Observations from India
As the title suggests I’m in India at the moment, not riding unfortunately but as motorcycles make up around 50% of the vehicles I’m seeing on the roads I’ve found a couple of differences to motorcycling in NZ.
First up, wrapped pipes are out, wrapping your crash bars with rope is in.
The Thumper Cafe sticker was on the side of the tidy Enfield. I’ll try and get there next week.
A bit further up the same street was a TVS dealership. TVS are a local manufacturer that produce scooters and small bore naked commuter bikes.
Next door to TVS was a Yamaha dealer, the Yamaha store seemed to only have scooters and small bore commuters as well, though Yamaha’s bikes looked pretty sharp compared to the TVS ones, but presumably there’s a price premium for the Yamaha over a TVS.
You can see the mount for the front number plate over the screen of the red bike 2nd in, pretty fugly.
Just a few doors up from the Indian/Kawasaki dealer is a Piaggio dealer located on the first floor of an office building. Piaggio don’t sell scooters in India but they are possibly the biggest supplier of auto’s (Tuk Tuks) which are manufactured locally. These are CNG powered.
@jake-maryniak I reckon one of these would be great for doing tours for the tourists coming off the cruise ships.
Indian and Kawasaki.
I didn’t get any pics of the Kawasaki side of this shop. As you can see all the shops selling bikes bigger than 200cc are very ’boutique’ in their design and presentation.
I was really impressed with how this indian felt. For a bike weighing somewhere up around 400kg it was very well balanced and very easy to push around.
I wandered down to the Harley shop at Elante Mall this afternoon to try and get some better sari guard pictures and ended up doing a huge walk around the neighbourhood. It turns out most of the manufacturers have dealerships near our hotel.
Front mounted number plate on a Tiger.
I had a sit on a Bobber with about 20cm ape hanger bars further down the shop and it was really comfortable.
Rules for driving in India
India does have road rules which for the most part are similiar to NZ’s road rules, including driving on the left side of the road, there are however some further guidelines to consider.
More to come….
You can buy shampoo made from beer here!
Later in the afternoon I went for a walk around the block from the Hotel, just in time to see new Royal Enfields being unloaded at the workshop across the street.
Further around the block Benelli used to have a dealership but it’s either moved or closed up.
Edit: I found a new very small Benelli office around the corner a few days later but it seemed to just be a workshop.
We walked down to the Elante Mall today, the 3rd biggest Mall in India.
Harley Davidson and Royal Enfield both have stores here with half a dozen bikes in each and lots of branded clothing.
Sari guards were fitted to all the bikes and the Harley salesman told us they are required on all new bikes sold now. They didn’t look too out of place on the Enfield but did a bit on the Harley Sport 750.
I’ve moved hotels and Royal Enfield Chandigarhs workshop is across the road from the new hotel.
They have a few Himalayans that look like they have done a few km. Note the paint wearing from the tank corners on the 2nd one. I’ve no idea how many km they have actually done.
The service area is tidy and they have quite a few bikes on site.
This isn’t actually luggage rack they are mounted on the left side only.
They are referred to as a Sari guard and are for foot support for the wife riding side saddle on the back and to stop her Sari being caught in the back wheel.
Local milk delivery
Delivering fans by Tuk Tuk, or auto as they are called in India.
Indian riders get maximum life out of a tyre. Note also the front rego plate. On naked bikes and cruisers they are fairly easy to mount, on fairing bikes they can look pretty ugly.