I was searching endlessly for a bike which can give me a decent mileage, has enough power and also looks ok. Upon doing some R&D I realized that 125 CC bikes are designed to perform and behave like a mule (a cross between a 100CC and 150CC) and might suffice my need. Unfortunately most of the current bikes in the market compromise on one of the 3 characteristics which was quite annoying.
As the saying goes 1 in a hand is better than 2 in a bush, I decided to go ahead and pick the best bike in the lot. I short listed 3 bikes
- Hero Honda - Super Splendor 2. Hero Honda - Glamour 3. Bajaj – Discover
Super Splendor: Best in the class as far as mileage is concerned, pickup is average and forget about the looks. I have been driving a Hero Honda CD 100 SS for the last 10 years and I wanted to buy a bike that looks a bit different. Somehow splendor looks very outdated and doesn’t give you the feeling of driving a new bike. So that was a no go.
Glamour: Mileage is decent, pickup again is average and looks are ok.
Discover: Mileage is decent, pickup again is average and looks very good especially with the alloy wheels.
So I was stuck between glamour and discover. The only reason I was considering glamour was the Hero Honda tag. Strangely I haven’t found enough bikes on the road and was really wondering if they are really good. By looking at the various bikes in the parking lot we can get a general feel on what is hot and what is not. I find lot of passion’s, pulsar’s and unicorn’s and barely a glamour or discover.
Then I heard the launch of shine and waited patiently for over 2 months (I waited for almost 6 months and another 2 months wouldn’t hurt) to do a test drive.
My first Impression : Average looks , like a younger sibling of unicorn. Frankly I did not like it the first time I saw.
Test Drive: The kick start was good, gear shift was very smooth and the pickup was awesome. I did not expect a 125CC bike to jump like it did. Seating was very comfortable and breaking excellent. I knew for sure that something was special about shine. I was convinced that it suffices my second requirement of good pickup.
Coming to mileage, if we go by what Honda says(65KMPL under test conditions) we can expect at least 60KMPL which is very good considering the fuel price hike everyone is talking about. So that suffices my first requirement for good mileage.
Regarding looks, I am not sure. It looked better on my second visit(with my cousin for a second opinion) and I fell in love the third time(for booking). It’s a decent looking bike and I wish they come up with alloy wheels. I wanted to wait for the self start version, but it would take another 2 to 3 months and I wasn’t prepared for that. So I decided to go ahead and book it and now I am waiting for my bikes delivery. I chose Grey colour with drum brakes.
Will write more once I get to ride the bike and have used it for an month. So keep checking.
Onroad price : 47200 (drum) and 49230( disc) hyderabad.
Update 13-Jun-2006.
Hi Everybody, Its been more than a fortnight that I’ve been using the Honda shine and I am really happy that I chose it over other bikes.
Handling is terrific. I Rode a pulsar , passion and frazer. But somehow I feel the handling and ride comfort is excellent in shine. I know many of you would disagree, but the best way is to ride a shine and see for your self.
Pickup is awesome. Unfortunately, I didn’t go beyond 55kmph bcos the honda technician warned me that its better not to exceed speed of 55 before the 1st servicing.
The gear shift is very smooth. It was a bit stiff the first 3 to 4 days. But as I used it, it kind of became smooth.
I cannot comment on mileage as I did not check it and there is no point in checking it b4 the first servicing.
You can manage in 4th gear even at speeds as low as 30 kmph which is very good considering the peak hour traffic in hyderabad(3rd gear at similar speeds with a pillion).
Regarding looks, its almost like a unicorn. Its not as good a a pulsar , but I can live with that. Apache looks much sexier than a Pulsar(not sure of what you all think)
Thats all I got for this time. Just wait for another 15 + 5 days so that I can get my first servicing done and then I will discuss abt the speed and mileage.
Until then cheers to all.