Motor bike. Review on Active Bikes - Baroda

Four bikes, four testers, one reace track and one whole day of utter mayhem, Welcome to the inaugural bike track test of the year, a test of man, machine and man against machine. A test of limits of a motorcycle, size of the rider's family jewels and the endurance of both. Say hello to this fast and diverse field of which there are no losers but only one winner. The brief was simple, desperately simple. You see, everybody has an opinion, is entitled to one. The trouble being that among nutter bikers an opinion once formed ain't gonna change, come what may. A two-stroke addict will dig his own grave rather than trade in his stink wheel for a four-stroke.

Much in the same way that a CBZ-owner (crazed fanatics these guys are, mind) will never accept that a Pulsar can or will out-gun his set of wheels. And forget about fiery Fiero owners ever ascending to being second best. Bringing us to the brief. ADIL JAL DARUKHANAWALA: The boss's been riding for the past 35 years and writing about it for the last 25 years. Been there, ridden and written that. ASPI BHATHENA: Our read test chief has ridden, tuned and raced anything and everything he could lay his hands on. Been there, raced that. SIRISH CHANDRAN: The lads trying to make his humour and charm work on the race track, can't say it's working though.

Getting there, riding everywhere. PREETHAM MOSES: And Moses walked into the TVS race shop and proclaimed, "behold I shall lead thee to the promised land. (At least I hope I can!!!)"A bike with more cee-cees equates to more bee-aitch-pees equating to more kay-em-pee-aitchs at the top end. And so should settle the debate on the fastest bike in the country. If only things were so simple. Fact of the matter is that figures on paper don't burn rubber On the Road and so began the quest to finally settle the debate on the fastest bike in the country. Fastest not in a straight line but through corners, corners of varying radii at that, a series of esses, bumps, undulations and that obligatory straight of course. So we found ourselves zipping up our leathers, fastening helmet D-rings, zipping boots and adjusting gloves one gloriously fine day at the MMSC's Sriperumbudur race track, the one and only race track in the country. A track that Aspi loves to describe as "a circuit with 18 corners but no straights." That opinion is attributable to the fact that he raced 90bhp, 250kmph (though capable of only 200kmph on this track) Yamaha TZ250s in his heyday out here. For the bikes we have on hand, none of which kick out more than 15 horses, the two straights will be more than adequate, though still not sufficient for garnering the top speed of these bikes.

Choosing the bikes for the test was a simple task in itself. The fastest Indian bike that we have tested in a while had to be included, no? The motorbike that raised the level of four-stroke motorcycles from mere econo-misers to script a style and Performance statement was naturally drafted in. And to give it company came along the mobike that showed that solid engineering could sell bikes in the aforementioned category even if it looked a bit like a moped. Finally, since we all are nutters flashing back into the past without rhyme or reason, could we forget a bike from the stables of the original Performance daddy, Yamaha? Thus lining up under the famous MRF arch on the main straight of the MMSC track was the Bajaj Pulsar 180, Hero Honda CBZ, TVS Fiero and Yamaha RXZ. We didn't want to include any vintage bikes in this test so we settled on the current two-stroke flagship from Yamaha's stables, the RXZ, evolution of the RX-100 and little more that an RX-135 in drag, sporting a mandatory disc brake. I won't insult your intelligence by going into reasons why no Bullet was included in the test and suffice to say that Kinetic Engineering weren't confident enough to lend us a GF125 for this test.

At this juncture we have to thank TVS Racing boss Arvind Pangaonkar and his entire team for back-up, logistical help and of course that wonderful lunch. Being a professional outfit beers were out of the menu. Probably a good thing that else our test session would have ended prematurely. Also all of our friends at Chennai who turned up in such large numbers prompting one of the regular racers to comment that the actual races these days don't witness such large crowds!

As I mentioned earlier there can be no losers in this test. It is just not right that a 135cc machine has to slug it out with two 150cc machines, all three chasing a 180cc machine round the track. But there has to a winner and for once I shall dispel all suspense and declare right from the start that it was the Pulsar 180 that climbed to the top step of the podium. Obvious since it had an outright cc and bhp advantage but it was run very close, closer than that outright cc and bhp advantage should have permitted. Read on since there were quite a few surprises along the way to the podium. Surprise us it did, the results of seven hours of bike testing on the race track.