CRazy Devil from LML, good power, no leash!

What do you expect an enthusiast to do if you tag him as a motoring journo and then make him buy pens, crank the generator, carry computer cartons and hang around cars and bikes without being able to touch them. This! Exactly what you see in these pictures, the very day he gets to put his hands on a driving machine. The poor thing was a 100 cc bike which I had picked up from the LML warehouse, some 20 Kms away from Pune.

The moment I saw it, I thought LML was done for. A pitiful, powerless skinny little bike with fairing, in the land where mortal battles are fought between the likes of Hero Honda and Bajaj? From a manufacturer like LML? Holy shit! Sounds like having lost all your money in a casino, having borrowed more, lost more and getting drunk finally to lose sense before being reduced to pulp by the bouncers. When would these idiots get logical and come out of their 100cc realm which forms their entire galaxy. Peabrains, wags, dunderheads, asses, fools, buffoons… the adjectives went on for some fifteen more minutes until I placed myself on my good old Suzuki Fiero and whizzed past the pathetic thing. Poor Bunny Punia who rode it back to Pune was seen losing himself in the distance when I tried to spot him in the rear view mirrors.

But I had to wait for him, the bike was a responsibility for both of us, and it wouldn’t just have been right had I zipped all the way back home. So I lit a cigarette and waited for him. The disgusting machine was seen crawling its way towards me after some 7 months and 25 days when I had already finished smoking two cigarettes. Just the way I expected, he began telling me about my responsibilities, a technique to smoothen engine parts called running-in and sensibilities that needed to be practiced while riding a new bike. I listened all what he had to say and told him to lead. It’s a different matter altogether that after some five-odd kilometers, he was seen monkeying around in the abundant potholes, no, craters, no, not even that. For all these thing to exist we need something called road, made of tar and little stones and which are nowhere to be seen in their proper form anywhere in this country except in places where you have to shell out some ridiculous amount of money to use them even after having paid the road tax while buying your vehicle and not getting anything of such sort ever after. One more thing, even after you have paid that tax and born the torture of not being introduced to the concept of roads, you will not be allowed to see them if you are on two wheels. Why? Because you are not fast enough to keep up with the over laden trucks which when let loose on full throttle can attain the searing speeds of 35km/h and which have a legal permission from Duke Pinhead III of the Indian kingdom to use the fastest lane even while being stalled. Balls to speed! Those trucks can be overtaken by Atal Bihari Vajpayee even in that age and with those operated knees if you let a couple of dogs loose behind him.

I am from a city called Jaipur. There is a zoo there. In the zoo there is a female chimpanzee called Radha. Radha had a mate some seven years ago, but he somehow broke through the bars only to be reduced to ashes as he hugged an electric pole while it was raining. But that is not important. What is important is Radha’s behind. It looks swollen, and it’s kind of pink. That behind looks exactly like mine whenever I fool myself into believing that it’s possible to ride more than some 400 Kms on state highways in a single day and do it.

Now, I have also heard that some hundred thousand crores of rupees are being spent on ‘improving’ the state of roads that don’t exist at all. I have even seen some overhead sign boards with a picture of the above mentioned leader grinning and pointing his index finger in some direction over the so called highways. One of the days when I was riding through one those ‘highways’, I halted to observe what Mr. Prime Minister was pointing towards, only to realize that there was a roadside dhaba straight at angle zero with a dozen cots peppered outside for the travelers to rest their broken backs. Thank you very much Mr. Prime Minister, I know that scores of them are spread every kilometer and I can walk into any one of them whenever my behind is sore even without your guidance, permission or hospitality. What you are supposed to do, in fact, is to prevent my posterior from turning into a tomato and not grin and tell me where to rest it.

So, we were talking about Bunny who was very comfortably springing around in the valleys and ponds around Pune which my ignorant fellow countrymen still believe are roads. He was doing all sorts of antics, taking some air sometimes, then landing perfectly, twitching the poor little thing sharply and then landing the front tyre straight into one of the countless abysses. To my surprise, the lamentable thing was still holding together, even while my colleague was getting increasingly enthusiastic, which was simply not understandable. He owns a 250 cc 18 bhp bike which is really strong and good for some 135 Km/h. And he is millimeters away from turning it into a piece of crap. Believe me, he is really good at thrashing bikes.

Genuinely baffled now, I tried musing myself by laughing on his idiocy and pitying the woeful bike. He kept on kicking the crap out if it until it finally stalled. There! I smiled wickedly. I knew this machine was crap, I knew there was no sense making such bikes, and most important of all, now I knew I had a chance to make that rascal pay back for his words. I approached him, rubbing my hands in anticipation with all sorts of derogatory statements and words ready, both for him and the bike.

Lousy, as the LML people have always been, they hadn’t put enough gas into the tank, and it was a lack of fuel and not a mechanical failure that had caused the bike to halt. Bereaved of the golden opportunity now, I handed over the keys of my bike to him and told him to get some fuel for the distressing piece of metal.

Waiting for him, I was sitting outside one of those impermanent roadside hotels that the honourable Prime Minister was pointing towards with that hospitable grin on his face. I was smoking a cigarette. There was a small cigarette shop near the dhaba from where I purchased it. While I didn’t really have any interest in the shop itself, the owner was quite an interesting character. For all the while I was absorbed in squeezing the most out of every flake that comprised the stick, spewing clouds of smoke, he was seen observing the bike with the keenness that befits the technical director of the Honda Racing Company. Suddenly he turned his head towards me and in a very inquisitive manner asked whether I had bought it new. Well, he didn’t really know that he was talking to a man with a brand new sticker reading ‘automobile journalist’ over his forehead. So he didn’t understand that this man had the right to ride pristine new bikes from the company showroom to his office. The fact that perhaps he wouldn’t be getting a chance to ride it ever again in his life is a different matter altogether. To make life simpler for him, I replied in the affirmative. Now, even before I had finished, I knew the next question that was about to be popped at me. It came just the way I had presumed. “What mileage does she return?” I didn’t really know, and so did I tell him. “Looks nice” was the next phrase that he used, to send that electric pulse of utter rage throughout my body. Ok, I thought. He is an uneducated mortal from the suburbs, who perhaps hasn’t even ridden a bike in his entire life and has been running this small ‘paan’ shop for most part of his existence on this planet. I don’t really need to give a shit to what comes to his unimaginative little brain. Moreover, I had already spotted Bunny with that bottle riding his way back towards me. And I was just beginning to cool down when he braked to stop the bike near me, bringing that wide, ear-to-ear smile on his face he uttered those words to infuriate me like hell- “This bike rocks!” I couldn’t have endured any more. So I snatched the keys of the pitiable piece of crap from him and placed myself on its puny little saddle. For the entire 4Kms that remained in our way to the office, I must say, I was impressed.

It’s one of the cheapest bikes available, and it has a fairing. Ok, you might not care, but a lot of commuters who want to call themselves ‘executives’, and for the bulk of whom some 26400 tonnes of steel are converted into moving machinery every month do care a lot. This little thing does 0-80 km/h in some 8-odd seconds, putting to shame some of those bigger 125 cc bikes. But that is again not important. If the speed and acceleration really matters to someone, he wouldn’t even look at that bike, owing to its detestable amount of cubic capacity itself. What is more important is the fact that it still manages to return a mileage of 68 km/L in city. Now that’s no bullshit. It’s not a claimed mileage. It’s the mileage that she returned to me after days of spirited riding across the road-less streets of Pune.

Its rear suspension is stiff, real stiff. So stiff that it’ll make the thing start bumping off the ground the moment you get anywhere close to 70km/h. If you have a pillion on, and you try to be an exhibitionist on a smooth looking surface with even minor unevenness, which I exactly did, you could feel the bike bumping into the road and bouncing back. You could clearly feel the chassis wriggling at the bottom, panting to free itself from the torture. It feels like the chassis in creaking, crying for mercy under high speeds. Make no mistake though, it is extremely well balanced and takes those turns and twists with unmatched aplomb until it’s pushed on the bends after the 60-70 territory. It is perhaps the sportiest bike in its class, if you simply want to play around, weaving your way through the traffic. But, and if it’s a big butt, this bike would leave no stones unturned to break it. The rear suspension is like an iron rod. It should have been softer, far softer. It lends the machine amazing balance at mediocre speeds, but just don’t try to push the envelope any further. Those tyres are a victim of malnutrition. They don’t really have a clue what one means by genuine grip and that little engine is a stressed member of that pathetic looking chassis. Even the brakes look like an embryo, with a puny 110mm diameter, they’d never be enough to bring you to a standstill in even double the required time or distance. So hold your horses when this little wonder urges you to act like a gymnast.

Engine sounds harsh, but isn’t actually. It won’t stall at anything. I could tell you that as I have done some 350kms in a day with a pillion on. 200 of which were without roads. I repeat, no roads. Literally. And I must tell you, my behind looked worse than Radha that night when I saw it in the bathroom mirror. So while this bike won’t be sore even after those 350kms of ride, you’d sure be for the next two days. You’ll be spotted on your bed, with a couple of pillows under your Radha-ised bottom. Or you’d rather sleep on your chest, because even the pillows won’t help.

You get a bikini-fairing, you get an economy-power indicator, you get telltale lights, you get a neutral indicator, you get a fuel gauge, you get a side-stand gear-lock, you get a very respectable amount of power and you also get a considerable mileage. But I know that you still want more for that price? Ok, you get that ass breaking suspension, those useless tyres and those ridiculously small brakes. Oh, and you also get a horn that throws more decibel intensity back to you rather than to the traffic on the road. It’s placed right behind the bikini fairing, so all that is emanated crashes with the mask and attacks your own ears, it’s crazy. You have to experience that to believe it.



Finally, this isn’t a bike suited for Mr. Narayan Das who has a wife and two children. Mainly because there are ample better bikes around which are more comfortable and return better mileage. Secondly, Mr. Narayan would be seen hovering around the courts to avoid a divorce if he ever tried to take her wife to dinner on that bike. The reasons may vary from a Radha-red ass to a child that got popped on the road from the lady’s lap when the vehicle hit a mild bump on the road. This defeats the very purpose for which it is made. But if you are an enthusiast with a rock-solid Shwarzneggeranian ass, with very little money to spare, with an obsession for speed (read danger) and with no love for life while being at it, go ahead, buy it.