Why trusting auto mags is a good idea…

I know many of you might not agree with me when I say, making a buying decision based on an auto mag review is a good idea.
But this is where I am coming from – We generally form opinions based on what we see, hear and feel. So, if we find the bike good looking, like the Pulsar or the Hunk, we are already bitten by it. We then hear and read about the bikes and their performance, on blogs, from friends, and from a lot other channels, besides auto mags, of course. We also, more often then not, take a test ride of our short listed models.
It’s all very good, till you realise, all that you have read about are impressions gathered on a new bike. No one really speaks about how the bike is aging up; whether the clutch is slipping; are rust patches forming all over; or the switchgear or instrumentation has gone haywire, or how many times a month does one need to adjust the brakes (if they do it at all).
But the shallow reviews aren’t exactly the writer’s fault. To begin with, the test rides offered by all company dealers is just too short to understand anything.
Then there’s the question of lack of experience. And no, I don’t mean the lack of riding experience, but the lack of experience riding a variety of motorcycles. If, all you have ridden is a Splendor all your life, or maybe a friend’s Pulsar off and on; you’d be completely blown by the P220, or even the Karizma or the P180 for that matter.
But if you have experienced a plethora of bikes, of various segments, back-to-back, you begin to understand who is short changing you, and who is delivering as promised.
The auto mags have this advantage, the advantage of sampling any model, at any time, and for any duration. Needless to say, they are in a better position to deliver the correct verdicts on a motorcycle’s handling, ride quality, ergonomics (both for city use and for the highway), and also things like performance and driveability, the latter, obviously is backed by test data.
Mags, thanks to running a long term fleet, can also tell you and me, how the bike is aging up, and how well or poorly is it doing compared to the competition.
The biggest issue, I believe, you guys have with mags, is the disparity in their test figures, and at times in their judgment.
Here’s a pointer which helps me make sense of it all, and I hope it might help you too.
Every magazine has a different outlook, so while one might lay more emphasis on performance, the other might choose to base its verdict on the user friendliness of a bike. There’s a reason behind that too – the varying needs and preferences of the Indian buyer. My last post on ‘why we buy, what we buy’ tells you a bit about it.
In fact, you can try it yourself. If you own a 150cc motorcycle, let’s say the Pulsar (cause it’s the best selling model in its segment), try asking other P150 owners en route to work, college, or home at a traffic signal, or at the chai tapir, why they bought the motorcycle, dig a bit deeper and you’d realize, he reasons are quite different from yours! You can try the same with your friends even.
As for the difference in performance figures, a few tenths here and there shouldn’t really matter, cause mags use different test routes, different riders, and moreover different bikes for their tests, and just like no two people are the same, neither are two Pulsars, Apaches, or CBZs.
I have bought bikes and accessories based on magazine reviews, and truth be told, besides making a wrong choice of tyres, it has all gone very well.

Why we buy, what we buy?

It might not seem like much, but the above question is an eternal one. After all, cracking this riddle would mean a gleaming top line for our bike making brigade. And yes, the first for-ever hungry company that manages to crack it, will, of course, wear the coveted number one crown.
But if you have been following the Indian market, and I don’t mean in the hard core sort of a way: keeping a tab on numbers, margins et al, but simply a track of new launches, you’d realize it’s almost impossible to solve the riddle. I mean, just look at the number of new launches, variants, paint jobs, feature enhancement surgeries that happen on a model, and that too within weeks of its launch.
This can only mean two things: one, our bike makers are still clueless about what we as customers demand, and second, as buyers, we too are clueless about our needs!
The latter is well highlighted by the questions I have had to field over the years from a widespread audience on what bike they should buy. The needs put forward are equally wide-ranging: “I want a fuel efficient bike, and it ought to be cheap,” says a 100cc customer, almost always. There’s no talk about styling or features. Why then, are bike makers lavishing their entry level models with electric start, alloy wheels, and bright and contemporary styling?
Cause it helps sell! Look at our top three bike companies, and look at their model line up - Hero Honda has constantly updated the CD, there was the Dawn, and now there’s the Deluxe, fully loaded. Bajaj too played its part with the stylish Platina, and TVS, well… TVS introduced not one or two, but four variants of the Star, before bringing in the fifth – the 110cc avatar. The point of it all being; it’s the top-of-the-line variant, no matter which model, that has the lion’s share.
Yes, that’s a typical Indian bike buyer for you: he knows he wants fuel efficiency, and low purchase price, but give him an extra douse of features, which he thought unnecessary, and he goes and picks the best endowed one!
But why just the entry level customer, buyers in the 150cc plus segment aren’t any different.
We say we want performance. Fuel efficiency can’t be in the 30s of course, but kilometer-to-a-litre isn’t our priority. We want our motorcycles to look good, handle well, and offer a newness so far missing in the segment.
The P150 comes out, and we lap it up. Achiever, Unicorn, Graptors, and the likes don’t catch our fancy. We find them lacking in a number of areas – styling and performance to list a couple.
Apache sees light of day – its stylish, a tad faster, and handles like a dream, but we still don’t exactly take to it like a dog (or was it ants?) to sweets. P150 upgrade is launched, this time with a LED tail and LCD read, but a disappointing gain in performance, but we still take to it, and say, “Look at all that fancy stuff! That’s value for money”
Now, here’s my point.
We as buyers don’t exactly appreciate what we demand. And despise taking risks. We are like a herd; we move with the majority; the more bikes on the road means, the make is proven, it would be a safe bet then, forgetting what we demanded and stood for in the first place.
I’d hate to be a manufacturer in India.
But I am not too happy to be a buyer either, thanks to the majority of the bike buying public’s attitude – we get swayed by fancy stuff so easily rather than rewarding true performance and motorcycling purity which we speak about at rides, meets, blogs, and even on a web forum.
No wonder manufacturers refuse to take risks, and we end up saddled with duds, which we have been living with what seems like eternity, and will probably continue to do so... well, at least till the Expo, we will.

World's fastest Indian

I am not one who loves to keep abreast with the latest movies, especially in the first day, first show sort of a way. But I love movies, and love consuming them at my own leisure, with a chilled glass of barely water, and some of my favourite, artery clogging oil soaked crispies.
So please bare with me on this one, cause I understand talking about Anthony Hopkin’s The World’s Fastest Indian, two years after its international release, is ummm… late.
I had just had to watch this one, everyone I knew raved about the film, particularly my motorcycle buddies. That it wasn’t so much about riding, but transsexuals, Kiwi accents, and large hearted Americans, is something they forget to mention. Knowing them well, it’s more a case of not noticing, rather then mentioning.
Overall, I’d rate the movie as watch-able, but nothing exceptional at all. It’s also more for viewers who love to see a man emerge triumph against all possible odds than for a biking enthusiast.
But the beauty of the film is; how the odds just seem to sort themselves out mainly on account of Mr …. age! It’s unbelievable. No, no, not in the positive, exclamationsort of a way, but literally.
I mean, come on, first the shipment holding the bike gets damaged, but there’s barely a scratch on the Indian. Then Mr …. loses a wheel on his trolley carrying the Indian, resulting in the latter rolling around a bit, but behold! the bike still manages to survive without worrisome damage.
Mr kiwi finds himself a log, substitutes it for a wheel and carries on, is something I can digest, as he won’t be trying to break the 200mph record with this four wheel junk.
But the odds disappearing in thin air, or salt flats as it were, for Mr Kiwi continues right till the end of the almost two hour long flick.
Now, he hasn’t registered for the run, which the director conveys is an absolute, absolute must. Thanks a lot, to a lot of large hearted Americans then, for they convince the initially stuck up organizers to give the determined old man from down under the chance of a life time, even though his Indian doesn’t even meet the basic safety requirements for such a run.
There’s more of it, but I am beginning to get bored, and I am sure you are too. Now, I don’t want to sound cynical towards the movie, cause at the end of the day, this one’s based on a true story. And I am sure all of these odds pretty much existed, and were overcome too.
But so effortlessly? I seriously have my doubts. It’s the director’s cut then, that’s not really toothsome.

30minutes or free!

I love pizzas; particularly the cheese burst kind from dominos. But I am not to sure about the pizza house’s 30 min or free sales pitch. What ever little I know about gourmet, it would take at least 10 minutes to get the Italian dish ready, add to it the traffic during Diwali, or any other day for that matter, and it seems pretty tight delivering the pizza in 30 minutes after having placed an order.
But these guys, astride CT 100s manage to do that! Okay, my order was exactly two minutes late, but it’s still quite an achievement. Especially, if you factor in the fact that the CT 100 isn’t exactly a capable bike; her acceleration is probably a tad better than a tortoise, and her drum brakes, well, you’d be lucky if she stopped at all! But these delivery guys manage it, and manage it with a smile on their faces, not the fear of death in their eyes as you’d expect after a guy has had probably a million death situations along the way!
And how they do it, is almost certainly known too you all; slicing though traffic, dangerously at that; not giving too hoots about others’ safety; and riding like their life depended on it; which my guess is, it does, mostly if the bill goes straight out of their pockets, or three late orders later, they are fired!
Maybe the pizza chain should refrain from such antics. After all, a few minutes here or there isn’t exactly going to leave the customer starving to death. But mainly, it’s the quality and taste of the stuff one sells that should be the differentiating factor, rather than lightning quick delivery; I mean who’d prefer consuming cow dung served to you in a minute instead of raas malai, which takes a ten extra minutes to arrive at your table! Above all, I don’t think you’d exactly enjoy your pizza, if the delivery boy might have knocked off one of your family members on the way, in order to make that 30 minutes or free, delivery efficiency.
As for the boys themselves, I wonder if Dominos has a high risk insurance cover for them, or any insurance whatsoever; they do risk their lives every other second you know…