[anjan_c2007]

Dilip Bam has of late reviewed the KTM 200 vis a vis the new Pulsar 200 NS.
He says that the price difference between the two is 40 % whereas power difference is less than 5 %.
- "Both bikes are Likvid (=Liquid) kooled and both produce @ 25 bhp of power."

- "Ready to Race weight of the KTM is 126 kg (without fuel), while the kerb weight (which means half tank fuel)of Pulsar 200 is 145 kg. KTM has 60/55 watt headlight power while Pulsar has 35 watts. KTM has fuel tank of 10.5 liters while Pulsar has 12 liters."

- "The biggest similarity between these two bikes is that both HAVE THE SAME ENGiNE! Both have bore of 72 mm and stroke of 49 mm. This is too much of a coincidence.
Hu (Jin Tao) is copying Hu (Yao Bang)?"

The link here:
DilipBam.Com

[John]

Loved his report on the Hyosung GT650N:

My first test ride towards Mulshi (my normal out-of-town test road) wasn’t very pleasant. It was @ 18:40 pm on Wed.9.Nov that I set out towards Mulshi with my wife (66 kg) pillion. Research has shown that 77% of married women who have had kids and have a living husband are 22-31% heavier than their husbands. This research seems to be true because I fall in this category. The vertical gap between me and my wife was tremendous. While the driver seat is comfortable, the pillion seat is almost way up in the sky! Though my 60 year old wife normally sits on a high social pedestal, she was not used to the physically high pedestal which the pillion seat of the GT650 gave her.

This bike would be most enjoyable to be driven on open highway with well endowed young 55 kg girlfriend sitting pillion and not 60 year old 66 kg wife.

Fantastic stuff!

[amitwlele]

This should rank as the best thread on the forum. I am kicking myself for missing out on this one all this while.

His website has a lot of material to go through. Have started reading the Autobiography and finished the 1st chapter. Superb writing skills.

[comfortablynumb]

Dilip Bam is in a league of his own.

I'd posted a question on his website via the Contact us link about a bike I am planning to buy. I was not very hopeful of getting an answer, but to my surprise, he did send me a very detailed reply, with the following gems in it:

"Servicing Experience: Same as most other authorized dealers==Faltu==poor."

"But will it's life be as long as Hero bikes? Who knows?
You can't go to heaven unless you die yourself.
YOU can't go to heaven by MY dying!"



Cheers,
Vikram

[anjan_c2007]

I quote Dilipji from his website in his write-up "Resale Value is Popat" where he puts forth his financial wizardry alongwith the BIKE ADVISE. He is famous for the latter but upon reading this one you'll also label him as a money wise person.
Here he goes with his Resale Value is Popat

"Resale value is a myth created by media hype. What is the
use of getting rs.5,000/- more after five years when you are paying much more for new bike today?? For example, the on road pune price of new 100 cc tvs star city with alloy wheels on 23 july 2007 was rs.40,830/-, while the on road pune price of exactly equivalent 100 cc hero honda nxg with alloy wheels on the same day was rs.47,073/- , which means you are today paying rs.6,243/- more for hh nxg. If you invest this rs.6,243/- in fixed deposit @ 10% per annum, then in five years it
becomes rs.10,054/-, and after five years inflation has eroded the value of this 10,054/- to less than half of what it would be today. So what"s the big deal about resale value?? "
"My rekommed is definitely tvs star city with self start (which hero honda nxg does not have). Tvs star city with self start on road in pune on the same day was rs.45,429/-, which is still rs.1,644/- less than hero honda nxg without self start on the same day ! Imagine what all you could do with the 1,644/- saved today than some 5,000/- which you (falsely - as shown above) dream of making sometime in the imagined distant future, bkoz "kal-ho-na-ho??" besides tvs star city has the longest seat designed for dubble seat (you are going to sit behind him, aren"t you? So don"t you wantto be komfortable?), better headlight beam quality (night safety) and best low-end-tork for tension free driving in traffik. As to maintenance, i have been regularly using tvs star city for two years and until today have not spent a single paisa on maintenance. I even took it on a rally (with 8 other bikes) from pune to kanyakumari and it performed beautifully and gave the best mileage among the 9 bikes."

[grazd]

What a legend. I was reading thru his Vietnam articles, and it seems pretty incredible. Some of the details are simply astounding. Does anyone know if a book is planned? It seems amazing that books with a thousand times less adventure are being published as travelogues. I hope he publishes or atleast gives a couple of talks, these incidents need to be preserved for posterity.

All his bike reviews reflect such a supreme middle-class common sense attitude as well. Thanks for sharing all those snippets, its an addictive read.

[anjan_c2007]

Some snippets from a road test carried out by Dilipji. His " victim " was the Escorts Toro Jazz and this was featured in Auto India of May 1996.

The article is entitled Toro, Toro, Toro!

He starts with " I wonder why Escorts chose to enter into moped manufacture at this time, when the moped segment of the two-wheeler market is the slowest growing.
I remember a couple of years ago Escorts was frantic about the Fantic moped, or fanatic about a fantastic moped, or some such thing.At that time I remember seeing Escorts fanatic test riders frantically taking fantastic test rides on fancy Fantic mopeds all around Pune, and then one day, it was fantastic how they just vanished from the roads as well as from the dealer's showroom."

His comments about the headlights : "The headlight is quite poor. Actually when the Toro came to me, the headlight beam was focussed towards the sky, with hardly any road visibility. This was rectified by tilting the headlamp, by loosening two screws on the sides of the headlamp housing.Even so, the Toro has the weakest headlight on two wheels as well as the poorest beam quality.This is not surprising as Escorts has a track record of starving even its flagship product- the RX 100- of electric power for ten long years, until the advent of the RX 100 MIC with 12 V electrics a couple of months ago."

An observation: " One curious thing about this bike is that it has a distinct tendency to pull on one side. I tried three other pieces. Thus, out of four pieces, two pulled to one side, while two did'nt.Therefore, if you decide to buy a Toro, go to the dealer, try out two/three pieces, choose the one that does not pull to one side and note down the engine and chassis number."

The verdict: "As to the noise, the roughness, the poor electrics and other stupidities, you've got to take a test ride and decide."

[Ajaybiz]

Latest from him "Dilip Bam was a Taxi Driver(Badge No.28151) in Mumbai 30 years ago. Read Confession of a Taxi Driver under Autobiography at DilipBam.Com. Published in DEBONAIR megazine (Indian Playboy) in August 1991."

[Maverick5490]

This is an unbelievable thread. Seriously not to read in the office, people are still looking at me wondering 'What's wrong with him'! Thanks for sharing guys!

[Bazinga]

Loved each and every post of his. Although me never read his articles before, a link to his own website was fantastic. No-nonsense reviews.
I am in Ninja250R - CBR250 dilemma from a long time and all the review I have read (EVeRyWherE) conclude with "Both are in different classes and it's up to users to decide on what to buy". Although the MAN gives his preference with solid points in his comparo. No Bakwaas and straight to the point.

Hilarious thread... Am hooked on to his articles for sure

[reswaran]

A snippet from his KTM 200 review:

I have mentioned above that the front forks of this KTM are USD. What the **** is USD? Well, USD stands for Up-Side-Down, but so what? Does it matter? Maybe, if it lowers the overall CG of the bike by having the heavier component lower down, the ‘g’ factor notwithstanding. ‘g’ factor is: acceleration due to gravity, which is 9.81 meters per second per second. The prime requirement is that the piston must reciprocate inside the cylinder to absorb the shocks. This can & does & must happen in all forks (****s?), whether the forks are USD (woman-0n-top) or DSU (man-on-top) makes no difference. Reciprocating motion is the only essential requirement for shock absorption as it is for conception and reproduction!

[anjan_c2007]

Dilip Bam road testing a Bajaj Sunny (India Auto September, 1990)

[ku69rd]

Dilip Bam has put in a new review on the famed TB500.

http://www.dilipbam.com/bikes/249-ro...rbird-500.html

As usual its fantastic

[am1m]

This man is the best! We get too many 'fan-boy' reviews of products these days. We NEED several more like him, highlighting the bad aspects of a vehicle and not afraid to compare vehicles head-to-head.

I always find the 'negative points/cons' list the best part of any vehicle review. It's the information one needs to make a decision on whether or not plonking money on this vehicle makes sense, or if the niggles are too much to overlook. For good points, there is always advertising and marketing, and 'owner reviews' that inevitably have large doses of post-purchase rationalization.

More power to Bamji, may his tribe increase!

[GTO]

Originally Posted by ku69rd

Dilip Bam has put in a new review on the famed TB500.

http://www.dilipbam.com/bikes/249-ro...rbird-500.html

God, I need to use more smileys here!

THUMPP !

eh? What’s that?

That’s the definition of Bullet ! The prime reason for buying Bullet is the soLLidd ThummpPp!

But this one is not THUMPiNG like the old one! What’s a Bullet without the soLLidd thummpPp?

Ya Troo=true. But why thumpPp is weak in this one?

Bkoz of the bluuddy L-o-0-O-0-o-N-G silencer. Imposed by Bharat Sir Caar ! Nissan Sunny is a CaaR, but Bullet is not a CaaR, so please don’t squeeze us SirCaaR (govt)! Plz XQZ=excuse us!

I could NOT understand how to adjust the rear shoX. I did not get any hard copy 0wners Manual with the bike. The website does not show how. My conclusion: THE REAR SHOX ARE NOT ADJUSTABLE. Either I am wrong or Enfield is wrong or both are wrong.

So if finance is NOT a constraint – it never is for Bulleteers – you might as well go for the 500 rather than the 350: Why go for Mallika Sherawat when Pamela Anderson is available? Or like Pamela Anderson said, “Why go for Hrithik when Dilip is available?”

For the Zer0-to-sixty acceleration test, I timed Rishi on 3-runs upward and 3-runs downward – to balance out the slope factor. The 3-upward runs timed an average of 4.74 sec, and downwards timed an average of 4.36 sec. So the “as measured” Zer0-to-sixty figure would be 4.74+4.36 divided by 2, that is 9.1 divided by 2, that is 4.55 seconds.