Rite of Passage

When the eighties rolled in, I was an impressionable 15-year-old who took forever to cross the road. Standing on the pavement, knees a-quiver, I’d perpetually be straining to see what the next motorcycle to pass by would turn out to be. Admittedly, what the eyes would finally spot would be pretty mundane by today’s standards. But hormones, wide-eyed wonder and the love of two-stroke smoke can paint a Technicolor halo around the most ordinary of machines.

The motorcycle that didn’t actually receive the attention it deserved at the time was Hero Honda’s CD100 and the long line of derivatives that would follow. At its launch in 1984, the bike was disregarded as a four-stroke curiosity in a two-stroke world. It was a simple motorcycle that almost wilfully ignored the excitement that should — in my opinion — be the partner in crime of everything on two-wheels. The advertisements were to become legend: Fill it. Shut it. Forget it. The models in the ad seemed genuinely pleased to not have to return to a fuel station ever again. Was this what motorcycles were supposed to be about? Hell, no.

But as the years would unfurl, the Hero Honda would find more and more Indian houses to take over, until its successor, the Splendor would become the world’s largest selling single model. A basic 100 cc four-stroke single-cylinder motorcycle that ruled the world. It is ironic that some of my fanaticism for motorcycles actually springs directly from another of the CD100’s cousins, the Sleek. It was the subject of altogether more exciting adverts (the “What’s life without a little passion?” series). More importantly, in class XI, a classmate already had one, and I could only stare at it, as I rode to school and back on my bicycle, all the while twisting the right hand grip like it were a throttle, pedalling ever harder to keep the illusion going…

But the true stars of the 80s were all two-strokes, every single last one of them. They all sounded wild and free, and they left a thin trail of blue smoke as they passed. The softest introduction to them would have been the Ind-Suzuki AX100 — the first of their kind to turn up in India, launched roughly at the same time as the Hero Honda CD100. In styling terms, it wasn’t very different from the CD100. Nor did it cut a dashing figure thanks to its performance. It was a simple, extremely high quality motorcycle that produced a meek 8.25 bhp, but utterly reliable. And it was the first of the Indo-Japs to arrive. Ind-Suzuki was the TVS-Suzuki tie-up that would create another iconic two-stroke for India before the companies went their separate ways in 2001.

The RX100 burst out of Yamaha’s showrooms late in 1985. It borrowed the idea of a small-engine, two-stroke motorcycle from the AX100, but that’s about where their destinies took different roads. It turned out to be the beast foaming at the mouth in a stable full of sedated horses. It got 11 bhp from its 98 cc engine, and delivered it in short, sharp bursts, its normally civil voice taking on the power of mesmerising oratory. This potent power was housed in a barely-capable frame, and it was severely short-changed on the tyre front. Fortunately for us, this produced a sparkling riding experience where the rider teetered at the edge of adhesion by his very fingernails while the engine went berserk.

It was just as brilliant to ride within the bounds of sanity, and so found fans by the thousands. There was a time when it commanded hefty dealer premiums, and a long penance before the bike would actually be delivered to you.

In time, the engine proved easy to modify for more power and it totally dominated the racing scene as well. In skilled hands, the RX100 was a complete hooligan. There are very few 40-somethings in the corporate world who haven’t owned or ridden one. Fewer still don’t have glowing memories of those days, of that exhaust note, of the first time the front wheel rose into the air of its own bidding — and of the weak headlamps and weaker-still brakes.

The RX100’s run wasn’t without competition.  The perpetual underdog was the Kawasaki Bajaj KB100, launched roughly a year after the RX100 ran away with the market. The KB100 made about the same power as the RX100, though it was always marginally slower in a straight line. But the Kawasaki was the master in the corners. Many an informal war raged on the street, powered by raging hormones and the cultish rivalry between the two motorcycles. Battles swung this way or that, depending on whether the road was straight or curved. Kawasaki would have had a winner in the successor to the KB100, the KB125, had it not been for mechanical troubles that plagued the upgrade. Ironic, then, that the RX100’s upgrades, the RXG, RX135 and the RX-Z, didn’t do as well as the RX100 either.

The two-stroke world had finally found equilibrium, when the TVS Suzuki Shogun came steaming up in 1993. Clad in pink and black, the aggressive styling, unlikely graphics, unprecedented black-painted engine and 14 bhp, it was everything that no one expected it to be. It somehow sounded more potent, and went much, much quicker. If you remember the devastatingly good advertisement, there was a black spot on the horizon and a chicken truck in it. The chicken truck, and the uproar in it when the Shogun roared past it, was a very accurate representation of the motorcycle market. When this 110 cc Suzuki hit its stride, it was much wilder than its peers. And no one could catch it. The advertising geniuses named it “The Boss”, and for once, that wasn’t hype. The Shogun would remain at the top as the most powerful Indo-Jap two-stroke in the 100-odd cc segment. When the time came for the Shogun to surrender its mantle, the sun was setting on this glorious age. Noise and emissions norms were the twin nooses that would choke this startling class of motorcycles. And all the while, the humble CD100 was gathering into a looming storm that would sweep away not only the two-stroke but also the scooters. It would change the two-wheeler industry into a sector that would do glorious numbers on the back of some of the most unexciting — if utterly reliable — motorcycles ever to grace our planet.

There was action on the other side of the market as well. On the face of it, there appears to be no reason at all why the humble Kinetic Honda — Kine-y or Kiho as it was always referred to — should be in this hallowed company. But the sleek, civil Honda was a machine of some ability. Riders found a world of thrills in its meek 74 kmph flat-out cosmos. Where the Bajaj Chetak was enjoying years-long waiting lists, the Kinetic Honda was considered a niche product. It was an automatic when all other scooters had gears. And it had an electric start, which eluded its competition for years. It also had the engine in the centre of its chassis, which gave it incredible balance on those little wheels. Many of us spent hours grinding away the transmission cases while trying to lean it further and further into corners. It was an unlikely steed which found favour. All the parents who barred us from buying motorcycles were more than happy to let us have Kinetics. And it was a good compromise. The scooter was a phenomenal ride. It was perceived, of course, as a scooter for ladies, and it excelled in that role as well. But for us, the enthusiasts, it was a stepping stone to the big-wheeled world of motorcycles. Ask around; you’ll find that a surprising number of those who love their motorcycles so dearly started out on Kinetic Hondas. Mine, for instance, is probably still running around in Delhi somewhere, slightly spent from that full, glorious year it spent sitting at full throttle.

1984 was the year when the AX100, the CD100 and the Kinetic Honda DX all arrived in India. But it still wasn’t the most fundamental year of the decade for the enthusiast.

That would be 1983.

When came a motorcycle that is still the most feared, loved and respected of all Indian motorcycles till date. The undisputed king of two-wheeled glory was the Yamaha RD350. Its arrival was almost a total fluke. Escorts, Yamaha’s India partner at the time, happened upon the dies for the 1970s bike going cheap, goes the legend. They chucked the front disc brake and replaced it with a giant drum brake. Then they softened the 39 bhp engine to a more palatable — for India — 30.5 bhp, still roughly three times the power of the average performance two-strokes that would follow.

This twin-cylinder two-stroke monster would hold our attention for the best part of the next 30 years. Only the just-launched Kawasaki Ninja 250R has ever claimed to make more power.

In 1983, we had a genuine 150+ kmph motorcycle — with genuine 100 kmph (at best) brakes. The chassis could barely contain the violence and having the swing-arm flex in the middle of the corners at speed — that was something that left you wide-eyed for days afterwards. And then you had to do it again.

RD350 production ceased in 1990, four years before I was armed with a driving license, killed off by sound norms and by its legendary thirst for petrol (anything from 18-20kmpl to 6kmpl was considered good). But the used-bike market was buzzing with them.

It wasn’t long after my first salary — which got spent on my KB125 — that I was standing outside a dingy shop in South Delhi, fingering the shabby keys to my new RD350. It was black, it sounded mean and once I ran it in carefully, it was the motorcycle of my dreams. On a good, cold Delhi winter day, the RD350 would inhale the roads with angry contempt. You’d take off from a traffic light in a blaze of noise and smoke, motorcycle barely in control. And you would magically reappear at the next one in an equal crescendo. And nary a moment would have passed in between. Despite their reputation for being mechanically dodgy, those of us who loved them found no inconvenience. We’d use the mechanic’s shop as a speak-easy, gulping dozens of cups of tea as our motorcycles were kept at the peak state of tune. The mechanic’s place and the fuel station would become our constant places of pilgrimage. The transit made all the more easiy by the flashbang power of the motorcycle.

A full decade after the RD350 went out of production, the arrival of one in a parking lot would quiet any boasting among the four-strokers. They’d get this injured look that comes from having something vastly superior arrive. They perhaps felt that the RD350 should have been more modest.

The Yamaha, of course, didn’t know how. It only knew one thing: To go so fast that it was the most thrilling motorcycle you could buy. This it did from the day it arrived. And it still does today, in the hands of those lucky enough to still have one. And those who desire it today must prepare to pay the hefty prices used ones go for.

The two-stroke era is long past, as firmly in our history as India’s independence or the glory days of Pink Floyd. But even today, when I hear the unmistakable ripping note of a two-stroke coming up fast and hard, it turns my system to jelly. My knees still quiver, and I wish I could put it down to something sane.

Like age. 


(Marmar is Deputy Editor, Overdrive)