Sometime back I saw an ad like this. There is a girl walking up to a lottery stall to look up a result, a wind takes away the ticket, which gets occasional landing at the side of a truck, top of a cab etc ( remember the wind was disciplined and went as the road went). Enter the hero who gives girl a ride to follow the ticket; finally they get the ticket only to find that it isn’t the winning one, the girl distraught. & then they race off, 2gether. We are told she hit the jackpot. Every time I see this ad I laugh bcos it is an example of how advertising has been reduced to plain lying. They say nothing abt the product, but want to sell a product saying it fetches u opposite genders’ attraction. In fact never in the history of mankind in India have I seen a girl at a lottery stall. Why wud a modern girl buy a ticket to try her luck when she has got much surer ways of making money ;-)
Anyway the ad wasn’t the factor that made me decide buying a CT100. (But still I go slow and see around when I am passing near a lottery stall .. who knows? Ads might come true ;-)! ). I was buying a bike for the first time, so I wanted to buy something not very costly, gives good mileage, and simple looks, good network for sales and service. The other reason I went for a CT100 was that a cpl of my friends had good things to say abt its predecessor, bajaj boxer. + my cousin who owned a CT100 and the last but not the least reason was that I wanted to ride a 100cc bike after riding all those 500cc superbikes .. on my PC .. I mean ;-)
Being humara bajaj we can say they are everywhere thru out the country. So a good network of dealers to buy from. I bought it from a bajaj showroom in Bangalore. They have a team of sales guys who engage customers wanting to chek out bikes. They do fairly well the work of explaining abt the bike, abt finance options, take u for a test ride etc. since I had pretty much made my mind on buying this, this all went as procedure and within a week bike was with me.
Abt the bike its available in 2 models – ordinary and deluxe. Not much to think abt here, both are same in terms of tech specs, the two difference being the ordinary has a round headlight & deluxe has a trapezoidal headlight assembly giving it a look, and the ordinary has a steel piece which looks like a carrier but acts like a hand grip for the left hand of a woman pillion ..or anyone who sits sideways. Also this steel piece hovers over brake light and in a way protects it. Being the aam aadmi or the ordinary common man I went for the ordinary model, which costs abt 37874 on road which includes standard accessories like 2 rear view mirrors, sari guard
Technically speaking it’s a 100cc, 4 stroke, 8.2bhp engine bike. The front suspension is hydraulic, back one is coil spring. The fuel tank is 10.5lts capacity with 2.2 for reserve. 4 gear shift, all downwards. Has a warranty of 2 yrs/30Kkms, another new is the ride control switch which they claim gives u to choose between speed and mileage. it seems to work. In anycase they suggest u to use it for the first 1000kms. U feel a resistance to accelerator rising at abt 60km/hr, in any case with in city one rarely gets to go over 60 for long time.
Coming to riding I haven’t faced any problems in the 100+ days that I have owned this. It also depends on how one rides. Some experienced riders say that gear shifts in bajaj are noisy, at times I have felt this is true. But I have also noticed that if u slowly shift gears there isn’t any noise. One good thing abt this bike is its height. It stands just a bit over 1 metre, which means the riders in the average height around 5 to 5.3ft will not have difficulty supporting themselves with a leg or two when going thru slow crawling traffic etc. the bike takes load ie no difficulty with a pillion rider. The company claims its designed and tested for a payload of 130 kg, so to be on the safer side choose a spouse or a pillion who, together with your weight will not exceed this number.
With the ever increasing price of fuel mileage is always a concern for aam aadmi. Don’t go by what u see in paper.. 101km/ltr . the company can afford to mention this figure on paper and beside it put the great Indian asterisk which always means ‘conditions apply’. About the mileage claims let me just say that it is only as realistic as the CT100 ad. – you will get 101kmpl only if a lottery buying girl comes after u just bcos of the bike, or a lottery buying girl will come after u bcos of ur bike only if u are getting 101kmpl. Lets get real.
The 101kmpl is a figure on paper, unfortunately we cant ride our bikes on paper, we have to ride on roads – so here are my observations abt mileage . assuming u are a good rider and judiciously use gears and maintain the bike well, be happy if u are getting 70+ within city conditions. By that stick I guess one will get a mileage of 80+ for longer rides. From my basic observation I am getting 60-65 within city short rides, but on longer rides I am getting 70+. By short rides I mean rides which are within city and spanning less than 5 km at a stretch. By long I mean rides which are traffic free and spanning at least 10-15kms. I have a feeling this will be a good buy for people who have a 2-wheeler traveling job, and for ppl who live in towns and cities where the traffic is mostly smooth flowing. Also for ppl who live in suburbs or small towns surrounding big cities, and have to take a 20-30km highway/traffic free ride to city for their jobs. And if u see the mileage not satisfactory it can be tuned when u leave it for service.
Coming to service bajaj gives u 4 free services, at intervals of a month. Don’t expect too much out of these routine free services, they do things like changing oil(chargeable), washing, checking the electricals, brakes, wheels, lubrication etc. but they are kind enough to ask if u want anything specific to be done. I mentioned tuning the mileage, adjusting the idling, and they did it. If u are not sure of what mileage u are getting, u can even get a milege check done during these services.
One of the drawbacks of this vehicle is free access to the battery case and the area below seat which has much of the electrical wiring. This can be misused by sadistic rats that go there to simply cut and chew the wires. I am told the rats are attracted to the smell of fresh wires. But in some other vehicles I have seen this area closed in a way that no rats can enter this place. I once had to leave my bike unused for 3-4 days. Now for all the man-handling we do to our computer mouse, one stray rat thought of taking revenge. It got into my battery compartment thinking of encroaching the area, it even accumulated food there, & it cut all the wires in its way. I had to replace all the wiring. Now I wont leave my bike stationary for more than a day, so that no stray rat passing thru the road shud be tempted to make a home out of my battery box, if u are parking the bike outside and there is likelihood of rats being in vicinity take care that the entry points to the battery box from engines side is closed. Now I have closed the access point by tightly filling in cloth over the wires under the seat. I say bcos its better to take precaution..Also wise learn from others mistakes .(u guessed it right. u are wise ) ;-)
Overall as a conclusion I wud say CT100 is a good buy. For its budget it has a good mileage. Good pickup and reasonably good looks. If u are an aam aadmi who is non-flashy and believes in having a bike just to ride, and use as a vehicle give it a thought.