Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Bajaj Burst

I relish Bajaj’s approach to biking like I relish Domino’s Cheese Burst Pizza. Bad analogy! Nevertheless, I read about Bajaj’s announcements yesterday in The Economic Times.

The 220cc Pulsar DTS-Fi was officially launched on Monday. Bikers were waiting for the official launch for quite some time now. The bike comes for 81290 (ex-showroom Delhi). Not bad.

Apart from that, Bajaj plans to launch a new 100cc bike developed on a new bike platform by September.

It’s also planning to launch Avenger with a bigger engine very soon. Well, in my earlier posts I had mentioned that Avenger 200 might be launched by June end. Well Pulsar 220 was supposed to be launched by end of May but that got delayed by a month. So, applying the same case to the new Avenger, it might be launched some time in August.

Earlier the newspapers reported that Bajaj would launch Avenger 200. I have other thoughts though. Bajaj might not have taken so much time to launch the 200cc variant. The fact that it’s taking more time and the fact that this latest article mentions only ‘bigger’ engine instead of being specific, I would like to speculate that Avenger’s coming with a bigger engine than 200. So what is ‘bigger’? I really don’t know. I would like to think 220 at least. On the higher side 250 may be. If it goes beyond 250, then… Well hold your breath and control your imagination… On a serious note, my gut feel is it would be bigger than 200cc certainly.

More news. Bajaj is in talks with Yamaha and Kawasaki for bigger bikes (800cc and above). Not sure how many takers are there but if there’s one company which rocks the biking scene in India that’s Bajaj. Hats off! Hope newer bikes keep rolling out.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Bullet in my dream

I've managed to somehow maintain my sleep hours even through some of the most trying times at workplace. And when I've woken up in the morning I've also managed to remember many of dreams. But just didn't get a chance to note them down.

Here's a bit of what I remember from today's dream. I was a with a newly born baby. It was wrapped tightly in a white cloth; a typical way of protecting little babies, mostly seen in families/communities in Rajasthan and North India (don't know about the customes in other parts of the country). I could feel its little hands. I carried it while I was walking around the place. Some people, friends and relatives, known to me were also around; I can't recall who exactly. I also remember riding my Bullet...

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

New Honda Unicorn doesn't impress

As conservative as the earlier Honda Unicorn was, this Grand Prix edition doesn't change much.

Unicorn's body and styling didn't raise too many eyebrows anyway when it was first launched and since these are persisted with, the colours fail to change your perception. Colours are just one aspect of form. And therefore, when I saw this bike standing beside I wasn't too impressed. When I looked intently, the unimpressed feeling stayed - the orange colour on the alloy wheels does not give you a thrilling feeling; may be, your mechanic could've done the same if you were ready to pay him the money.

While the glossy pages of the magazine had to carry these changes for lack of better news or better product launches, this bike, or in fact Honda, is worthy of non-attention.