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My Motorcycle Journey: From a Honda Unicorn to a CBR 250R

30th June 2021, 14:26 by Chirag Moro

So, it was then that I decided that I need to buy a RX100 (which I did for a brief period in 2016), and my fascination with two wheelers started that day. Every single bike that was released after that caught my attention.

BHPian tchsvy recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

How should the thread be? Informative? Nah, I don’t even know the basics. Entertaining? Woah, I don’t have a funny bone, I am boring guy! Shall I start with explorative, like four wheelers move the body, two wheelers…. Cliché! Okay, let’s start from the beginning, let me just tell you a story! yeah this sounds better!

I wasn’t exactly a motorhead from childhood, I never had a poster of a Sports bike or a Sportscar on my wall, my dreams were (are) basic, never dreamt big. I was happy with collecting pens, occasionally exchanging my old watch for a new one, and then if there was a handheld device that I can afford, like Walkmans (I had a Panasoanic portable cassette player during my plus two days, notice the spelling, yeah it was Panasoanic indeed!), Gameboys (again Chinese ones), I would just save for few months and then after like 3 or 4 months, bug my parents to shell more money to get something, that’s about it.

So, when did I first encounter automobiles for the first time? It was the early nineties when my father was posted in a remote location. To reach the village, we had to walk 3 km, that’s how remote the village was. There was a single Maruti 800 in the village that belonged to a rich family, for some weird reason that car was called as a ‘Frog car’ by the villagers, I don’t know why. Then there were few two wheelers, mostly Bajaj Chetaks, and IIRC a couple of Hero Honda CD100s. The general thinking was, if you had a Car, then you are rich, you have made it in life, Chetaks were for commuting and if you a motorcycle then you belong to the crème of the middle class. So, for a young tchsvy, the early impression was that bikes are premium things!

Then came 2000, just completed my plus two and one of my aunts was getting married. On the day of the engagement, my to-be-uncle arrived on a RX100, with all the bling in the world, from Hyderabad to my grandparent's village covering 175 km. My father and other relatives were cracking jokes on the fuel economy of the RX100 and at the same time wondering how rich my uncle might be for owning such a vehicle. That talk along with the mighty RX attracted me to the world of two wheelers. It was just then that I had also started to learn about two wheelers. My dad used to have a Bajaj Chetak, but he would never let me ride it, so it was maternal uncle who was kind enough to give me his scooter sending down two of my cousins so that they could teach me. I started with a wheelie, so you can say my interest in two wheelers sky rocketed on that day.

So, it was then that I decided that I need to buy a RX100 (which I did for a brief period in 2016), and my fascination with two wheelers started that day. Every single bike that was released after that caught my attention, Bajaj Caliber, Suzuki Fiero, Bajaj Wind, Hero Honda CBZ, Bajaj Pulsar, oh boy, I wanted each and every one of them. Bajaj changed the ‘premium commuter motorcycle’ market big time with the launch of Pulsar, I dearly wanted one during my post-graduation days, but couldn’t afford.

Honda Unicorn (2005-2013)

(Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of my Uni, but (un)fortunately, the current owner doesn't believe in traffic rules. This one pic I managed to get from the Hyderabad traffic police challan portal).

After completion of the post-graduation, I needed to have a two wheeler as every interview that I attended during that period used to end with a question, ‘do you have a two wheeler?’ My answer would be negative and I would lose that opportunity.

But being a caring father that my dad is (the ‘Bommarillu father’ type as we call it in AP and Telangana), he never wanted me to ride a bike, interesting when you consider he owned six different two wheelers starting from Priya Scooters to Yezdi in his younger days. It took a lot effort from me and my mother to convince him. He finally agreed and withdrew 60K from his PF, that was a significant amount for him, may be equal to or even more than his two-month salary. So, as per the middle-class tradition, you start your bargain from the top-of-the-line motorcycle and your father will start from the basic motorcycle then you both will arrive at a mid-tier motorcycle, that’s how it goes on normally. I wanted a Yamaha Libero G5, why? My friend used to own a Libero, and I really liked how refined it was, that’s about it. But as per the procedure, I started my bargain with the Honda Unicorn, my dad started with Hero Honda Passion. I tried to bring him to Libero, but he outright rejected it, saying he would never let me ride a Yamaha. Why? RD350, RX100, Yamahas are fast and furious! I hadn’t done my research at that point, so I did not have a single clue about other bikes. I decided to stick with Unicorn, dad was adamant that it has to be a Hero Honda. Convinced him enough to take a look at the Unicorn which he thankfully agreed to. Both of us, along with a bike mechanic my dad trusted, went to the District headquarters to book either Unicorn or the Passion.

Here comes little drama at the Honda showroom, Unicorn was originally launched in 2004, and in 2005, Honda introduced a second generation Unicorn with sticker job and supposedly few changes to the engine as well. I wanted one in grey color, but the second gen Unicorn wasn’t available with the dealership in grey color. However, a first-gen Unicorn in grey color was available. The SA asked us to book one in grey and he will get it in a couple of weeks’ time. My father took the opportunity and told him that he wanted to buy a bike on that day itself and he will go to the Hero Honda showroom and get me a Passion. I, on the other hand, didn’t want to be seen on the Passion, it was quite common bike on the roads those days. I wanted to ride something that stood out from the crowd. I was adamant on getting the Unicorn. The manager, a blessed soul, offered a solution that he will change the body panels on the second-gen black Uni to the first-gen grey Unicorn that they had in the stock. That was best of both worlds for me as I hated the sticker job on the second-gen Unicorn. I instantly agreed, but my father rejected the idea. He argued that the perfect marriage of body panels and soul (engine) carried out at factory shall not be disturbed, but I persisted and he finally gave up. And frankly speaking, he was right, the panel gaps were never consistent and there were few fitment issues that lasted forever.

So, I got my first bike, a Honda Unicorn. First Unicorn in my hometown, one look at it and people used to say “Ghoda hai!” (Looks like a horse!) It was indeed a reliable steed, server me until 2013, when the odo read somewhere near 70k km. I also have to admit here, in the initial couple of years, every ride I did with the Unicorn would have ended in the Bad Drivers thread on this forum. I was young, with 13.5 horses between my legs, I did many of the things on a bike that shouldn’t be done in the first place. Met with few accidents too, one, too serious that permanently damaged my knees, and to this day, I can’t walk for too long. Was going to Miryalaguda from Hyderabad with my young cousin riding pillion. The Addanki Highway from Narketpally to Addanki was under construction, every tree on the way had a board stating the speed limit as 20 km/h. It was getting dark and with all the paddy fields on the way, there were too many bugs in the air causing a great disturbance, so what did I do? Wrung the throttle and rode at 80 km/h. Result? A little slippery material on the road, and the bike lost traction, my cousin jumped off the bike, I was with the bike sliding for what seemed like an eternity. Fortunately, there was no traffic behind, otherwise it could have been a fatal accident. Somehow avoided a culvert and found myself in a small ditch with dirt, blood all over my hands, knees and legs. Riding gear you might be asking, I had a helmet and jeans jacket on, that’s about it. Due to his jump my cousin’s ankle twisted a little, which by god’s grace only required a pink bandage and had few small scratches here and there. First instinct was to check on him, relieved to know that he was fine then looked at myself. I had bruised knees, skinned outside of the right hand with no skin from elbow to wrist, both wrists bruised heavily. The knees were so severely bruised that it took me six months to wear a pant again, and it took me even more time to wear shoes. Yes, I attended an interview wearing flipflops! There were two more occasions when the bike slid on wet surfaces, resulting in few bruises. Apart from these, I had a whale of a time with the Unicorn, it served me well. Learnt all my lessons on the Unicorn. In some ways, it was one of the few companions during my tough times. Had many long rides on the Uni, but in 2013 decided to sell it off and buy another Honda with self-start. With a heavy heart, I bid adieu to the Uni.

Honda Trigger (2013-2016)

(Again, I don't have any pics of my trigger, this is lifted from the google search).

So I got a new job in 2012, settled down a little bit, life felt stable after long periods of struggle from 2005 to 2012. Come 2013, I wanted to replace the ageing Uni. Things on my mind, it has to be a Honda, but this time it has to be one with self-start, The kick start on the Uni was so hard, it left few marks on my leg, I wasn’t ready for that. Wanted to replace the Unicorn with Unicorn Dazzler, but Honda replaced the Dazzler with Trigger, and I was triggered to replace my Uni with the Trigger.

There wasn’t much drama with Trigger, neither buying it or owning it. It served me well, it was a little hungry bike compared to Uni. Except that, it fulfilled my requirements, was one good bike to ride. The ownership experience from 2013 to 2016 was fuss free.

Suzuki Access 125 (2016- )

Got married in 2014, my wife was finding it difficult to hop onto the Trigger, even the DMart/Spencers runs were not exactly fun on the Trigger. Meanwhile, my father-in-law wanted to purchase a scooter, I casually suggested a Vespa and he picked up a VXL150. The first time I rode it, I was impressed. It was not anything like the scooters that I rode before, engine felt peppy, suspension setup was really good, and the braking was next level compared to the Activas and Dios. I immediately wanted one until I heard the on-road price. It was Rs. 1.05 lakhs at that time. Later that year, Aprilia started accepting bookings for the SR150 at a mouthwatering price. By that time, I had just welcomed a kid into my life, my savings were nil. Still somehow, I booked a SR on the Paytm website, thinking I can cancel the booking if needed. A month or two later, got a call from the showroom telling me that the test ride vehicles reached the showrooms and I can take a test ride, I went there with my wife, and found the seat can only accommodate me, a six footer, and that the suspension was too track oriented, too stiff for daily use. Immediately cancelled the booking, Paytm didn’t cancel it and they said they can’t return my booking amount, I had to go through pgportal to get my money back. A Suzuki showroom was very close to the Aprilia/Vespa showroom in Malakpet, so visited the showroom and took a test ride of the ‘All new Access 125’ with my wife riding pillion. It was the second-best experience I had on a scooter after the Vespa VXL150. So zeroed in on the Access.

Like I said, I had no savings left with me, and this is a pattern you are going to observe in my next purchase as well. I am impulsive, but do I regret? Well, mostly not! One of my friends who really liked my Trigger told me that he will buy my Trigger. What more, he himself offered to finance the remaining amount, which I can return whenever I can. Friends, I tell you are the real treasure! So, I got myself an All new Access 125.

First two bike purchases were necessities, this time it was more of a want than a need. The excuse I had at the time was, a scooter would be fuss free in Hyderabad traffic and that my wife would be far more comfortable on the scoot and the grocery/vegetable runs would be far more convenient. The Access is serving me well. It has great balance and brakes for a scooter, initial pickup is good with reasonable top end, can cruise at 60 km/h comfortably all day long. Pathetic A.S.S. is only sour grape in the ownership of the scoot.

The Jawa Conundrum (2019)

2016-18 was the most turbulent time in my life. I went through a lot professionally and personally, by God’s grace everything sorted out by the end of 2018. So once everything settled down, the bug to get back to ‘real biking’ started to bite, excuse given this time was that the scooter’s stiff suspension was giving my back a hard time. By this time, my family had given up on me, and they decided I have already lost my mind and there was no point in raising concerns. By the beginning of 2019, I started to clear my debts. With absolutely no savings, I went on to book a Jawa 42, telling my family that by the time a bike is delivered to me, I will have enough savings to buy one.

So booked one in March, and the long wait started. After a couple of years that were filled with stress and depression, my family was happy that I was excited about something. Now we started to wait for the day that I will be called to make the final payment. Meanwhile I started to do my own research on the 42, every source I can find on the internet. My excitement can be seen here on the Jawa thread, posting various news every now and then. I haven’t been active on the social media, but for the sake of Jawa 42, I started to browse them every day. Jawa’s official pages, fan pages, owners’ pages, some guy’s vlogs, you name it, I was follower of all these on the net. And that’s how exactly I lost my interest in Jawa.

I almost forgot to tell you, why I chose Jawa. Like I said, my father used to own a Yezdi in his younger days, and there’s a certain charm to Jawas and Yezdis, so when CLPL announced their bike, I was very excited. They did a tremendous job on the design front, they are beautiful. Went on to test ride one and instantly fell in love with the 42, the same connection that I have felt when I test drove the Nissan Micra Active. One more test ride was enough for me to book it there and then.

Now coming back to the point, as I started to follow fans and owners’ pages on the social media, quite a few problems were listed there. It all started with rusting issues, CLPL responded with different bolts and some rust proof paint at the end of the exhausts. Seat is really short, if you are six feet like me, then there is little space for the pillion, you need to visit your friendly neighborhood upholster to get a new seat, not exactly a good thing. The lambda sensor was faulty on most of the Jawas that were delivered, company was providing a replacement, again good on CLPL’s part. The fuel gauge was faulty and moisture was getting inside the meter console, no solution for this from CLPL. The final thing that bothered me was the reported low ground clearance when center stand is installed. Every bike has its own shortcomings, and even though CLPL was taking care of few issues, I need to visit their service center to sort them out. But all the three showrooms in Hyderabad are at least 25 km from my place, add to that, it’s impossible for me to get those many Casual Leaves just to get my bike sorted. Thought long and hard, I wanted to put stressful days behind me, but still the work was giving enough stress. Didn’t want to add a miniscule level of it to my already loaded mind. With a heavy heart, I dropped the idea of purchasing the 42.

Honda CBR250R (2019 - )

When I dropped the idea of buying the Jawa, my brain became a little sane and started to question the decision of pouring two lakh rupess into a bike and emptying my savings. The stupid heart was still set on a bike though. Like I always do, bargained with my mind, and arrived at a decision that buying a reasonably premium bike in the preowned market with a set budget of 1 lakh rupees would be best idea, I will be getting a new toy and will be having at least one lakh in savings account.

So, once this decision was taken, O informed my family about it, and surprisingly they were disappointed that I wasn’t buying the Jawa. I drove my family mad with all my trivia about the 42 in the last 9 months or so. My search for a preowned bike began on the OLX, visited the classifieds section on this forum every day. Initially, I started with three bikes in mind - CBR250R, FZ25 and Dominar, with CBR250R being the first choice. With that, started to refine my search.

CBR250R, manufactured after 2015, with less than 30k km on the odo - this was the search criteria. Most of the CBRs on these online platforms were beaten, with various levels of modifications carried out. Wanted a bone stock bike in good condition. Took my time, and found one in reasonably good condition with 27K km on the odo. The previous owner took good care of it, but the rear tyre needed to be replaced. We couldn’t agree on a final price though. I kept it my shortlist and continued my search. One fine Sunday, my brother-in-law who is into automobile sector and who’s judgment I trust, came to visit me, I suggested that we go bike hunting. He readily agreed and shortlisted two bikes to check out. The first bike we checked out had some 8K km on the odo, but the right side panels were broken at places and the bike pulled to right. It was apparent that the bike met with an accident but the owner insisted it just fell down, engine was in pretty good condition though. We decided to pass it and went to the second bike on the list.

Like I said, the budget set aside for the bike was 1 lakh, and the two bikes that we checked out were listed at 1.05-1.15 region, we were ready to spend 80-85K on them. But the third bike was listed at 1.6 lakhs, way over our budget, even with hard bargaining, it will definitely be more than the set budget. Now, we got impulsive, sat down in the car, started the engine, and my brother-in-law for some reason was pumped up and he went on to say “we will check the next bike out, we will offer him 1.3 lakhs and get the bike, are you on this?” I just nodded my head and said yes! And that’s exactly how it happened but not without some confusion and hilarity. We went there and checked the bike out, the bike has run just 5500 KMs and was in pristine condition. Apart from a minor scratch on the heat shield of the exhaust, there wasn’t a single scratch on the bike. We really liked the bike and the whole conversation went on like this:

My BIL to me: “Bike’s really good, we shall start the bargain from 1.1L. I know he won’t accept it, but we have to play it cool and eventually land him at 1.3, what do you say?”

Me: “Yes, sounds like a plan!”

My BIL to the previous owner: “Bro 1.3 is what we offer, hard cash, now, transfer of ownership within a week”

I was like, “what, we were to play it cool no bro?”

The previous owner started the downhill from 1.5 and eventually agreed to let it go at 1.3, now comes the hilarious part.

Now that we needed to pay him 1.3 lakhs, my brother-in-law was supposed to pay the amount which I would return in couple of days, but he forgot his debit card in his car. The account number of the previous owner was added to my brother-in-law’s account but due to some limitations, we were able to transfer 40 thousand only, then we started to play the Google Pay, PhonePe and JoBhiPe game on our mobiles. Kudos to the previous owner, who patiently waited for all the money to be transferred to his account which took more than one hour, but eventually we completed the transaction and left from there with a wide and stupid grin on our faces.

These motorcycles I tell you, make you do all the stupid things in the world, for them and with them.

Now wait a second, I didn’t even do a proper requirements study prior to the purchase. So, does it make any sense to buy a CBR250R for city commutes through thick Hyderabad traffic, where I hardly get to engage the third gear, let alone 5th and 6th? Hell, no sir! The Jawa with decent low-end grunt, or the Classic 350 with the famous locomotive pull, or the FZ25 with good bottom end torque makes more sense than the baby ceeber. But I just wanted a CBR, I told myself, if it gets too cumbersome to ride the CBR, then I have the Access as a backup. Add to that, at that time I was 35 years old, and any bike with fairing was not supposed to be driven by a 35 year old. In fact, when I first took it for a wash, I heard the owner of the wash shop say to other gentleman, “they race on these on necklace road, they all do”. So, that’s how the bike is still perceived by the aam junta.

So, I put more than half of my savings into a bike that doesn’t even make any sense, so was it worth it?

As far as the bike was concerned, I was at home with it. I got hang of the riding position and the ergonomics. But it took me nearly 10 days to understand the gearing. I am an early shifter, but with the baby ceeber, you need to hold on to the gears for a little longer compared to the commuter bikes. As far as gripping the tank with knees, fortunately when I had the Unicorn, during one of the numerous repair works to the Uni, I happened to visit the Secunderabad ASC of Honda, and they had an informative chart in the lounge with good riding practices. One of them was gripping the tank with the knees and staying with the bike in the event of mishaps. This was exactly what saved me during my slide on the Unicorn. I am so sure because, one of my cousins who met with a small accident where someone abruptly entered his lane and he braked hard to avoid a collision, his bike’s tyres lost traction and he started to fall, he tried to put his hand and leg on the ground, which resulted in multiple fractures in his hand and leg, for which he had to undergo few surgeries.

In the city, I have already mentioned, it doesn’t make any sense, but boy take it out of the city boundaries and it puts a wide grin on your face. Take it to the open roads, and let me tell you this, the bike deserves every single rupee spent on it. By the way I have named it ‘Hisan’, horse in Arabic, my steed.

Got it serviced at the nearest ASC, which proved to be a wrong decision. Couple of BHPians suggested me to get it serviced at either Secunderabad or Erragadda, but chose the Moosarambagh ASC and those guys kept the bike with them for two days, and the only thing they did in those two days was remove the front sprocket cover which they forgot to fix back while returning the bike. Realized this after a couple of days, reached the ASC in anger and they blamed me for taking the bike back just after two days! They offered to service the bike then and there, hindsight I should have said no, but agreed and handed over the bike to them. Overall, not happy with the service quality and needed to visit the ASC one more time to adjust a few things.

Since then, till date I have covered 9000 km on the bike, did few semi-long trips to various places surrounding Hyderabad, and its has been a pleasure riding it. When you think about it, the baby ceeber is all you need in our Indian conditions, its reliable, offers decent comfort levels, can tour all day long, can do decent speeds, and return 30 km/l all the time, so what more do you need! But then again, this is a dangerous motorcycle to upgrade to from a commuter class, not because its too fast or cant be managed by a noob rider, but because it introduces us to proper bikes and lets us experience what a good bike can do, there starts the rabbit hole, you want this quality in more quantity, that’s where I am right now, I ‘want’ something more. Do I ‘need’ anything more, hell no, but I want. Let’s hope that I will eventually climb up the ladder and land something unthinkable, here’s to hope!

Enough with the talk, now for a few pics!