- Joined
- Aug 21, 2022
So, time to violate KW TOS and reveal more of my powerlevel. I am a huge fan of low displacement motorcycles, because of their nimble handling and super high gas economy. In the sub-650cc motorcycle market there's really only two countries that dominate this: Japan, and India.
(Yeah yeah KTM/CFMOTO exist and half your bike is Chinese parts so shut the fuck up.)
India does manufacture quite a lot of really good bikes, the best being from Royal Enfield, which is now a global company and they got their motorcycle engineering mojo by hiring (and stealing away) engineers from Triumph and Suzuki. You're getting a Bosch fuel injector. The brakes are Brembo, made by Brembo's Indian subsidiary. They're good bikes.
What fascinates me is that India-made motorcycles, because of the ample availability of Tata Steel--which is a monopoly inside of India but the Japanese have managed to outwit them at every turn... so a monopoly with no real price power, these bikes are closer to what you would have found in the UK and America in the 1970s. They are solid metal beasts, like American solid-steel cars of the 1970s. These motorcycles weigh a hell of a lot more. The engine casings are not using oxide-reduced composite aluminum, it's straight up big vat-slabs of aluminum, and the headcases are one big block of solid iron ore with a galvinized shell. The new engines that are in them carry around a lot of that heavy steel, otherwise they would be crotch rockets just like Honda bikes in the same engine power range.
So even at 30 kph, this shit is gonna hurt. 2x more weight in these bikes than an equivalent Honda low-displacement:
Notice how in India they have to use a crazy amount of traffic control barriers to get people to behave, and even in the smallest gap, people play Frogger.
(for bike fags, I believe that is a Hero-made Harley-Davidson but I'm not sure. The dashboard is the only clue.)
Another fun fact about India. If you've been in the country in the past 5 years you would have noticed this thing installed on the left side of the rear tire on most of the new bikes you see zipping around everywhere.
It's called a "saree guard", and it's to keep the saree that a lot of Indian women wear from wrapping around the rear tire. However, this thing only works when your old lady is riding side-saddle on the pillion seat and holding the excess of the dress with the left hand while holding on to the rider with the right.
Of course, it still doesn't really keep Indian women alive if they don't actually understand that there is a buzzsaw sitting directly under their ass.
3 years ago India has finally banned wearing flipflops when riding motorbikes. Probably will take hundreds of years before the population ever complies with the law.
(Yeah yeah KTM/CFMOTO exist and half your bike is Chinese parts so shut the fuck up.)
India does manufacture quite a lot of really good bikes, the best being from Royal Enfield, which is now a global company and they got their motorcycle engineering mojo by hiring (and stealing away) engineers from Triumph and Suzuki. You're getting a Bosch fuel injector. The brakes are Brembo, made by Brembo's Indian subsidiary. They're good bikes.
What fascinates me is that India-made motorcycles, because of the ample availability of Tata Steel--which is a monopoly inside of India but the Japanese have managed to outwit them at every turn... so a monopoly with no real price power, these bikes are closer to what you would have found in the UK and America in the 1970s. They are solid metal beasts, like American solid-steel cars of the 1970s. These motorcycles weigh a hell of a lot more. The engine casings are not using oxide-reduced composite aluminum, it's straight up big vat-slabs of aluminum, and the headcases are one big block of solid iron ore with a galvinized shell. The new engines that are in them carry around a lot of that heavy steel, otherwise they would be crotch rockets just like Honda bikes in the same engine power range.
So even at 30 kph, this shit is gonna hurt. 2x more weight in these bikes than an equivalent Honda low-displacement:
Notice how in India they have to use a crazy amount of traffic control barriers to get people to behave, and even in the smallest gap, people play Frogger.
(for bike fags, I believe that is a Hero-made Harley-Davidson but I'm not sure. The dashboard is the only clue.)
Another fun fact about India. If you've been in the country in the past 5 years you would have noticed this thing installed on the left side of the rear tire on most of the new bikes you see zipping around everywhere.
It's called a "saree guard", and it's to keep the saree that a lot of Indian women wear from wrapping around the rear tire. However, this thing only works when your old lady is riding side-saddle on the pillion seat and holding the excess of the dress with the left hand while holding on to the rider with the right.
Of course, it still doesn't really keep Indian women alive if they don't actually understand that there is a buzzsaw sitting directly under their ass.
3 years ago India has finally banned wearing flipflops when riding motorbikes. Probably will take hundreds of years before the population ever complies with the law.
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