V for Victory I mean VICTOR. Review on TVS Victor

Hi everybody,

After reading almost all the reviews on this bike I think now its my turn to let you know the other side of the story.

Everybody says more smiles per hour, good mileage, etc etc... and its a good bike for city riding, great mileage, pretty good looking if not the Best. It has borken almost all the previous sales record of models and is in much demand and it only seems to be increasing.

Anyone thought of taking this bike and thrashing it on a race track? I have been riding a KB100 which has 11bhp at its rear wheel and can be ridden real hard and after sometime it asks me ''is that all'' and with this bike with me I never thought I will race a economy mode 8Bhp Victor in a race.

I have been reciding in Chennai for close to a year now and the Sriperumbadur race trank is just about 25kms from this city. A couple of months back I had a chance to praticipate in a race and I had two options: Take my bike(KB100) n race on the track OR get into a category sponsored by TVS... I love my bike so much that I thought of not taking a chance with it on the track(especially as this was going to be my first outing in a two wheeler race) and I knew fairly well that the RX100s and the Shoguns would whizz past me on the straight(its a different story that with the KBs handling I can almost catch up with them on the next bend) so I opted for the second option where I just pay 800 and get the TVS bike with two half n hour practise sessions on Saturday and then two 5 lap races on Sunday.

TVS has two categories - The Victor and the Fiero category - this is the TVS Race a Bike Scheme. By the time I went for the registration, all the Fieros were booked and I managed to get the last of the Victors. In all the enthusiasm of participating in the race, I forgot that I would have to ride a 4-stroke. Apart from a couple of outings on a splendour I am not used to the 4 strokes.

Come saturday I was given my bike which was a shiny red Vitor in factory condition(I am sure the bikes were well past there drive-in periods). The lap is the shorter version of 2.1kms and I had to spend the first few laps to adjust myself to the slower starting 4 stroke machine and I had to tell myself - boy this machine is not made for speed but also for a lot more things... so I stopped complaining and started learning about this bike and some 5 laps later I found myself going faster and believe me I was really surprised by the way it handled. Do you know that even the rubber is from TVS? Yes... with growing number of laps the tyres were heated nicely and gave me more and more confidence in the turns and braking. I love those soft tyres so much so that at the end of the first half hour session I had to tell the TVS mechanics to raise the foot rests (just wanted to tell you that race bikes do not have any centre or side stands) as I was scrapping the footpegs on most of the turns and the slowest of the turn is at a speed of 40kmph and a cpl of turs U can feel the footrest scrapping while the speedometer was reading something like 60kmph(now do I have to tell U that the race bikes don't have any speedometers or lights? the bike only had the engine, frame, seat, and the bare minimum wires - so guys I wont be able to comment on the electricals for my bike never had a headlamp or a tail lamp or any of those indicators). An hour after the first session came the second session and I got my same bike again(with the foot pegs raised) and this time I knew fairly well the limits of this machine and I only found my lap times improving.

U might ask me how can I say the speed when the bike didnt had any meter... well its just a guess(from my riding exp) and almost always my guesses are not far from right. On the race day I didn't finish in the top three but one thing I learnt - A Victor might be a 4 stroke that might not have the brute power of a 2 stroke but definetly its a bike with very very good charecteristics. Looks and stuff - all that depends on the person but technically this is a lovely bike and can be ridden fast(ofcourse at the cost of the fuel bill and maintainence) and its engine, its suspension, its brakes, its handling everything speaks of its originality and makes me feel proud as a INDIAN because of its indigeniousity(I know I spelt it wrong :P ).

To end I would say... go buy a Victor and ride it the way it has been designed to and you will be SMILING at the same time saving a lot of fuel for the coming generations and will give them a cleaner air to breath(though the guy at the gas station might not like U as much) - thanks to its efficiency.

Who says 4-strokes can't be called bikes? These are a different breed and though the Victor isn't a hybrid(cause its totally indigenious - did I get it right this time? ) its the winner in this breed. God knows hows TVS was so precise in getting the right name more this model......

keep smiling....