My Yezdi Adventure: What I learnt after spending a year with the bike

I have never bottomed out the suspension so far, not even once. Braking is good, however the feel from the lever is a bit vague.

BHPian Boringrider recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi everyone,

I am posting a small update on my bike as I am well past the 1-year mark and the odo reading is now around 7k kms.

Did I make the right purchase or do I regret my decision and Jawa/Yezdi are the most cursed bike brand in the world? The answer to that varies wildly with most warriors trusting the latter however I don't regret it though it's not very popular online or offline and that is something you have to learn to live with.

The Engine:

As mentioned in my previous 5k km update, the vibes and the unsettled nature of the engine have smoothened out and is now comfortably in place. The rev range can be explained as follows - start with 2000rpm or else you will stall, 2-4000rpm moving along with the initial torque delivery, 4000-6000 rpm the sweet spot where the engine comes alive and the grunt is on display, 6000rpm and above - peak surge and aggressive pushing with the vibes kicking in. There are no indications of a redline on the tacho with the numbers going all the way upto 12,000 rpm. Did that explain anything in detail about the ride to you? Definitely not to me.

First, let's get the touring part out of the way as I believe this is what you should be ideally doing on this bike. It can maintain triple digit speeds effortlessly, without any hesitation or strain. It needs to be put into 6th gear for it, you can do it in 5th as well but then you'll be deep into 7-8k rpm territory and the engine will resonate so much with your entire body that your left hand and leg will instinctively reach out for the next gear. Like I said, there is no indication of any "redline" on the display. It's just one white colour all the way to 12,000 rpm. However, I am not taking this as an invitation to go there.

The peak delivery feels to kick in somewhere around 6-6500 rpm and anything beyond that is flat out hard which is quite an adrenaline-filled experience to have but those situations will occur rarely as you need the emptiest of roads to have that. The max I've revved up to was 8k rpm and honestly, that experience left me speechless quite literally. It was so much to take in and I was loving every moment of it. So, the main question you have? If you want to but it for touring, you sure can sit at speeds of 100-110kmph for hours at a stretch at 6000rpm. There are some minor vibes creeping in at that point but that's just a matter of time to get accustomed to. It really is not the end of the world as online reviews would have you believe. It's standard fare and I got used to it even without gloves. I bought the Viaterra Grid now and I expect it to be ironed out a bit further. The vibes are felt at the pegs, underneath the tank and a tiny amount on the handlebars. However, nothing unsettling or deal-breaking about it. For those of you wanting an even smoother experience, you would have to reduce your speed a little, because at 90-100kmph in 6th gear, it just glides past everything, but the tradeoff is longer time taken to get to your destination. Or just buy a twin-cylinder if you're not satisfied. There's really not much else to do. And before you have this myth that other brands have it all figured out with single cylinder engines and Yezdi is this yesteryear brand stuck in the Stone Age, I did get a chance to ride some of the apparently sorted out single cylinder machines, including some Japanese engines. Trust me, when it gets to the top end, almost all of them are the same, with rev ranges being the difference. Even the gearbox on the Yezdi feels much more engaging and firmer than most others. I'm not taking names here because there are more keyboard warriors, fanboys and trolls than what I would like to see.

Bonus points for the Himalayan - I couldn't be happier with my decision here. It felt out of it's place in nearly every single thing I experienced. The worst offenders being the gearshifts and the refinement gives up even sooner than the Yezdi. Gearshifts on the Himalayan need a thorough sequence of planning, engagement, wait time and final execution. On the Yezdi, it's just the blink of an eye.

Riding in the city, of course it can do it but you will need a lot of clutching, de-clutching, Revving up to keep it moving. The radiator fan stays on almost the entire length of your ride. Not sure if this is normal but it is what it is. Tight squeezing in gaps is not always possible due to the wide handlebars. Turning radius is excellent. You can make quick U-turns without hopping over to the other lane. Overall, city commutes are best enjoyed during late night rides or early mornings. Will I pick this for my daily office commute? No way. I tried hard but no, there are other ways for me to get by so No.

I know I just made it sound like the worst bike in the world after just praising it in the previous paragraphs, it's not even that bad honestly but just to give you a realistic sense of what you would be getting yourself into if your primary use case involves lot of city riding. In fact, I look forward to riding my bike at least once a week even in the busiest of traffic.

Handling:

As previously mentioned, nimble and easily changes directions for it's size. One thing I would like to add is that the handlebars are stable at high speeds due to their heft. They never seem to lose their composure. I've noticed this most during city rides, even if you take both your hands off the handle, they stay pointed straight without tilting to any side much. Not that you should be doing it often anyway, but another neat little observation I had.

Corner carving is not my thing so I cannot really tell you if the tyres are ten times grippier or they're the worst known tyres to mankind. To me, they're great and that's about it. I do take corners but boringly and sedately, without tipping much and not at high speeds either. It's just not my type of riding. Same with wet conditions, I always assume all tyres are risky on the wet so I become extra slow anyway so no comments there either.

Braking & Suspension:

Ticks off the right boxes here again. I have never bottomed out the suspension so far, not even once. Braking is good, however the feel from the lever is a bit vague, especially the rear one. It does work but without any feel and then it seems to slow down a lot faster than you want, leaving you confused. I did have a minor fall, in which the rear brake lever got bent and now points upwards a bit towards your foot which needs to be straightened out. I pointed this out during service and they did fix it but it still seems a little out of place. Apart from this, no major complaints. The brakes work well, it's just that the feeling of squeezing the lever a bit more than you are comfortable with takes getting used to.

I have already sung high praises about the suspension and it continues to deliver so nothing to add there.

Fuel efficiency is constant at around 26-27kmpl, whether you ride it hard or not. Is this a good or bad number, I leave it to you.

Servicing costs and experience - Again, well in line for a bike of this class, no big surprises on that front either. Service centre staff are helpful and do help in solving most of the issues.

The one issue I faced was with the battery replacement. The bike would refuse to start when cold unless I put it in 2nd gear and jump started it. Once the engine was warmed up, it would start cranking normally and everything was fine. The service interval was coming up soon so I left it as it is for a few days and when I took it for service, explained and demonstrated it to them. They checked and apparently there was some fault with the battery and it needed a replacement. I was ok with this as I had still had warranty on everything and the bike was not even 1 year old. Also, batteries do not give out so early so I was relying on the battery warranty.

Here is where things take a stupid turn. The service centre calls me up and they tell me that it's a Tata Green-Yuasa battery which has a warranty of only 6 months for OEM parts. I checked the Tata battery website and showed them clearly that it had a 12 month warranty for that specific model and I was well within the time period to claim it. But they said, that's only for batteries which you purchase at your own expense, for the battery which comes fitted out of the factory, it's only 6 months. I refused to believe it and suspected the dealership was trying to avoid this whole ordeal that's why they were making this story up. So, I called the customer care number on Tata Green's website and they confirmed the same. It makes no sense to me how this can be justified when it's the same model and spec but it is what it is, I guess.

I've never seen a battery give up so early, especially when it's from a renowned brand like Yuasa which is found on even higher class bikes. The replacement model costs Rs.8,000 out-of-pocket which I was not ready to spend that much on. Went ahead with an Amaron battery instead after asking for recommendations in the owner's group and the service centre also suggested the same. This incident did shoot up the service bill by a bit but there was no other choice.

Another failed experience which I would like to highlight is the so-called Roadside Assistance which didn't actually assist me at all. I had a puncture in the front tyre which I noticed mid-way during a commute in the city. I had to push the bike with the flat tyre to the nearest puncture shop which was at least a km or two away. For added context, all this is happening during peak Chennai summer with a pillion who now has to walk along with me and actually has some place to get to.

Fortunately, we get to the nearest shop who is also confident enough to work on removing the front tyre and getting to the tube but the bike does not have a centre stand so he's trying to balance it on an old bucket kept under the radiator, which slowly gives way and I luckily spot it just in time and prevent this giant from falling completely. Then it's balanced soley on a heavy duty ring spanner, inserted in to the front suspension. The tube has a hole, so it needs to be replaced but he doesn't have the right size tube. It's Sunday evening, so the tyre shops are not open and they're kilometres away from where we are. The puncture shop offered to patch the tube with a piece of rubber and sealing it with the tube through a heating machine which he had but this would take some time and I didn't want to trust this jugaad repair when I could easily get a new tube in and forget it.

I told him to hold off on this as I was calling the roadside assistance and explaining the situation to them. At first, they asked for my location and told me they'll call back in 15 minutes. 15-20 minutes later, they called back and asked me if the bike had a centre stand to which I said No. So they told me they can't work on it. Instead they would send a tow-truck and have it towed to the service centre. This seemed pointless as it was Sunday evening and I wouldn't get my bike back. I explained to him that the front wheel was already off the bike, all they had to do was bring a brand new tube to me, it could be quickly replaced and we fix the front wheel back in and off we are but they flat-out refused to do this as "there is no centre stand." They were fine with towing and the huge effort it would take to do all that but not bring a simple tube and fix it when the front wheel is already out.

The sheer stupidity of this exchange left me not wanting to deal with them anymore and I went ahead with the patch repair job which seemed to be done quite evenly. And I'm still riding with that to this day, with no issues. All this happened right near Marina Beach. If this is the experience inside the city in a well populated area, I don't know what to expect when you're really stranded out in the middle of nowhere. Just pray for the tow-truck to arrive soon. My pillion rider had to take a cab separately to his destination as this took nearly 2 hours to fully resolve.

Keeping new spare tubes for too long is also not an option as they tend to degrade over time. Just buy some before a long ride, maybe.

Accessories Purchased - Viaterra Grid full gauntlet gloves and Viaterra Claw tailbag for touring.

Coming to the conclusion of my long-winded rambling, I don't think I really have much to complain with my ownership. The rusting, fit and finish levels have been talked about. It's a good first-gen product but if it shows no improvements on these missed areas, it won't last long enough to capture the market which it aims to do.

Every time I look at the Dominar, I can only feel the failure of Bajaj but no point in dwelling on it. Every time I look at the Interceptor, there have been times where I think what if but I know eventually I made the right pick because when I break down the Interceptor as a bike, the only part RE nailed was the engine and the pricing. Yes, some will argue that the engine is what makes a bike what it is but I would not agree with that. The other parts also need to come together with the engine to provide the right experience. A bike cannot function in isolation with the engine alone. You need the seats, the suspension and various other things in combination. I am sure at some point, RE is going to take the 650 engine in an ADV/Scrambler format, and I'll revisit the RE showroom at that point probably. But first I need to do enough riding to justify upgrades.

I did plan on going the entire distance of being a "biker" and purchasing a riding jacket, riding pants, boots, the centre stand after the puncture ordeal but so far I only have gloves and the luggage. The truth is I haven't been doing enough riding, nowhere close to what I thought I would be doing and not even close enough to justify spending all that money. My gloves are sitting brand-new unused from the last 2 months. And the straight answer is, my mental health is not in the best of shape. That, coupled with transitioning to a new workplace. Well, the work is just a convenient excuse because I have had 2 opportunities in the past where I had a week or two off (like 5-10 days off from work) with lots of riding and mega tours planned, but all I did was stay at home.

I don't want to go into too much personal details here so I won't bore you with my life story. And this is an automotive forum, there are other forums to discuss these things. For people who don't suffer from these conditions, it's just weird to explain because most of them can't relate to it. I don't blame them either because I used to be on the other side earlier. It's just very weird because when I didn't have the time and/or money to afford all this, all I could think of was how much I'm going to do it and how enjoyable it is all going to be. And now when I'm actually at a stage where I can somewhat afford these passions, they're just standing there in the parking, in their packaging. Am I giving up? Not really, not yet.

No worthwhile pictures to add.

Take care of your health, both physical and mental. These things are important. Ride safe and invest in quality products. Your life is worth more than some riding gear costs, fuel efficiency figures, service costs which you claim to save. This is aimed at both car & bike buyers. You do have to go a little out of your budget range but the benefits which you will reap intangibly and tangibly should things go wrong, will be well worth it. This is the least controversial way of sharing my opinion so take it lightly.

To the fanboys and trolls, keep being yourself so I know who to steer clear of.

Unrelated Side Note: I did see a bobber-style version of the Classic 350 being tested on Chennai roads while on an office commute on a regular weekday. I am not even sure I can call it a bobber because it did have a rear seat but the seat height was lowered quite a bit from the Classic and it didn't have any grab rail at the rear end. The front speedo was from the Classic 350 and the engine looked and sounded like the new J-Series engines. It was not the 650 (before you get too excited).

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.