Oct 02, 2004 08:57 PM
58976 Views
(Updated Oct 06, 2004 08:24 PM)
After a dull day at office (ofcourse, every day is a dull day) I was driving back home on my 4 year old Fiero. Earlier in the day I spotted an advertisement in 'The Hindu' saying the Unicorn was available for a test drive. And this piece of information just glowed in my mind as I was passing Lodha Motors in Chennai. I came back to my senses some 20 seconds later when I found myself in front of the Honda Dealer after a mad rush in that traffic hullaballoo.
Appearance
Three Unicorns - in Red, Blue, and Black - greeted me in and the first sight of the bike DID NOT raise my eyebrows. They looked pretty normal unlike the Pulsar twins which, on first sight, made me fall in love. The headlight is too angular and so are the tail lamps. But, the tail lamps gel well with the side panels. The tank looked monstrous and I thought it should hold as many litres as a Pulsar. But, I was shocked to know that it can hold only 13 litres. Nice touch. The fuel tank is an important styling agent in any motorcycle and any mistake here would spoil the overall look of the bike. The fuel tank has good knee recesses and looks quite long. The fuel cap is a misfit, however. When you open the fuel cap for filling petrol, it comes out totally along with your key.
The bike looks rakish from all the angles except from the front. The subdued, black-tinted exhaust pipe looks good too. The paint job and fit-and-finish levels of the components are exemplary.
Ergos
I'm just 1.69m tall and I can plant both my feet on the ground sitting on the bike. Its neither too tall nor too short. The seating posture is upright and I'm sure even after a long ride you wouldn't feel fatigued. The chassis is quite stiff but the potholes do not cause worry during slow cruising. The suspension set-up is just right. Quite unlike Pulsar, the clutch release is gradual and you can start revving as you start to release clutch. In a Pulsar/CBZ, the clutch release is not gradual. Just try this: Release the clutch half-way and slowly wring the throttle. The engine will rev but the bike wouldn't move. But, a Unicorn or a Fiero would start moving the moment you start releasing the clutch.
Performance
Earth-shattering would be a humble word to describe the 13.3 horses coming alive at 8000 rpm behind a soft name - Unicorn. The engine revs up quickly and very quickly to reach somewhere around 6000 rpm. After proper run-in, it should reach 60 kmph in less than 5 seconds. But, the way in which it delivers the power is awesome. The engine is quite quiet. It doesn't scream around saying 'It HAS ARRIVED'. The exhaust beat is so good but you barely hear anything. 2 up, I think I reached 60kmph in around 5 seconds. The guy sitting behind me (sent by the dealer) should have been scared to hell in those unfortunate minutes of his life!
The bike has 5 gears and the 5th gear is not very tall. Even after moving to 5th gear, I was able to etch out some more power while I was blasting away at around 100kmph. This GST road has both good stretches as well as bad ones. You sometimes get a solid 3-lane highway where you can do all stunts and suddenly sometimes lovely potholes - a very good place to test ride bikes!!
Around 3-5 kms is not enough to test the bike to the fullest of its limits and I agree with the purists who bemoan my performance tests are not satisfactory. Nevertheless, the Unicorn did not fail to impress me on any count. The performance is REALLY earth-shattering. Ride it to believe me.
Tid-bits
Mileage
Who cares about the fuel-efficiency when astride on a performance machine. But, I'm sure this is going to return top-class mileage considering the engineering expertise of Honda and their work on the new Honda City. But, after-all, this gulps down 150ceecees of oil and air for every combustion cycle - one-and-a-half times of the 100cc economisers - and I don't expect more than 55 kilometers to a litre.
Others
The instrumentation console is comprehensive and you get all the bells and whistles (read it as fuel-gauge and tachometer) for your money. But, one are of concern is that you don't get two lights on the console for the indicators. You get just one and sometimes you might have actually put left indicators and negotiating a right turn.
You don't get an engine kill switch also. I find this very useful on my Fiero. Or it is just that I got used to this engine kill switch and when I don't find any switches on my right handle bar, I feel disappointed :-)
You only get a kick-start and an electric start is not even an option. But, trust me, starting the engine is a piece-a-cake just like a Fiero.
The gears are international-standard 1 down and 4 up. I somehow like this. While the Pulsar 180 DTSi follows this gear-shift pattern, the Pulsar 150 DTSi comes with an all-down shift pattern and I tell you, it's a real pain in heavy traffic. To get more mileage, you'll always try to be on the top gear but coming down to neutral at traffic signals would be a real pain. The torque is spread throughout the rev range on this bike and I was able to travel at around 20-25 kmph on the 5th gear. And, to accelerate, you don't have to shift down gears and wring the throttle. The bike would just accelerate on in 5th gear if you just open the throttle.
Adding up, the bike is an excellent value for money priced at just Rs. 54,900 on road, Madras. With ES and disk brake, a Pulsar 150 costs 60,000 bucks. But, you don't get an ES with Unicorn. So, there Honda saved around 2000-3000 bucks. And, by providing just one shocks at the rear, they were cleverly able to save some more! The shocks are connected to a box section swingarm which is the defacto standard nowadays in all bikes.
Summing it up...
Unicorn is a clever play by Honda and we now have something to shake the segment leader (no prizes for guessing it as Pulsar) and very very very violently at that. But, the name Unicorn doesn't sound 'performance-ish'; it's more gentle. The Unicorn definitely looses out something atleast when it comes to name when comparing the likes of Fiero, CBZ or a Pulsar, doesn't it?
