Fabulous look bike .but not a average bike .
.pulsur.rs 200
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.
Besides simply putting some more meat on the 200NS’s bones, what Bajaj have done with the RS200 is alter the centre of gravity and shorten the wheelbase a tad. The result is a Pulsar that’s now actually capable of taking on a quick succession of corners, although not being the best at it. Okay, the 200NS didn’t take to corners that badly either, but this one’s even better.
The petal type single rotor 300mm disc up front and 230mm disc at the rear, coupled with grippy MRF Zapper rubber lend the RS200 good stopping power. The brakes have a nice progressive feel, and you have the option of having better stopping power over the older Pulsar with Single channel ABS – which in good ol’ English translates to a cost saving ABS unit that engages on the front disc, rather than both the front and back discs. Sounds cheap, yes, but very effective it most certainly is.
Overall, switchgear and build quality is good. With a pricetag of?1.18 lakh( ex-showroom, Delhi), for the non-ABS RS200 and?1.30 lakh for the ABS version, the new Pulsar RS200 comes across as a decent package that balances performance and practicality well with a welcome touch of refinement. We can’t comment much on the ride quality at this time, because we rode the bike on the levelled test track and are yet to subject it to real( Indian) world conditions. More on that soon.