Nailed it!

There's many reasons usually given out about nail hygiene. Usually, they revolve around bacterial or other infections. On the Internet, you will also find a whole sackful of reasons why you should be cutting then, how you should be cutting them... and what is this doing in a motorcycle blog?

Well, the glove pic should give the game away, but here goes. When I started playing basketball in school, one of the first things I learnt was that the coach would not allow long nails (even slightly objectionable ones) on the court. You could painfully scratch others in the heat of battle (unintentionally, of course) or worse, an awkwardly caught pass could rip the nail right off your finger... bloody and intensely painful.

Since I started motorcycling, I've found the same hygiene quite useful as well. You see, long fingernails and motorcycle gloves don't really get along. A racing-type snug glove (like my recently expired Spidi similar to these) fits really tight. Over a longish ride, the seam can ride into the space between the finger and the nail – distracting, irritating, and if you don't stop to stretch the glove out now and then, very painful too. And here's the nub, if you've just spent a thousand or two buying a pair (congrats!) you would be happier if they lasted as long as possible, right? Well, short nails don't 'cut' into the leather at full stretch. In my experience, badly trimmed nails, tend to lead to tears in gloves at the finger tip. Personal experience – I've used Joe Rocket Razor gloves for the past five years now and they last roughly fifteen-eighteen months. If I don't obsess over the length on my nails (as in don't bite them), the gloves tear above the seam about two months earlier. Short nails also tend to survive crashes better.

Okay, you can start commenting about how OCD I am (yet again) now, if you like.

Mailbag #8: Apache RTR 160 – Not Convincing

From a Vibrator to a smooth 'no' vibe engine, to seeing 120 kph "very" easily on the speedo, to the best handling 150cc in the market, to be feeling 30 kph less at 76 kmph.... is there more to this than what meets the eye? Did TVS suddenly get a magic wand or has the bike come straight from the gods.... I for one am not convinced. Over to you...
Lavkesh

Actually, the answer to that question is quite simple. And no magic wands are being waved either. To a manufacturer conversant with good engineering, eliminating vibration is a very simple matter. You either attack the primary vibes from the motor, or you add a set of dampers that ensure that not much vibes appear in the three-odd places where a rider might feel it – pegs, bars and tank.

Adding displacement is another fairly straight-forward game too. You can use computers to model a whole bunch of (bigger) bore, stroke combinations and select the one you like. Run it on prototypes, see if you like it and when you do, more power is there for the asking. 120 kph? They could have got more. I, for one, would not be surprised to see a TVS Apache 160 Racebike touch much, much higher speeds.

What was wrong with the 150 handling? Stability. Stability, for ages, has been solved by lengthening the wheelbase. And the best, most productive way to lengthen the wheelbase is by increasing the swingarm length, which brings more stability and increases the ability of the rear tyre to 'hook up' better. For a manufacturer, this is the equivalent of a patch for a set of small niggles in a new operating system, so to speak. All of this takes time, agreed, but it isn't magic, magical or a miracle of sorts.

What I am saying is that the primary thing that TVS has done with the 160, is solve the problems that stopped the 150 from being truly jaw-dropping. The potential was always there. Another example of a similar bike, although still-born, was the Graptor. There was so much that LML could have done with that bike.

However, the biggest change, the real reason why the Apache 160 is such a great ride, is a change in stance. You see, as a small manufacturer (compared to Bajaj and HH), TVS always needed to consolidate its volumes and that was an overriding consideration. This, usually, means engineering and motorcycling compromises aimed at snaring the largest possible number of prospective customers. It means you cannot give your bike special abilities. You focus on making it adept and comfortable in a variety of roles. Would a small air force benefit from having a bunch of pilots who were okay fighter jocks, decent bomber captains and passable chopper flyers as well?

What happened with the 160, is that someone at TVS woke up and realised that the reason the TVS Apache (like many, many bikes all over the world) wasn't doing as well as they had expected was the fact that the bike didn't really have a focus beyond good sales. That approach never works. Look at most of the 1000cc or 600cc bikes, and you will see that the popular ones are almost always good at one thing, and borderline crap at others. It's the focus that brings riders to the point where they reach into their pockets.

With the RTR, I think, TVS decided to go radical and make an all-out sporty bike, rather than a sporty commuter, that could also handle and would also race and would also... and so forth.

The R&D team, now had a clear focus. Clear focii usually mean solutions to problems are found faster and are easier to implement without interference from other involved departments (like marketing and sales). That's what happened, in my opinion. And for once, it has come together in spectacular fashion.

If you are still not convinced, my friend, just hop over to the nearest TVS dealer, I promise you will not have wasted your time.

Related posts

• TVS Apache RTR 160: Real Deal
• Apache RTR 160 Short Film
• TVS Apache RTR 160: Riding Impression
• TVS Apache RTR 160: In the full
• Apache 160 3: The rear end and details
• Apache 160 2: The meters
• TVS Apache 160

TVS Apache RTR 160: Real Deal

I rode the TVS Apache RTR 160 again today. And once more, I am amazed at what TVS have managed to do with the old Apache. And amazed at what more they could have done, but haven't. I mooched a bike off a dealer and managed to take it out for a solo spin. A 25 km solo spin.

Once more, the Apache makes an eye-opening amount of power with remarkable ease. The engine is very refined, there aren't any vibes, and the smoooth gearbox is one of the best in the market today without any doubt (Yamaha still makes the best of the lot, I think). Compared to my first riding impression (link below) which was in a more sterile environment, this time I was out in the real world. Where you and I are expected to get our kicks/commute. And I did. Get my kicks that is. While initially you don't notice the performance itself, there's no getting away from the strong convex power curve.

The Apache can blow up a typhoon in no time at all (by 150cc standards, that is). How do you find this out? You have to look for subtle clues. Like managing to overtake cars going at a fair clip without any undue effort on your part. Like seeing 76 kph where you expect the speedo to read about 30 kph less. Like seeing a hapless, smaller rider on a CBZ X-Treme struggle very hard to keep up and fail. Like finding out that a last-gen Pulsar 180 will get embarrassed almost too easily. Like a Pulsar 200 won't be able to disappear on the 160 (Well-ridden Shoguns used to do this to RD350s also – they can't get past, but RDs would find it very hard to get rid of the irritating Shogun). Like thinking you just past 100 kph, and it took a while, and looking down and seen 123 kph on the digital speedo.

Handling's great too. The bike feels taut, pegs are quite seriously rearset, the seat is lower than most of the competition and the bike feels compact and ready to rock. Which is does. Enter a corner hard (in the wet), and the confidence, the agility is marvellous. I thought the CBZ X-Treme was the best 150-class handler there is. Well, ascending to the top spot, ladies and gentlemen is the RTR. Good job! Oh and I could write thousands of words about the disc brake on the front axle. Superb. Superb. Superb.

I no longer care whether it has flaws (like tankbags don't fit the tank all that well and tend to slide forward into the handle, or the lack of space for a pillion to sit comfortably). I have to have one around to ride for a while at least. And I working on that now. That it looks smashing is a bonus, as is the fact that it probably returns 50 kpl when ridden gently. I also happen to love the fact that it wheelies without provocation, loves to be thrashed and in the wet, is able to find a stunning amount of traction.

Is that review over the top? Perhaps. The only flaw in the Apache RTR's tall fort walls is that when you get off, you're thrilled. But. But you wonder what would have happened if TVS had let just a bit of the vibes leak into the pegs and bars at speed to enhance the sensation of velocity. I have a feeling that we would have appreciated it even more. And I hate the white tail lamp with the red reflector. I cannot help but think that a clear or red outer lens would have looked a heck of a lot classier.

Did I mention that the Apache will probably kill a CBZ X-Treme? It's more powerful (1 bhp), makes more torque (3 Nm) and happens to weigh a not insignificant 5-odd kgs less as well. It is also about Rs 1,000 cheaper than the CBZ X-Treme in Bombay.

Related posts

• Apache RTR 160 Short Film
• TVS Apache RTR 160: Riding Impression
• TVS Apache RTR 160: In the full
• Apache 160 3: The rear end and details
• Apache 160 2: The meters
• TVS Apache 160

Risk: how we blind ourselves

As is rapidly becoming the normal course of events, the rains have arrived, Mumbai is up the creek in a leaky boat and no paddle; and we're slogging through all of that trying to meet deadlines. It is undeniably beautiful outside and yet, there is a new fear of the falling rain that I don't remember having felt before. But that's just a thought I wanted to toss up into the air and so I have.

Anyway, the other day I was riding home on the CBZ X-Treme with The Wife perched on the rear seat. It had been raining earlier, so the roads were wet and Mumbai looked shiny and quite pretty actually. We stopped at this traffic light and ahead of us was another couple on their Pulsar, clad in casuals, lidless, it goes without saying. I saw the chap pull out a bottle of water from somewhere, and take a long swig. Having emptied the bottle, he dropped the bottle with practiced ease and kicked it half-volleyed over a barrier into the deep hole dug up for a subway. All without rocking the bike or upsetting his pillion. Admirable skill and deplorable civic attitude in one shot.

For an instant, I thought I might point out the latter to the chap, but it would have been futile. You know how they are. They shrug, smile and moments later they will do it again. It sucks. I'd like to believe you can change the world one person at a time, but frankly the path is steeply uphill and I'm increasingly leaning over into the cynic side. So I pointed this chap out to The Wife, muttered something like, 'What a total, effing idiot!' and continued.

Once the light changed, and we crawled back into the rush hour traffic, I more or less forgot this chap. We were having a good ride. Then I hit my favourite stretch. This almost five kilometre stretch of road is wide open, well-surfaced, safe to speed on when empty and well lit too. I love the CBZ X-Treme's two-up buzz around 80-90 kph on this stretch and feel very happy when I come to a stop on the front row of the traffic light that just precedes this stretch.

Normally, I am the second or third of the lights – making sure no one's jumping the lights across – but once I hit my stride, very few vehicles come past. To my surprise, the first bike off the greasy line was, you guessed it, our lidless hero and his hapless pillion.

As I saw his bike weave wildly in the wet before gripping and shooting off into the night, it occurred to me that we humans are conditioned to ignoring the risk of daily activity. As in, we use the sharpest knife casually without considering the damage it could cause for no better reason than because we use it daily. We forget, in this chaps case, that you are endangering at least two lives. That a simple fall could kill him or worse. That full throttle when two-up in the rain is the same as asking for someone to come and clobber you with a blunt object. That a lid not only protects you when you fall, but it restores your vision at speed and in the wet.

That four kilometres of unbridled speed is not worth a human life.

A rain song

Blog reader Rahul wanted me to post this piece he wrote to the blog. So I didn't refuse. Especially since it is a nice, evocative letter. So here it is.

Hello E,

Come out into the verandah and look below.

What do you see? I see you and me, caught in a time warp some 10 years back, splashing water at each other with our hands and legs. The same water that is below your verandah today. We have bathed in what we consider untouchable today.

I have fond memories of you and I. On my dad's Yezdi, soaking in the rain. One barely legal rider with one pillion clinging on to his back. The rain drops drawing shapes on your slender body!

Soaking in the storm water drains under makeshift bamboo bridges. The startled birds and the angry frogs, despising our intrusion in their monsoon sex lives!

As I sit and watch these myriad reruns of our life in my mind's eye, I think of the little adventures we cherished in the swamps. The water hyacinth islands where we chased the migratory birds. Man's need for growth has lain that place with concrete and tarmac now. But no one can pour cement on my memories.

And you know what? The birds live on. The frogs have found their own new water hole, and they are waiting. For the right season. Expecting us to return just like the migratory birds.

If you ever come by here. I want you to know that I still love you!

Rahul

rearset makes it to monoshock's emag!

Hello hello dear blog regulars, rearset and (my photo-shooting alter ego) Caughtilya have made it to the pages of monoshock's emag. Check it out here. I'd post an excerpt, but it feels kind of odd to excerpt my own work...

Bajaj Sales: Still falling, but no worries

Bajaj sent out a note saying that it recorded a 12 per cent fall in sales last month, but that they aren't worried. Bajaj, it seems, are proto-testing the new bike slated for a September launch. The bike is expected to offer an alternative to the 100cc customer and is being called a 'breakthrough' bike by Bajaj. I won't go into the numbers, but here are the three important points the note made:

1. First quarter sales have been disappointing; the focus has been on enhancing market and product mix to safeguard profitability.
   
   
2. Existing motorcycle owners desirous of repurchase represent over half of all new sales, and there is increasing evidence of their diminishing interest in the fundamentally unchanged 100 cc motorcycles currently available, contributing significantly thereby towards the industry-wide slowdown in sales.
   
   
3. In the build-up to its product-centric endeavour to reverse this trend, Bajaj successfully completed the pre-production of its all new motorcycle in June'07; a national launch is scheduled for September'07 with an initial target of 50.000 motorcycles/month to be achieved by January'08.

Hero Honda Pleasure: Freshened up

Hero Honda announced that it managed to hold dropping sales to -8.4 per cent over the year. Selling 2.55 lakh bikes, India's biggest bike maker is still selling around a lakh more than Bajaj, and reported 50+ per cent market share as well. Hidden in the release though was the news of a re-freshed new Pleasure. Which means altered stickering, and whether you like it or not, Priyanka Chopra will not be attached at the hip to the scooter like in the pick. She is the new brand ambassador, though. I quite like Ms Chopra in the ad, I must admit.

For those who came in late, the Pleasure is the Honda Activa/Dio with slinkier new bodywork aimed solely at women riders. That usually won't stop the man of the house from taking it out for a spin, but that's the spiel. Hero Honda has also created some 'manned' by women showrooms for the ladies, including a pick-up service in the event of a breakdown and a lady-rider club of sorts as well.

Apache RTR 160: Another Video

Here's another Apache vid. Mostly stills, including some of mine!

Related posts

• Apache RTR 160 Short Film
• TVS Apache RTR 160: Riding Impression
• TVS Apache RTR 160: In the full
• Apache 160 3: The rear end and details
• Apache 160 2: The meters
• TVS Apache 160