I drove many bikes including caliber in my college days, but never felt anything exceptional in any bike and nor even in calibre in those days. Bang in 2006, when I was working in a company in Bangalore I got "hoodibaba" as a second hand model just for commute here n there.
I have been using my bike since then to till date in 2014. What can I say, this bike’s handling is exceptional. I only realized it when one day somewhere in 2008, I was riding on outer ring road at speeds close to 75+ on a weekend eve and after hennur cross towards marathalli, there used to be a open type crossing in those days. Very few vehicles and not much rush usually that time. There was a red Maruti Zen running in front of me and at a quiet high speed. All of a sudden at the crossing, it braked may be due to a sudden red light(however want to update those days red lights were experimental in that part and were not properly functional nor anybody used to stop there),
I almost went blank seeing total loss on my end and a 100% probability of hitting the car in back and then flying in the intersection. I went cold, however as a last resort I tried to lean at such higher speed as braking was not an option to avoid skidding. I had never leaned on any small bike earlier as had fallen from hero Hondas earlier in Jaipur(my hometown) due to their instability at lean curves. To my good luck and to my disbelief, my bike calibre 115 took me out of the back of the car with mm’s gaps to spare and honestly I never leaned that much earlier in my life nor till date. To my amazement and disbelief I got out unscathed and I owe to my bike. My tyres or any thing else were all old as bike was used model of 2002 and never done any changes.
The stability of this bike is awesome and I haven’t rode any other bike with this much good handling characteristics. TIll date I am using the bike and whenever I feel to buy a new bike, I try to compare newer bajaj models like Bajaj 100M(mileage ka naya satya with this) but they fail miserably in front of Hoodibaba in terms of power as a first point itself. Mileage is always 60+ on this bike and service - I usually get it serviced only when it stops. last service I did 2 yrs ago. Nothing else required. My bike has completed 1Lac on odometre, I don’t remember when though as odo wire is broke and it doesn’t count km’s since last 2yrs or more.
A high endurance bike for keepers.