HH Achiever, does it have an AMBITION to ACHIEVE ?. Review on Hero Honda Achiever

Well....me's back after appearing for my CA exams.....hell....i had dark circles under my eyes having a radius of 3.75 centimetres after I was done with them......or should I say....after my exams were done with me.

Anyhow.....i had gone to our hangout place where me and my friend amit were sittin and cooling our butts off under the shade of a couple trees and my bike silencer was smokin....coz I had just taken it up to 115 km/hr and tried to do a stoppie......

Suddenly.....i spotted a couple of bikes in the distance....Blackity Black.....but even after a second glance I couldnt identify the bike....... so I strolled over to it munching on a packet of potato chips and tried to get a look at a closer range.

And Woohoo.....what do I see....I see a HH badge....thats enough.....i know instantly i'm looking at an Achiever......how?? By the process of Elimination (No reference to BAL ofcourse....heh heh). Going closer I see.....there's nothing overall spectacular and eye-ball-drooling about the bike as it was with the CBZ..

Lets do a looks-analaysis (which is what I do when I see a babe too), - You remember the TPFC logo on the CBZ??? Stands for Transient Power Fuel Control......well that logo has just been replaced by a 'Sportz' logo on the fibre body above the rear wheel. Which brings me up to another interesting point.....

The whole of India was ofcourse crazy about the Fat 100/90 - 18 rear tyre of the CBZ.....and hell.....i know the mileage really suffered......but with that sacrifice you gained the best ride quality any bike had ever had in the 150 cc segment coupled with extraordinary stability at high speeds...... and I simply need not mention what it did for the looks of the bike....people started buying the bike just for that Fatty Gripper......... John the Ripper......CBZ the fuel sipper.....

As for the Achiever (if you use Shift + F7 in Microsoft word....you'll get the Theasaurus, enter the word Ambition in ''look up''....and after you get the first prima facie synonyms, go deeper by 2 entries and you'll be confronted with the word Acheive). Which is true for its real-life-counterpart too. The Achiever is nothing but an improved and slightly tweaked over Ambition. Instead of the 133 cc. engine, you have a 150 cc engine producing anywhere between 13.5 bhp- 14 bhp depending upon the quality of fuel you use.

Anyhow.....i learnt that those two bikes standing right there like a mirage were actually Test ride vehciles provided by HH, and the guys had brought it out to our hangout pan-ka-galla knowing fully well that any potential buyers and scary stunters who could quickly provide them with feedback regarding the different aspects of the bike could only be found at this pan-ka-galla. Seems our reputation precedes us......

So I filled in my name, age, blah blah details and kick started the bike even though it had an ES since a couple of babes were watching me warily....... First thing I realized is that.....boy.....as soon as I released the clutch, the bike started prancing about like a bucking bronco. I took a deep breath and immediately realized that the RPM at normal position in Neutral with Zero throttle was at 1850 revs. Thats a lot considering the normal bikes are positioned at about 1250-1400 revs. Still....i thought....maybe the HH marketing guys were eager to have this bike marketed as a Performance bike so had raised the engine speed by some hundreds. But hey.......keep in mind.....when anybody evenutaully buys the bike, the RPM is obviously going to be sidled back to its normal 1250-1400 revolutions per minuite, or the mileage of 55-60 claimed by them will not be umm.....err....''Achievable''.

So I finally got this bucking horse under control in first gear and let the bike shoot forward. First thing I noticed was that the bike gearshift had both front and back levers thereby signifying silently thats its not a pure-throughbred-highway muncher but a highway-city bike combined. So be it I thought........still continuing to shift the CBZ way......The dials were essentially the same as the CBZ starting at 9'0 clock and ending at 3 0'clock.......was hoping for something different....but as they say 'If it Aint Broke why fix it....'

Well....they didnt follow that idealogy with the tyre....fitting in a normal rear tyre having the dimensions of the older Pulsar/Victor/Beamer/Fiero.....take your pick.......you've all seen them, slipped on them, cursed them and eventually replaced them for fatter tyres.

The bike by its implications has 5 gears......but the bike I had been given for testing was....i dont know.....umm....''overlubricated'' (family website guys......dont think too much), coz.....essentially the bike kept jumping over the 4th gear and immediately shifted to the 5th gear straight from the 3rd. Even after trying to shift with a loose foot with a shorter span, I coudlnt get it to shift cleanly into 4th........ So finally I gave up thinking maybe........'' we had gotten off on the wrong foot, or should I say the wrong pressure''.

I wasnt the only one who thought so....... even my friend amit, when he got off the bike and was of the same opinion. Poor chap....he said ''funny bike....150 cc...and only 4 gears.....are they trying to get inspiration from the Fiero or what''.

As for the plus points, the bike is overall a nice package and with a slimmer tyre thrown in, this time sacrificing ride control as well as stability at high speeds, it will deliver exceptional mileage......something that the CBZ always lacked. I dont care.....i love the CBZ.....

And as for the controversy....the CBZ has not been discontinued.....its being repackaged and relaunched in a sportier mode to take on the new 250 cc bike from Bajaj having dual silencers.......boy oh boy........that should be a babe-catcher

I'd conclude that the Achiever is just an illegitimate son of the Unicorn and the Ambition......lets hope.....it gets a taste of success..... Keep in mind that while the Unicorn is blazing the sales charts the Ambition was a failure.....so even going by the Average of the two, it should sell well.....but not exceptionally well....

Here is to the the Achiever.........hope it achievies what it has set out to Achieve and does not meet with a lack of Drive or Ambition.