Director sir, please switch on the lights, switch on the lights please, lights
lights. Surprise! Look what we have here, it's Yezdi's newest adventure motorcycle. We
rode the motorcycle the both of us and this is our first ride video, massive thank you to Karan,
who was kind enough to lend us his motorcycle. Bro, you are our Karan & Arjun both.
We have a set of questions that you have sent to us. Oh, yeah, let's put it that way. From which
we've, I think we've got a total of nine questions that we're going to answer in this video. We're not mentioning
the user names or the user handles because they're just too many to mention, because each question
has been asked by multiple people, so this is the official PowerDrift Yezdi Adventure frequently
asked questions. That's correct, should I ask the question number one? Alright, let's do that.
Let's go, question number one for Shumi is that, you guys asked, is the engine adventure worthy?
Most adventure motorcycles are expected to do their best work at the bottom and the mid range,
but what they went for is a linear state of tune, so when you ride this motorcycle,
it's not like it accelerates harder at the bottom or runs out at the top,
it's really a flat curve, it is weaker at the top-end than it is at the bottom and the mid,
in that sense, it's okay. The problem is that it's based on the Perak engine, which if you
remember is not a very vibey engine, but it's just slightly thrashy engine or...noisy engine. Yeah,
so it's the same thing happens here, okay, so peak torque is about 6000 and I think 6000 in
sixth gear is about 105 kilometres an hour, if you cruise at about 100-103, you get beyond that and
you're hustling the motorcycle, pegs will vibrate, the tank will vibrate and it just sounds thrashy.
But I think there is an area of improvement there that this 334cc engine across the board can get.
So adventure worthy? Yes, it's a reasonably quick engine. In the lower gears at lower speeds, it's
actually really nice, but I think in the roll on department where you're already, say doing a 100,
you want to overtake somebody, you're going to have to make gear changes and it feels a little
less powerful than it is, again, not a deal breaker unless you're like a real hustler, but
there is room for improvement, but the gearbox is actually quite nice, the gear shifts really nice.
So overall, I would say it's just short of likeable because of the thrashiness, but
otherwise, it's actually pretty decent engine.
So my turn to ask you a question.
How does it handle as ADV motorcycles go, how does that thing handle?
When you look at this segment, it's got a 21-inch setup at the front,
it's got a 17 at the rear and for this kind of setup, they're not known for sporty handling.
Okay, let me just explain that, I'll just take one sentence 21s are good for bikes that don't
like to get deflected off the path which is what you're looking for off-road, on the road,
they cause a little bit more of a disconnect in terms of feedback, so you have to learn to
trust the front end a little bit more than you would with a 17-inch front wheel. Absolutely.
So in that sense, this is not like a sporty handling motorcycle, but when you
start to realise that the suspension when it comes into play, and when you realise it's not
like a really soft setup, it's slightly set up on the firmer side. As you start picking up speed,
it's not settled in a way as maybe the Himalayan is settled. Yeah, so if you have small bumps on
the road and you're constantly hitting them, something like a Himalayan will just iron them
out completely, whereas this almost never does, the rear is always moving you around a little bit,
the front is a little bit unsettled all the time. On a long tour, five hours of just little
bit of shaking around, also happens to the 390 Adventure I think, I think there is a better setup
available, but this motorcycle is just a little bit on the stiff side for me. Absolutely, so in
terms of handling as well, I mean most of you all are going to use this on the road and maybe 10%
of your riding is going to be off-road, as soon as you take it off-road, which 10% of you all will,
the suspension for me should have been a little on the softer side considering that this is an ADV.
Yep, so if you saw our Scrambler video, well, my Scrambler video, that was just way too stiff,
okay so this is not that kind of stiff, you'll be able to live with it, but I think a better setup
for example, on the Himalayan or the Xpulse is available. Okay, third question, is the weight,
is the weight distribution appropriate? Considering that this is a 188 kilo motorcycle,
do you think that the weight is distributed appropriately? I think that Yezdi has very clearly
and obviously benchmarked the Himalayan, this is pretty normal, when there is a successful
product in the market, a lot of manufacturers will ensure that the benchmarks are met.
But I think the issue I have with this motorcycle is that it hasn't done anything else apart from
benchmarking and succeeding at their benchmark in that sense, right. So this is about 11 kilos
lighter than the Himalayan and on the move, it feels more modern than the Himalayan. All
the controls are relatively light and all of that things, the way the engine revs and sounds, all of
that is pretty modern in that sense. You will not notice the weight of this as much lighter than the
Himalayan or much heavier than the Himalayan, it's pretty reasonably balanced in that sense
and remember that the 11 kilos lighter doesn't include the weight of the front frame,
because that's not how it's measured, but you can't buy the bike without the front frame,
so when you add it back to the motorcycle's weight as a standard part of the motorcycle, the
weight difference between this and the Himalayan won't obviously be as big as it looks on paper.
My turn to ask you a question. Yeah. Do you think that the Yezdi Adventure sets a new
benchmark in the segment? Well honestly, no. I think the simple answer is no, it does not
set a new benchmark and like you mentioned it in like, very briefly, it meets a certain competition
in a certain place. For me, and I think I have this problem with manufacturers, when they bring
in new products, they should be absolutely setting a new benchmark every single time.
Especially if you're not first in the segment. Especially when you're not first in the segment,
because when you look at the Himalayan for example, which is obviously going to be the
motorcycle that it competes against, the Himalayan is at the end of its life and when a new Himalayan
comes in, and there are rumours of a 450 coming in, and when that motorcycle comes in, this is
going to set back and in that sense for me, no, this does not set a new benchmark. Does it meet
competition in a certain way? Absolutely, it does. Yeah, but before you say that this is anti-Yezdi or
pro-Royal Enfield or anything, remember that this happens to everybody. Okay, so Bajaj with their
F250 and the N250, they should have been setting a much higher benchmark for performance, especially
given the fact that it's the 220's successor, right. Oh, yes. When TVS started out with the Apache,
the benchmark was the Pulsar, but luckily for TVS they moved it on and the current RTR 200, etc,
are setting a very high standard...even the 160, it's like, every time they roll out an iteration,
it's setting a new benchmark, in performance, in numbers or whatever that is. When Hero did
the 160R again, the benchmarked the RTR 160, but they created a dramatically different feeling
motorcycle that does something else, you know, so in that sense, I think there was an opportunity,
that the Adventure, Yezdi Adventure would do something different, but it does more or less
what the Himalayan does and we can argue whether if that does it better or this does it better,
but the idea that you come into the market five years after the Himalayan with a motorcycle
that more or less does what the Himalayan does, missed opportunity, you should have raised the
game. And when you bring in a new motorcycle to a market, you should absolutely be like Ranveer
Singh. Like when Ranveer Singh enters a room with his aura and with his new clothes...oh, I
thought you meant...everybody should like turn around and look and, oh man, this is
like Raveer Singh, come on! Oh, I thought you meant Deepika Padukone but okay, no, no worries.
But you get the drift, yeah, I mean, everybody gets the drift.
Okay, my next question to you Shumi is, how is the braking unit? Oh, I thought you were going
to ask me a maths question. So the braking unit is actually pretty okay. I have no problem with
the brakes. I like the idea that they have three ABS calibrations, one in which is off-road where
you can switch off the rear, normal one, and in rain, where the interventions are more earlier
and more aggressive. Again, 21-inch setup with a long travel suspension means the feel of the
brake is a little bit far away, but that's part of more or less every 21-inch long suspension setup
that I've used, especially at the budget end. But I do have a question for you. Is the instrument
cluster easy to read? And should it have had more features? And we're asking him this, because he's
the Bluetooth expert in the company. I'm not the Bluetooth expert, but I'll say it anyway, I think
there's quite a bit of real estate on the instrument cluster, right. But
for some reason, Classic Legends decided that we won't use the entire bit and we'll keep
a lot of the things blank, to me which is surprising and...for example, the USB ports
and there's two of them. Yeah, it's here. But it's like a box that sticks out of the handlebar,
industrial design, okay, I get it but I think it could easily have been integrated into that
bezel and it would have looked much neater for it and the vehicle integration in terms of all the
packages of the vehicle coming together would have looked a little bit better because of it. I also
think that the tiltability of the screen has very, very limited value. Oh, yes, absolutely. Because
you're going to do it once, so whether it is easily adjustable or not is not of big consequence
and nobody I know who's a serious rider ever looks down at the screen when they're standing up,
so the logic that you can tilt the screens, you can see it when standing up, weak. Yeah, but I
think just to finally answer that question, is it easier to read? I mean, it's not easy or hard, I
mean, it is easy to read it, everything is pretty easily readable. Should it have more features? I
don't think so for whatever a motorcycle has to offer in this sense of adventure riding,
I think it pretty much covers everything, so I don't think I'm missing anything, but yes, that
space should have been utilised better is what I feel and for me again, that is a sort of a missed
opportunity from Classic Legends. Yeah, luckily, I would say that the Himalayan has a pretty...oh,
yeah...cluster. Too many things going on. Yeah and from that perspective, this is neater. Okay,
my question to you. What do you think of the price? I knew there was a maths question coming for me
Okay, so I think the price of the Adventure starts at Rs. 2,10,000 ex-showroom. Two lakh, yes,
about nine thousand, which makes it about Rs. 5000 or 6000 cheaper than the Himalayan, something
like that. But that front rack is a mandatory accessory and again it's not a Yezdi thing,
I think Honda has done it for the longest time with their side stands and front number plates
and stuff. But a mandatory accessory means you will not be able to purchase this motorcycle
if you don't purchase that accessory. At Rs. 5000 for that, it's the exact same price as the Himalayan
and I would say that based on what we've seen of the motorcycle that we've ridden so far,
it's pretty close to the Himalayan for what it promises, but we're going to have to ride both
the motorcycles back to back to tell you if this is a better motorcycle than the Himalayan or not
before you account for what Varun said about new Himalayan coming resetting. Yeah, for sure. As of
today, Himalayan is a benchmark ADV and I think if you think the Himalayan is value for money,
if that proves reliable, this is a question that cannot be answered for any new motorcycle. But if
it proves reliable, if this is what it's offering, it's offering 5bhp more than the Himalayan. Yes,
roughly. Right, it's offering less torque than the Himalayan, one's less weight than the Himalayan,
but the rack weight adds up. So it's very, very close, so it will be close.
Let me ask him the last question that you guys have asked and I think that's a very,
very important question and the question is that how does it compare against the Himalayan?
We've worked on the Himalayan, we've spoken about how does it finally compare with the Himalayan?
Um, I would say that off the top of my head, this feels like a modern
small ADV and the Himalayan in feel is a slightly older feeling small ADV although the performance
and all that is going to be pretty similar. Himalayan's ride quality is better than this,
but I think this is a little bit quicker than this off the line and all of those things,
but I don't think this is the right place to answer that question because I think we need
to have both the motorcycles together. I hear a motorcycle. Has Himalayan come?
Oh it has? Sorry, we're going to go ride some bikes. This is in essence what the
Yezdi Adventure is. Lights, we can cut the lights, we're gonna head out, stay tuned. See you, yeah,
see you, see you, lights, switch of the lights director, what are you doing,
yeah, let's go, let's make a comparo story.