After months of speculation all over the internet in various discussion board/forum, Yamaha has officially announced the much awaited figures of the R15.

With the rumors quoting power of the bike in excess of 20bhp, the official figure stands at 17PS. Reading the response, I believe Yamaha officials were very smart in keeping the figures secret until the last day else the comments like following would have been floating on the various discussion forums for months.

“Just 17PS”

“My XYZ bike makes more power”

“My ABC bike is just behind in power”

After all discussing all about a bike, without even test riding it, is a born right of every internet savy “biker” :-).

Now with the gearing numbers also out, I entered them into my Excel spreadsheet and the numbers I saw were a bit shocking.

Primary Reduction: 3.042

Secondary Reduction: 3.000

Rear Tyre size: 100/80×17

PS: The above numbers are based on the gearing of the bike. They do not take into account the clutch slip, air drag and other such factors.

Now with the bike making max torque at 7,500rpm (15Nm), the cruising speed can be 109km/hr in top gear. With the max power being made at 8,500rpm (17PS), a speed of 123km/hr should be easily attained. Now these are just numbers, how quickly bike can reach there, will only be known once someone is able to strap a data logging equipment to the bike.

Going by just the numbers, I belive the bike should be able to meet the claims of Yamaha official that this bike will be the fastest amongst all Indian bikes, in straight line.

So, how do these numbers fare against ZMA and Pulsar 220 DTSFi? I’ll put up the charts for those two bikes in next few hours, just for some more number munching. That reminds me, its lunch time now :-).

The official specifications can be found on Yamaha’s website.

It was yet another track day organised by Anand at Kari Speedway, Coimbatore. My second visit, in a row. This time due to various reasons I was not able to take my bike. Thanks to Killer (Sameer) who loaned me his Apache, I had a ride for the track day.

Now, I’ll not waste too much of time, enjoy some of the pictures.

Speedy entering chicane on Apache.

Subhash on RTR pulling stoppie and wheelie.

Dinesh on RTR through bowl.

Subhash on RTR through bowl.

Nav on Apache through bowl.

Joel on RTR through bowl.

Dan’s RD through bowl.

Keerthi on Shogun through bowl.

Nav on Apache through last corner.

Bike discussion in pit lane.

To view image(s) in larger size, click them.
Edit: Thanks to Kathir (friend of Dinesh) for taking the bowl pics.

The above image was created by merging the following two images and did some cropping, along with exposure correction.

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Lightning - 1

9th April 2008 - It was one of those evenings when skies were looking threatening to destroy everything that will come in their ways. I decided to cash in on this opportunity and put my 400D to capture the lightning coming down from sky every now and then.

Nah, this post is not about Neo or the R1 but it might be of Neo astride an R1.

Pune – undoubtedly the two wheeler capital of country, a city where you can witness people breaking traffic rules at the drop of a hat. If one fines all the violators just for one day, it won’t be a surprise if millionaires count goes up by one.

It was just another morning ride to office when I approach a traffic signal, glowing red. Though the faster vehicles in front of me simply turned a blind eye towards the red light, I somehow didn’t feel in a hurry and instead of going with the flow of violators, I slowed down and stopped. Standing standstill while a couple of more vehicles went by, drivers of them probably had early morning laughter at my expense. Then suddenly one car driver applied brakes and stopped right next to me and few second’s later vehicles started to stop for the red light instead of ignoring it.

After a tiring day, I was headed back to home. Like everyday, it was a sea of vehicles of road. As I approach a traffic signal, which is always ignored by people as it is on a ‘T’ junction with the traffic coming only from right side of ‘T’ arm; I saw the light glowing red. I decided to stop, vehicles suddenly started to stop.

It seems most of people in city likes to go with the flow. Not many look at traffic signal (not their fault because many time either the signal is not working or the light bulb are fused), they just follow the flow of vehicles. So for them to stop on a traffic signal, which is easy to break, either due to low traffic on junction or being on a ‘T’ junction it probably needs someone to take the initiative and STOP.

Just like they need someone to take the initiative to STOP, it just needs one person to jump a red light to have a group of vehicles follow him, as if they all were tied to the first vehicle. Looks like most of people on road don’t have the intelligence to take the decision as to what is correct and what is wrong for them.

I have decided to be the ONE who is going to STOP at the red light; there are many ONE’s who jumps the red light. So which ONE are you? I know it is very easy to say that no one follows the traffic rule in my city but that’s a very lame excuse of one also not following it.

Just remember if you want to be the ONE who stops, people who are following you are not expecting you to stop. So make sure you don’t apply brakes suddenly. Your brake light is in working order. Keep an eye in your RVM’s before you slow down to making sure you are not going to be plastered on the road by the vehicle behind you. In the end, do not stop in the middle of road but stop on the side.

Pug-OT, a yahoo group I’m a member of have started a very useful thread TOTW (Technique Of The Week). As you could have guessed now, Slow Sync was the first topic of TOTW. As a beginner with photography, it was a nice learning experience for me.

Slow Sync - A technique in which we fire the flash along with slow shutter speed. One use of it, as shown in the above image, is to increase the illumination of background.

Following are some of the links I read to learn about this technique
Flash Photography Made Simple

Slow Sync Flash

In the above image, the top picture is clicked in Full Auto Mode and the bottom picture is clicked in Manual mode. Following are the details.
Top Pic: Auto(1/60sec, f/3.5, 18mm, ISO400, Pattern Metering).
Bottom Pic: M(6sec, f/3.5, 18mm, ISO400, Partial Metering).

Camera: Canon 400D
Lens: 18-55

Today morning I replied to a post by a friend who in his car, ran over a dog. Thankfully he could see the little pup limping off the road, so he was spared by the murder of an innocent living being. Yes, the little pup was in the middle of his extended sleep and forgot that the traffic on his bed, which is referred by humans as “road”, is going to go up.

While I was talking about the same with my friend suddenly we realized that instead of animals, we humans are to be blamed to an extent for such accidents. Why? Most of the animals like dog, cat, donkey, cow, horse, etc are domestic animals. Ideally its our responsibility to keep them in a controlled environment and when we fail to do that, unaware of what development humans have done, these animals venture out on their own and often land up on road hitting our vehicles.

We are to be blamed for another reason. These animals would have been living happily away from civilization in jungles but the way we humans are replicating and consuming natural resources, including jungles, these animals are made homeless by us as we cut down jungles.

So when Agent Smith in the popular movie Matrix compared humans to virus, a disease organism (that replicate uncontrollably and eventually destroy the environment). The comparison isn’t too wrong. So like he said, has the time come for machines to take the control from us?

It was a much awaited Saturday (1 March 2008) for me. No, not for the Speed Run 2008 being happening in Mumbai but for the ride I was going to make to Mumbai with the aim of attending the Speed Run and get some work done on the bike so that my life becomes a bit more safer. Nah, not getting a bullet proof cage getting build around it.

As destiny would have it, somehow I managed to carry on the flyover, which I was supposed to miss, to turn off for the Speed Run event. I got to know only after I went ahead by around 15km’s that I have come a bit too far ahead. The plan was quickly revised and I headed straight to Goregaon where my life was about to be transformed.

Just after 6pm, I started back towards Pune and by the time I managed to crawl past all Mumbai traffic it was 8pm when I refueled at Panvel. What was going to follow, I had not even dreamed off.

It’s a nice stretch of road with mild traffic all the way till Khopoli. I was cruising at my pace when I catch up three trucks traveling in left lane, as I was thinking of passing them, the last truck driver decided to make a move on the other two trucks. From my past experience, I knew I had to start slowing down as there is no way the truck driver will change his plans even if he is able to hear my bike’s horn. Few seconds later, as the truck driver was half way into the right lane, he decided to abort his plan (probably he saw me coming) and went back to left lane giving me a clean chit to overtake them. This move came to me as a shock.

Few kilometers down the road I catch up with a car overtaking two trucks. While I was waiting for the car to go pass, I was also getting ready to pass the car from left lane as I have not come across too many car drivers who care to move to left side letting the faster traffic pass them. Once again, I was made to change my plan as the moment car went pass the trucks, driver simply ducked to left lane, giving me once again a clean run to go by.

Well the above mentioned were just two of many instances where I must say I came across so many “nice” people who just simply allowed me go pass them with ease though I was on a much smaller vehicle (in size) than theirs. The count of such people I meet in one night can easily out number such people I would have meet in my 10+ years of riding.

I used to think that on Indian roads, jungle law is followed. Bigger vehicle has right of way. But how badly I was proved wrong on Saturday night; I just could not believe myself.

Telling half truth is as good as saying a lie. So what all I have said above is though not a lie but I have also not said complete truth as well.

What I have not told you guys is about the “life saver” I got installed on my bike. Well it’s not a bazooka (which I wish to get installed some day – may be once I turn dictator and take over the country. ;-))

Though I can post millions of pictures of the life save and write pages and pages about it still I might not be able to convey proper message so let me try to compare it with something, most of us would have experienced.

Illuminate your room with a 35W electricity bulb. Now put on a 100W tube light. Can you see any difference? If not then replace the tube light with the bulb after sitting in tube light for few minutes. Well that’s the difference between the stock 35W halogen shod head lamp and the HID (High Intensity Discharge) lamp.

HID lamp – the life saver I got installed on the bike. More detail about it later on.

Well, I still believe to what I said above, “I used to think that on Indian roads, jungle law is followed. Bigger vehicle has right of way”.

What made all those people turn “nice” that night was not just the nice nature (which I don’t discount that there are some nice people on road – Me for one ;-)) but the HID lamp’s power which was creating the similar discomfort which one would have faced thanks to the oncoming traffic with head lamp being used on high beam.

So what I have done is it legal? Morally should I have done it? Etc etc. These are some questions on which I’ll share my view points in my next post but for now I’ll just say one thing, if you have to ride in night on Indian roads on your two wheeler, dump those pathetic 35W head lamp unless, either you are willing to stick to a max speed of 40-50km/hr (that’s what I find is a safe speed) unless it is a well illuminated road or consider your life to be cheaper than those few hundred $’s one need to spend to get HID lamp fitted on the bike.

I was thinking of keying down these posts for long time but when I was replying to a thread on BN, I realized I need to take out some time and key in some of the moments from my past.

So, if you have time and are willing, come let’s walk …

Last night I got a chance to swing my leg over the new AVL 500 ala Machismo 500LB. Thanks to the owner of bike, Dr. Vistasp Sethna.

Starting the bike using the thumb was a breeze, no more decompressing the engine and kicking it is required but given a choice, I’ll go with the kick.

The clutch felt lighter than some of the other Bullets I have test ridden and the gear shift was smooth by Bullet standard. OK, once you get used to riding a Bullet, you don’t find these as a problem

Initially I was hesitant to pull the bike hard as I thought its still in running in but once I got the go ahead from the courageous owner sitting as pillion, I started to pull the bike. Since I was in city, I could run out of empty stretch but the bike would keep on pulling and pulling and pulling in 3rd and 4th gear and I had to short shift to top gear. Can’t wait to ride it on the open highway and looking at things, the day is not too far away.

Having owned and ridden a Bullet with drum and disc brakes, it was a relief to have disc upfront which was doing well to control the pace of the flying mass of 350+kg.

With bike making such a humongous amount of torque you are forgiven for being in a gear too high, while accelerating out of traffic.

What I miss in the bike is the sound and thump of the standard 350/500. Well you can’t have your share of pie and have it as well, right?

For a new bike, nearing 3,500km mark and which has just returned from a attempt to SS1600 in which, it managed to cover 1,400km in a day. I’m impressed by the bike but as I already own a Bullet, I’ll give it a miss. But I’m always welcome for a small stint on this bike any day, any time, any where

I’m looking forward for the day when I might get a chance to ride this torque monster out of city limits and a voice from deep inside me is saying, hang on the day is not too far away. So just wait for that day to come and a post from me sharing the experience I’m looking forward to. Till then work hard, ride harder.