (bought on my own) and third overall.
I must admit that Karizma R was a serious touring bike as I did a lot of hassle free touring on that bike considering the fact that Bangalore has a lot of Weekend getaways. After about 2 years I sold my Karizma as I had to relocate outside India due to work.
Hyosung GT650R
But here I was back again in 2013 with the “Cool Bike” definition giving me 2 examples : Kawasaki Ninja 650R and Hyosung GT 650R. Being a Sports bike lover I didn’t like the riding posture of the Ninja and so got myself a Black Hyosung GT 650R. An absolute beast the bike was a total phenomenon to me, with about 75bhp of power at hand I was easily cruising at 150kmph without any vibrations and engine noise.
I could go in excess of 190kmph but I don’t like to ride that fast. I did several trips of NICE Road (about 50 kms one way stretch, due to work pressure couldn’t manage longer trips). And finally sold it off after 6 months.
The dream started now and the “Cool Bike” definition had rapidly changed again, with the Hyosung proving to be a good bike but not a dream bike. I started to hear the inline 4 cylinder music in my dreams for a continuous period of about 2 months and that’s when I decided to go to 2 showrooms:
- Triumph
- Kawasaki
Triumph had come into the country with their full fleet of superbikes and the one I was interested in was Triumph Daytona 675R but it didn’t fit my budget and moreover Hyosung’s riding posture taking a toll on my body after riding it in the city had me switch my mind to the Naked Super sports category where the option was Triumph Street Triple.
Kawasaki Z800
It’s a nice bike but the inline 3 cylinder sound can’t match up to the 4 cylinder MUSIC, which took me to the Kawasaki showroom where I instantly fell in love with the Kawasaki Z800. Inline 4 cylinder, 113 PS of power output, absolutely smashing 83NM of torque and most of all the Killer TRANSFORMERS look.
It took me no time to give the advance booking amount and within 1 week the bike was here in the showroom from Japan. And finally I am a proud owner of a Superbike which is practical for a daily commute and powerful enough with it’s sound to turn heads wherever you go.
It’s just over a month now since I got it delivered so haven’t really got a chance to take it for a nice long ride. But have been riding in the city and my favorite NICE Road corridor, and the experience is just beyond amazing. Will definitely write a complete ownership experience later but for now I have the above pics to share… 🙂
