Who should buy Unicorn?. Review on Honda Unicorn 150 cc

I own a 2006 Unicorn. I thought my experience will be useful for new bike buyers, so here.....

My use is primarily for office commuting in the rush hours on the worst Bangalore roads.

I bought this after a lot of research and with a very conservative thinking. It means that I did not choose this based on the cosmetics (alloy wheel, black ....).

Previously I owned a 2001 Splendor model, which I hated for its poor pickup (only that).

So my comparisons are to splendor and someone might ridicule this...

I stay on the boundary of the city (Bangalore) on hosur road and have to race on hosur road with trucks even while raining. I had chosen mainly Unicorn for the above mentioned reasons (to race at night while raining), so stability and reliability are the key. I will try to cover mostly negatives as lot positives were told already.

My first observation was with suspesion, I think splendor has some kind of dampener (back whell suspension), so riding on untarred road is not so painful due to spring actions. I never had any back pain with splendor but I started having it with unicorn especially after litle more drivind beyond the regular or heavy traffic. I suspect not having dampener with back monoshock could be culprit.

SO if you are driving on untarred (village kind of) road, unicorn may trouble you. Modern bike like pulsar/Apache have good suspension and Hero honda is the king with smooth suspension suitable for typical Indian conditions.

I have no doubt on engine it is really smooth but gearshift quality is not comparable to splendor.

Headlights should have been better for night driving especially while raining.

While driving on raining area around monoshock gets dirty and I am afraid, not washing for weeks might lead to corrosion as it is not protected. Also the part which joints monoshock with the frame helps to accumulate more mud/dirt. So if you need to drive on wet be cautious of this.

Another important concern to be shared is the stability. I had this trouble recently. Especially while slowing down from 50-60kmph speed, I felt that back wheel was washing out (moving away from the line of riding). I suspect it may be due to improper back wheel and it might get severe with monoshock. Unlike other bikes (Pulsar/CBZ/Apache have twin suspension on back wheel ), monoshock arrangemnt may lead to unstability with improper wheel alignment.

Also the handle consoles are not so rigid so may break soon (it is a minor point).

I have noticed the chain cover arrangement is little restrictive so you might hear chain banging on the covers more frequently while driving uneven.

Also it gets rusted around exhaust pipe from engine joint to down. So I had to repaint it a bit.

Having engine kill switch is very required while driving along multiple traffic signals, but with unicorn I have switch off ignition.

Gound clearence could have been better, so if you drive with pillion of 85 kgs, it might touch all bumps.

I doubt the painting quality with respect to hero honda so you might see some localized small parts of rust on the frame.

Overall I beleive Unicron may be suitable for people who drive on proper roads without any pillion.

I hope the above point will be useful for someone.