Fire a shogun and listen the roar coming out of semi expansion chamber. Shogun means shotgun and I realised this when I rode shogun for the first time in 1995. I had a Yamaha Rx-100 before that and I was damn sure that no bike could beat that but when I rode my friend’s brand new shogun in 1995 I became die-hard fan of shogun. The beauty came in two colours only Midnight black and Silver grey but black was more popular than grey.
Shogun brought a new idea in indian motorcycles industry with black exhaust, black handle bars, black forks and even black coated engine, sports fairings, sporty tail, sleek fuel tank and if u have a look on the side panels u can clearly see ’ High sprint gear’ written in small fonts just below the ’ Shogun’ in aggressive fonts. That’s not only a quote but that meaning something and the meaning is low-end torque. You can ride this bike in top gear with a speed of 30km/hr. and it won’t jerk, Moreover just pull the throttle from 30km/hr. in top gear and see how it works like a missile. Also, the gears are very long and you can stretch upto 90 km/hr. in 3rd gear. Shogun works on high revs and you can’t find it good untill u reach high revs as its power output is 14BHP @8500 rpm and once it crosses 8000 revs it is ’THE BOSS’.
I am surprised by those who criticised such a great machine and I am sure they are not bikers as they have no idea about performance machines. I don’t like any bike in india now they are just like a show piece no power and I am talking about raw power. This is a successor of Yamaha RD-350 that got out of production in 1989 sue to emission norms and the same was happened to my love machine Shogun in 2000.
I have ridden so many bikes from Yamaha R1 to Indian chief but I have a special feeling for Shogun. Even in london sometimes I feel I should have a shogun to commute in london’s congestion but that can’t be possible I know.