Small bike comparos are tedious, hard work and downright boring. The little bikes, we’re talking sub-125ccs, are boring because manufacturers build them fastidiously to single-track, super-specialist specification. They’re expected to be ultra-frugal and that, is that.
So, when you have the prospect of a 150cc blood-bath, life looks much brighter. The 150s, taking up the bottom of the premium segment are designed on the lines of multi-role fighters. They are expected to be efficient commuters, refer previous para, but they are also expected to handle some highway duty, some outright race track style scratching down back roads. They are also expected to make a style statement. So three good 150s should be just what the doctor ordered right?
Once we’d finished the grind part of the comparison, which is the general riding towards forming first opinions, racking up the performance numbers, establishing behaviour patterns for the machines, we decided to head out of the confines of concrete to see what the pre-monsoon world outside was like. To give you an accurate idea of the various situations in which the bikes need to excel, we laid out a 300 km course. The road begins in the city, taking some congested, under-construction roads for about 100 km (50 km of light traffic, 50 km of seriously jammed, stop-go pressure cooking), then there is another 100 km of back road style highway, which winds through rolling scenery, bobbing up and down, around and around, but gently. This stretch has loads of sweepers, some of them very bumpy and with extremely light traffic. The final 100 km are pure mountain bliss. The road is straight for little more than 200 km at a time and the surface ranges from well-surfaced to patched up. The turns are usually tight with few well-camouflaged decreasing radius corners to give the bikes a run for their handling and trail-braking money.
To keep the action thick and fast we put together four testers, one with huge urban slice and dice experience (moi), one with loads of highway time (Joshua, the intern), one with a laid-back attitude (Pablo, not Picasso) and one who rides a highway-city commute daily on a really fast bike (Sanjeev). And poor Param, who was expected to keep pace with his camera, was consigned to be the pillion rider who would let the seat of his pants tell a tale of its own.
Does this sound like a recipe for fun or what. The festivities began in Param’s parking lot. The trio, the TVS Fiero F2, the Bajaj Pulsar 150 DTSi and the new LML Graptor parked next to each other instantly opened the debate. Pablo smiled sardonically at the Fiero F2 and said, ‘this thing’s styling is so safe and bland, it almost looks as if it comes from another era!’ The Pulsar’s slashing muscular lines and the Graptor’s futuristic, Cagiva Raptor-inspired lines do make far stronger style statements. In fact, while the Pulsar’s lines attracted positive comments from everyone,
the Graptor’s charms were almost unexpected.The Graptor is inspired in parts by various other motorcycles. Look closely and you can find loads of Cagiva Raptor and some LML Freedom prominently displayed. The effect was that everyone, and not just us, thought the bike looked good from the front. However, the rear is a bit of a mess. The stubby short tailpiece is misshapen and that grab rail seems to have come off a machine the size of the Bajaj Byk. And the decals don’t help out. Sanjeev offered, ‘if the tailpiece’s shiny parts were expanded to cover up the matt base plastic, and perhaps, integrated with the side panel, the machine would have looked more cohesive.’
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