Buying your first vehicle especially by your own hard-earned money, is always a special and memorable experience. I still vividly remember those days of my early 20s, when I had just finished my engineering and had joined a well-known software company through campus placements. After completing a few months in my first job, I thought that my old, non-geared two-wheeler, which I had been using since early college days, had its days numbered and that it was high time that I buy a brand new motorcycle, as it was becoming more and more uncomfortable and costly to use and maintain the old moped.
So the desire of buying a new motorbike was lingering in my mind since quite a few weeks. I discussed this with my office colleagues, family members and friends. Everyone had his/her own opinion. Someone suggested this bike and some else suggested that bike with a lot of conviction and ardent enthusiasm. It was like everyone had become an expert salesperson of their own favourite brands/models. So I was initially in a bit dilemma. Of course I knew that I didn’t want to buy a very expensive and costly, high maintenance, low fuel economy kind of bike. Even though I could have afforded a Rs.1-1.5 lac bike especially on a vehicle loan, I somehow didn’t feel like spending that much amount. I just wanted a comfortable, low-maintenance, high fuel economy motorbike without any fancy, sports-like features, at a decent initial price.
In those days, I didn’t have much passion for biking – it was just a convenient mode of conveyance for me, mainly to commute to office and may be do some chores on the weekends like buying groceries or vegetables etc. I was not that much fond of extensively using the bike for long outstation trips(i-e, this was the situation between mid 90s to 2003. The picture changed in mid-2003 when I became very fond of taking bike for long travels within and outside the city(which later on led me to buy a car, which is a different story). So in 2000-2003 I was of a much conservative mindset, and was fond of saving money, avoiding any kind of extravagant or unnecessary expenses, staying to a minimal level spending just to buy you enough, necessary comforts in life. But at the same time, I wanted to invest in a good, solid bike that gives you good value for money and didn’t want to go too cheap, just for the sake of saving money, i-e, having a conservative yet balanced, and value focused approach.
Finally I decided to go for a very tried and tested, risk-free, largest selling motorcycle – Splendour, in silver colour. It cost me around 45k including everything. I still remember the date of delivery – 16th June 2001. Ever since I had a wonderful, peace-of-mind experience. The seating, posture, shock-ups everything was quite comfortable, giving you a nice, relaxed experience. Accelerator, clutch, brakes were quite smooth and effective to operate, tyres were of good quality, very good fuel economy, low maintenance, impressive, attractive appearance. So it was very useful to me. Saved a lot of money overall. When I decided to relocate to Singapore in mid-2006, I got a good selling price also, after 5 years of use. Just the name Hero Honda Splendour was enough to convince the buyer. He didn’t even take a test ride before buying and paid me the amount I quoted without negotiating. Such was the image and brand value of the bike.
I used to give the bike for regular servicing – every 3-6 months – always almost to a Hero(Honda) dealer. Hero boasts of a good, knowledgeable, experienced staff who will give you good service at reasonable rates – whether for labour or for spare parts. The spare parts of Hero bikes are usually very reasonably priced. The communication and attitude of the staff is also nice. They give you timely delivery and provide a nice, detailed breakup in the bill, with complete transparency.
Hero motorbikes have excellent quality and are well-suited for all kinds of Indian roads – in the city as well as rural/mountainious areas. I have taken my bike to many long distance trips like – Shirdi/Shani Shingnapur, Aurangabad/Jalgaon, Mumbai/Thane etc. And it has given me good performance without any issues. I would highly recommend Hero bikes to everyone.