How is what Bajaj claims to be the ‘fastest pulsar ever’ to ride? The answer – it’s quite pleasant. Ok, now you’re trying to figure out how the ‘fastest pulsar ever’ can be ‘pleasant’, but yes, that’s just what it is. The new Pulsar is very refined for one. In fact, NVH levels are low enough for us to proclaim that the RS200 is by far the most refined Pulsar we’ve ever ridden. But that’s not to say that the RS200 falls short of exuding the quality that the brand’Pulsar’ has been associated with – performance.
In addition to being based on the same platform as the 200NS, the RS200 gets a heart transplant from the now older Pulsar 200NS – so what you have here is the same high revving 199.5cc, liquid-cooled, triple spark engine that’s mated to the 6-speed gearbox as on the older Pulsar. But the RS200 gets fuel injection system that has replaced the old carb, and power and torque here are now upped to 24bhp and 18.6Nm respectively, to compensate for the added weight of the fairing, ABS unit and projector lamps(a total of 12kg) over the older model.
Power delivery is linear, but you really need to wring the throttle and make sure the needle on the analogue tacho passes the 9500rpm redline through all six cogs if you want to build up serious speed, fast. In doing so, we touched an indicated speed of 146kph out on the track, but this figure isn’t error-free. When shortshifting through the gears we found the performance to be a little too relaxed, and not as sprightly as we’d expected.