Over the hedge

The big sellers on two wheelers in Bangladesh are Hero Honda, Yamaha, TVS and Bajaj. Let's find out what they've been up to this year.
Hero MotoCorp has been dabbling in the sub 250cc category bikes ever since they existed. And now they've come up with the HX250R 250cc motorcycle. They're probably going to give it a name-name instead of one just prefixed by letters. Think Karizma with more oomph. To be launched by September 2014, the bike features a 249cc, single-cylinder, 4-valve engine with liquid-cooling and fuel-injection to produce 31 BHP (at 9000 RPM) and 26 Nm torque. With the now customary 6-speed transmission, this lightweight machine should hit 100kmph in under 8 seconds. Finally Indian bikes can start claiming 0-100 kmph times instead of the unusual 0-60 kmph times. This is quite an advanced bike for the Indian market, with 5-step adjustable monoshock and a three piston front caliper. Sadly the best we'll get is the 150R. Full body kit but a very high price, at about 5 lakh taka.

Bajaj has taken a massive departure from their tried and tested styling with the new twin pair of 400cc bikes. This is the first time an Indian street bike has hit the 400cc mark. Both the Pulsars get full fairing and the yellow one is aptly named Bumblebee, if Bumblebee were to transform into a two-wheeler. They feature sharp styling to keep abreast of the best trends penned by the European maestros. There's no confirmed specs for the engine, but it is most likely the KTM 390 engine that pumps out 44 bhp at 9500rpm. Bajaj will have many KTM related goodies since the companies formed a partnership.

TVS is working on a concept called the Draken. Pretty aggressive naming there. 250cc engine is estimated to produce 25 bhp. Shouldn't that be higher, since the liquid cooled engine is developed by TVS Racing? They manage to squeeze out a whole lot of juice out of those tiny 100-150cc engines. The design cues are similar to the asymmetrical cues followed by BMW. The tank has an offset fuel cover with headlights styled in the asymmetrically. It's supposed to have ABS and inverted shocks for better weight balancing.

The Suzuki Gixxer GS150R is something that is closer to our reach than the others, main thing being it is a 150cc machine on par with the other contenders out there like the Honda Trigger and Yamaha FZ-S. The Suzuki comes with disc up front, drums at the rear, electric start and a rear mono shock to balance things out. With sharp and front heavy styling similar to the Yamahas, it should be a big seller if the pricing is right. Slotted to be released in July of this year, let's wait and see how it fares when it comes to our shore.