Good 150cc bike with comfort and power. Review on Honda Unicorn 150 cc

First I read about unicorn in vicky.in and it is recommended by a mechanic. later mouthshut helped with so many reviews. Finally I bought my first bike 150cc Honda Unicorn black on 23-sep-09. model CBF150S (what it means S for sporty ?!)

My criteria for selection is (1) comfort (2) reliability (3) easy to maintain (4) reasonable mileage for a 150cc motorbike

This is my 1st bike, and I am new to riding. may be this will be my only bike, after this I may buy a car. so I like to choose a good bike. The other choice will be Apache.

(1) comfort

I need to a lot of city ride and some times long ride between cities. so, the bike need to be 150cc, not 100cc. For long rides I need comfort, and city rides, I need easy handling. Unicorn has both.

after I booked the bike my friend told me to buy Honda unicorn because of the comfort he experience with Unicorn, I told him I did book unicorn. what a coincidence ?!

(2) Reliability

I did check with a mechanic in Castrol BikeZone, and he did recommend Honda Unicorn. He showed other bikes standing there, but there was no Unicorn. So, I took the mechanic's word for it.

(3) easy to maintain.

I had only 1st service recently, I couldn't comment on much about easy maintenance. I understand Honda original parts may cost little more compare to other motorbikes, that is ok with me. Honda Unicorn maintenance still I need to learn from the manual, perhaps I had to call a mechanic for a 1hr and ask him to train me for a fee. If some Honda Unicorn lovers release a video, I may download and use it.

(4) reasonable mileage for a 150cc bike.

I come across reviews saying not enough mileage and stupidly comparing the mileage with 100cc bikes. Obviously you can't have both Power and mileage together. More horses (horsepower) more to feed the horses. So far, it comes approximately 50-55, For me above 50 is ok. But not like Karizma drinking petrol, I know it is for different class of people, I am not the one going to visit petrol station frequently.

Some other negatives I come across from the review and my feedback on it.

1. gearslip.

When down the gear it does not go down as expected. some time I did got into neutral when down the gear. I reported during my 1st service, hope it is ok now. I do then notice, gear down works when the bike is moving, not after breaking to standstill. May be that makes the difference. I now down the gear mostly when the slow down to standstill.

1. Vibrations

I do experience vibrations. Later I realized it could be because I run into high rpms for a gear. If I increase the gear level then it seems to be ok and vibrations comes down to minimum.

1. bike slides during breaks.

NO. I have very good control over breaks. I never get slipped. Both breaks works well. I use Front-Break for 1st & 2nd gears only. If gear level is 3 or more, I use Back-Break then Front-Break.

I had two incidents to appreciate the handling and break-control.

In the first incident, one motor bike crossed in front of my bike without respecting the signal. I changed to 3rd gear and throttled and I made a sudden break 5 inches away from his bike, using my front break. He hold the breath, and thought I crashed him. Luckily, he could move away.

In the 2nd incident, I was riding behind a car, in the middle of the road and not able to over take it because of oncoming heavy lorries on the opposite side. An auto driver who overtook the vehicle behind me came to my left side, and cut me in front. I can't move left, so I had to quickly overtake the auto, and moved to the left side of him and apply a sudden break. Again I was in 3rd gear, applied Back-Break and overtook the autorikshaw who came before me, and controlled the speed with backbreak and move to the left side in front of the auto and sudden break with front-break to stop behind the car which stopped and slowly moved in front of me.

I am confident that the bike breaking abilities and handling abilities are good and give satisfaction to the city rider. I still not in to racing in cities, But I do ride with optimum speed necessary for a city traffic.

Bike modifications:

Not like sporty modification. I used two clips to hold a plasitc sheet in the back-wheel mudguard just in front of the shock-absorber. Otherwise, all the mud goes on shock-absorber. this is my own modification.

I dropped the motorbike once, and the gear lever which comes with that took a bent. even though I can remove the bent to some extent, I asked the service centre to replace the single gear lever (toe lever) to double gear lever (toe & heel lever). still I am using toe only for gear lever, I may learn to change in future to use toe & heel.

Bike looks: one thing I see strange is, the whole bike looks curvy with it is big petrol tank, but the front light is with sharp angle designs. Why mix curvy and angle designs ? The petrol tank looks big but it is ok for me. I do see some 100cc bikes with small petrol tank rides with children in the front, which is not my way of riding. so, with current big petrol tank, I can say due to petrol tank I don't keep children in the front of the bike while riding.

this bike feels heavier than moving other 100cc low weight bikes. Most of the time I sit on the bike and move, which is very smooth. So, in a crowded parking you cannot pull the bike like you do with scooty and 100cc bikes. I think this is understood who ever choose this bike. So, if you are Scooty or other 100cc bike riders don't complain about it weights. This bike has enough weight for its power.

Wish you (nice) wing riding ! see you on the road.

-stratus