After a few quick calls to my riding buddies, I decided a riding route and destination. Even though I had completely ignored it for three weeks, the Honda CB Hornet 160R came to life on Saturday at 6am with just a mere touch of the starter button. Sweet! We were supposed to leave in a group of five, but only three turned up! We decided to ride from Mumbai to Dapoli, a quaint little beach town which is located around 230 km away. To get there, we took the scenic NH 17 which has a smoothly paved twisty section. Frankly, I was a bit sceptical about going on this ride because my two companions were going to be astride relatively quicker motorcycles. Rohit joined us on his long term TVS Apache RTR 200 4V which has recently joined the OVERDRIVE garage while the other friend was coming along on the RC 390. Needless to say, I didn’t get to see much of the RC 390 as it simply flew fast on the straights as well as the twisty sections. I was more worried about keeping up with the RTR 200, but I must mention the CB Hornet 160R surprised me. The motorcycle changes direction quickly which made it easy to filter through the traffic-infested section. Also, the engine makes a good amount of torque low down in the rev range. So, from getting past slow-moving traffic to endless police checkpoints, third gear does it all. Since its motor allows me to stay in a higher gear, the CB Hornet 160R has been delivering an impressive overall fuel economy of 39 kmpl despite my aggressive riding. As expected, on the traffic-free straight sections, the CB Hornet was falling back owing to its relatively lower 109 kmph top speed. However, while cruising between 70-90 kmph, it easily kept up with the pack. The gearbox is butter smooth, and changing gears requires just a flick of the toe.
