One of the most eagerly awaited motorcycles of the year is here, and we really had trouble containing our own excitement about the bike till its day of launch. Why, you'd ask...read on to know!It is the steep drop on the back straight of Bajaj Auto's fabulous test track at Chakan and I am on my first quick lap astride what is a familiar looking machine. What is not familiar is the way the bike squats and holds firm as we make a rapid descent before beginning the long uphill sweeping left corner to hit the long long long main straight. Earlier Bajaj Pulsars used to wriggle (and weave somewhat) as you wound the throttle and this latter trait was all about bravery coupled to skill on bikes which made the Indian motorcyclist performance oriented.The new - against all-new - Pulsar 220 DTSi is the bike of dreams for the Indian motorcycling masses, be it for the performance oriented and also majorly for those who want to have something powerful and supremely brilliant to handle in all types of riding conditions. Crouched as far as my huge girth would allow, the bike dropped into the section I referred to and just continued on its intended trajectory with no fuss or hint of waver. I was giving myself a chuckle that "boy riding my Yamaha MT-01 had made me into an even better rider" but when I tipped the bike on its side and gave it more throttle than at any times previous at this superb test track, I was howling with delight!
Suspension and handling
The new Pulsar 220 DTSi not only hooked up to the freshly laid black top with leech-like stickiness but the way the suspension - both front and rear - endowed the machine with an absolutely neutral feel, it was easy enough to do the next and most logical thing quicker than before: open the throttle earlier and rush through the five-speed gearbox. It felt almost like I was astride the Honda CB1000R Hornet which I had with me a month ago, slightly larger physically for sure and armed with a full litre worth of displacement. The new 220 was just as precise and sure footed and in this detail suddenly you saw what had happened to transform a hair raiser of a machine to become even quicker, faster and with stability and poise through the twisties that no other road going machine made in India (barring the ultra-focused and sharp, not to mention pricey Yamaha R15) could deliver.
Here we are talking about quicker and faster and I am yet raving like a lunatic about handling and poise but like the Pirelli tag line, power is nothing without control, this has to be it first for any motorcyclist and more so for a machine with increased zest and crisper acceleration. The overall suspension geometry remains the same front to rear apart from a slight tweak to the front rake by half a degree. The damping characteristics have been altered with optimised valving and this coupled to a stronger and larger diameter front fork delivers a stiffer and firmer feel which also translates into strong high speed stability.
And yes before we move away from the dynamic prowess, yet another ingredient which needs to be mentioned just as highly are the softer compound tyres. MRF who have been sole suppliers to the Pulsar series from the outset were told how they could go soft on the rubber compound so that adhesion was improved without sacrificing structural stiffness and the Chennai-based tyre maker has come up with all new rubber which is undoubtedly the best in the two-wheeler sphere in the country by a large margin. Factor in the all disc set-up front and rear and you have retardation which is the best and the most surefooted of them all. You need this latter safety bit thanks to the performance this bike has
Tarmac-scorching performance
Before we get down to the nuts and bolts of the go-faster bits, let us go straight and hit the road and check out the performance ourselves. We tested the new Pulsar 220 DTSi both on Bajaj Auto's Chakan test track as well as in the real world on the roads in and around Pune and there is only one word to describe its performance, overall makeup and versatility - stupendous! Performance is a big thing for us here at ZigWheels.com and we love to be corrupted by this trait and in this sinful art we found the Pulsar 220 DTSi to be the most well behaved devil on two-wheels!
Coming out of the sweeping up hill left hander on the Chakan track, the power came out quicker, the cogs could be swapped faster and more precisely (with nary a missed shift or a wishy washy engagement - thanks to an all new clutch) and the enhanced power helped the bike dart faster down the straight than before. Factor in the enhanced thrust and it was only the length of the straight which saw us roll back the throttle, the engine begging for more right hand treatment. We put our tiny tornado and racer par excellence Varad More on the saddle, strapped up our test data acquisition gear on the bike and let him loose and what we have to state would make almost all rivals go back to the tuning rooms if not the drawing boards.
Zero to 60km/h came up in 3.8 seconds while zero to 100km/h was achieved in 11.1 seconds, easily besting any and every bike made in the country to smithereens. Yes even the brilliant tech laden Yamaha YZF R15 is unable to come within sniffing distance of the Pulsar 220 DTSi's tail pipe. Hold on there is even more performance rolling here and if being the quickest accelerating bike in the land is one thing, the revised Pulsar flexes its muscles and deals an absolute knock-out to all comers with its 138.5km/h top speed. The one area where it is bested is not by any rival but by the 220 DTS-FI which is stronger in the roll-on acceleration times given the fact that the torque curve there was placed more for low and mid-range operation. Here with the enhanced power and the torque, the 220 DTSi might be a shade slower in the roll-ons but go down a cog, crack the throttle and she gets up to its top end with amazing linearity and speed which confounds everyone.
What is amazing is that the high speeds and thrusting acceleration are not at the expense of real-world driveability. The Pulsar 220 DTSi surely happens to be the most complete all rounded motorcycle ever to hit Indian roads and I do not say this lightly. While many would just go at it in showrooms for its phenomenal performance, those with a cerebral bent of mind would do so to enjoy biking in its purest form, at the best price and with performance on tap whenever it is needed. The great riding position remains intact but with even more attention to detail. Ergonomically the Pulsar 220 was the best in class and this continues to date. What helps the sensory perception is the overall top end DTSi clatter which is almost eliminated plus the abject lack of vibes from the footrests and the gearshifter.
How does real performance go with real world practicality? In most cases there is a trade-off but in the case of the Pulsar 220DTSi it is a win-win situation on all fronts. In-town fuel efficiency with yours truly on board (as against Varad who did the performance testing) saw the Pulsar return 42.1kmpl while the best highway mileage she returned was a fantastic 52.9kmpl! This translates into a 44.8kmpl overall fuel consumption figure which is terrific by any account and a bonus to add to the explosive performance the bike packs in. Given these fuel efficiency figures, the Pulsar can do the dash to Goa from Mumbai on a tankful and that is another strong attribute on offer.
to get you into trouble quicker than in the blink of an eye!
The brains behind the brawn
So what has changed the performance across the rev range? Oh yes let me tell you that the most important change as everyone apparently thinks it to be on this bike is the adoption of a humble but trick Ucal UCD 32 venturi carburetor in place of the Delphi-supplied throttle body type fuel injection system. The bike in carbureted form makes 21.04 PS at 8500 rpm, one horsepower more than in fuel injected form. In the torque stakes both make the same amount of twist force - 19.12Nm but the 220DTSi does it at 7000rpm which is 500 revs more than the 220 DTS-FI. A word of caution though now that everyone has seen the enhanced power output and the resultant performance that has emerged from the bike and if this seems to be the mantra for the other bike makers to go and slap on a large carb, I am afraid doing so without more tech tweaks internally would only douse the flame front!
Born under the patronage of Rajiv Bajaj, the spiritual father of the Pulsar range since its advent has been the genial Joseph Abraham who heads a close knit team of young enthusiastic engineers wedded to making great motorcycles and not afraid of pushing the envelope to achieve their desired objectives. To many it might look a step back in tech and time but that's not so when you see what they have achieved with a set-up which is powerful, fuel efficient and yet comfortably meets the emission standards. Central to the carbureted 220 is the DTSi top end but everything else is new. There is a new combustion chamber design, all new port geometry for optimized thermodynamics, newer valve coat materials to eliminate carbon formation and also friction reduction and an all-new camshaft. This is indeed a hot cam featuring both higher lift and duration and this set-up seems to be the best optimized DTSi top end ever.
While cylinder dimensions have remained the same as in the DTS-FI version at 67 x 62.4mm, the short-skirt piston now comes with new material (screen printed graphite based molycote) which helps reduce friction and also improves the engine's anti-seizure qualities. An engine which is yet air-cooled needs to keep its operating temperatures intact and to do that it needs the oil to maintain a steady temperature. There is a larger oil cooler on the 220 DTSi with 33 per cent more cooling area and if that's not all, Joseph's team have developed oil jets to spray on the con rod's big end to give positive oiling not just to combat the high forces acting on this high revving engine but also to cool the piston skirt as well in the process.
An all new ignition system with engine temperature sensors built into the cylinder head helps monitor engine mapping all across the rev band and in the process the rider doesn't encounter any flat spots which might detract from the sheer riding experience but the torque delivery and very low NVH levels are great rewards. Even with a carbureted set-up, the bike now features an auto-choke which is so unobtrusive yet practical and highly effective in its operation.
On the track
And finally let's take a look at how the power and torque really make themselves count where it matters - at the rear wheel. Did I mention earlier about very precise and sure shifting? We had three bikes to play with at the Chakan track and one bike for on-road duties for real world testing and what was very impressive was the way Varad, Sopan and yours truly kept on hammering away on the 3.00 km circuit for lap after lap. The three of us must have put in a combined 140 laps with Sopan doing about 30 laps while the rest were split equally between Varad and myself. Not once did we ever feel the transmission slotting into false neutrals or missing shifts. It was so uncanny yet natural like in a Honda or a Yamaha and credit this to new gearbox internals, chief of which has to be an all new completely enclosed clutch supplied by FCC Riko (a Honda company no less!). We thrashed around so much on the track and also in the real world but this is a Pulsar with refined shift actuation to, dare we say it, humble the Honda Unicorn! Both feel and bite are near perfect and since the joy of motorcycling is all about quick shifts, the new clutch aids in the delight quotient no end.
Effecting the strong yet silky forward thrust is new sprocketing allied to a revised and wider spaced higher fifth gear. In the 220 DTS-FI, fourth and fifth were very close but because the revised power characteristics enable a wider torque spread with added power, it was possible to space out the fourth and fifth cogs in the 220 DTSi. You can immediately check this out when you are truly in the top recesses of the bike's performance zone and you do get a noticeable kick once you shift from fourth to top.
Verdict
I think it would only be a dunce to understand that this is a serious fun machine capable of appealing to both sense and sensibility as well. It has genuine real world ability which doesn't tire anyone even in the daily commute. In fact if it happens to any of our staffers they would always want to take the long way back home every night if they were astride this bike. The overall turnout of the new big Pulsar is truly of a high order and while visible differentiation between FI and carbureted versions might be limited to the tank and fairing graphics (the raised Pulsar lettering is the one detail we found garish and not in sync with the form and turnout), you have to ride it to experience the benefits there for the taking.
I say that this is a bike which you don't need to take our word for but get out there and ride it to believe all what we have experienced and narrated. It is the quickest and the fastest Indian production bike ever and also one of the safest and most nimble of handlers. I can't help repeating myself that clever techno thought has helped it lay it across many tech laden machines with their single minded focus for the track and to find a genuine all round motorcycle in the market better than the Pulsar 220 DTSi is tough.
Especially when you factor in the price of the machine which Bajaj Auto has pegged at Rs 70,000/- ex-showroom in New Delhi. Yes this is no typo error or wistful conjecture on anyone's part but absolute fact. If you are yet reeling on the ropes with the performance onslaught, I am sure that you would be floored with the pricing.
Did you expect a knockout from such a simple softy? On first sight I didn't and I am sure it's the same about the competition. So what we have are winners here - the burgeoning Indian biking community which has a homegrown standard once again in the forefront, the OEM in question which has consistently updated and raised the bar with the Pulsar performance brand and of course the rival bike makers who would pay it the ultimate compliment by going back to their own skunk works to come up with worthy rivals. How soon this manifests itself is critical because Bajaj Auto has proved the Pulsar is not a static target but constantly and consistently on the prowl. Difficult then to aim for a dynamic target, especially one which is the fastest and the quickest Indian out there.
Suspension and handling
The new Pulsar 220 DTSi not only hooked up to the freshly laid black top with leech-like stickiness but the way the suspension - both front and rear - endowed the machine with an absolutely neutral feel, it was easy enough to do the next and most logical thing quicker than before: open the throttle earlier and rush through the five-speed gearbox. It felt almost like I was astride the Honda CB1000R Hornet which I had with me a month ago, slightly larger physically for sure and armed with a full litre worth of displacement. The new 220 was just as precise and sure footed and in this detail suddenly you saw what had happened to transform a hair raiser of a machine to become even quicker, faster and with stability and poise through the twisties that no other road going machine made in India (barring the ultra-focused and sharp, not to mention pricey Yamaha R15) could deliver.
Here we are talking about quicker and faster and I am yet raving like a lunatic about handling and poise but like the Pirelli tag line, power is nothing without control, this has to be it first for any motorcyclist and more so for a machine with increased zest and crisper acceleration. The overall suspension geometry remains the same front to rear apart from a slight tweak to the front rake by half a degree. The damping characteristics have been altered with optimised valving and this coupled to a stronger and larger diameter front fork delivers a stiffer and firmer feel which also translates into strong high speed stability.
And yes before we move away from the dynamic prowess, yet another ingredient which needs to be mentioned just as highly are the softer compound tyres. MRF who have been sole suppliers to the Pulsar series from the outset were told how they could go soft on the rubber compound so that adhesion was improved without sacrificing structural stiffness and the Chennai-based tyre maker has come up with all new rubber which is undoubtedly the best in the two-wheeler sphere in the country by a large margin. Factor in the all disc set-up front and rear and you have retardation which is the best and the most surefooted of them all. You need this latter safety bit thanks to the performance this bike has
Tarmac-scorching performance
Before we get down to the nuts and bolts of the go-faster bits, let us go straight and hit the road and check out the performance ourselves. We tested the new Pulsar 220 DTSi both on Bajaj Auto's Chakan test track as well as in the real world on the roads in and around Pune and there is only one word to describe its performance, overall makeup and versatility - stupendous! Performance is a big thing for us here at ZigWheels.com and we love to be corrupted by this trait and in this sinful art we found the Pulsar 220 DTSi to be the most well behaved devil on two-wheels!
Coming out of the sweeping up hill left hander on the Chakan track, the power came out quicker, the cogs could be swapped faster and more precisely (with nary a missed shift or a wishy washy engagement - thanks to an all new clutch) and the enhanced power helped the bike dart faster down the straight than before. Factor in the enhanced thrust and it was only the length of the straight which saw us roll back the throttle, the engine begging for more right hand treatment. We put our tiny tornado and racer par excellence Varad More on the saddle, strapped up our test data acquisition gear on the bike and let him loose and what we have to state would make almost all rivals go back to the tuning rooms if not the drawing boards.
Zero to 60km/h came up in 3.8 seconds while zero to 100km/h was achieved in 11.1 seconds, easily besting any and every bike made in the country to smithereens. Yes even the brilliant tech laden Yamaha YZF R15 is unable to come within sniffing distance of the Pulsar 220 DTSi's tail pipe. Hold on there is even more performance rolling here and if being the quickest accelerating bike in the land is one thing, the revised Pulsar flexes its muscles and deals an absolute knock-out to all comers with its 138.5km/h top speed. The one area where it is bested is not by any rival but by the 220 DTS-FI which is stronger in the roll-on acceleration times given the fact that the torque curve there was placed more for low and mid-range operation. Here with the enhanced power and the torque, the 220 DTSi might be a shade slower in the roll-ons but go down a cog, crack the throttle and she gets up to its top end with amazing linearity and speed which confounds everyone.
What is amazing is that the high speeds and thrusting acceleration are not at the expense of real-world driveability. The Pulsar 220 DTSi surely happens to be the most complete all rounded motorcycle ever to hit Indian roads and I do not say this lightly. While many would just go at it in showrooms for its phenomenal performance, those with a cerebral bent of mind would do so to enjoy biking in its purest form, at the best price and with performance on tap whenever it is needed. The great riding position remains intact but with even more attention to detail. Ergonomically the Pulsar 220 was the best in class and this continues to date. What helps the sensory perception is the overall top end DTSi clatter which is almost eliminated plus the abject lack of vibes from the footrests and the gearshifter.
How does real performance go with real world practicality? In most cases there is a trade-off but in the case of the Pulsar 220DTSi it is a win-win situation on all fronts. In-town fuel efficiency with yours truly on board (as against Varad who did the performance testing) saw the Pulsar return 42.1kmpl while the best highway mileage she returned was a fantastic 52.9kmpl! This translates into a 44.8kmpl overall fuel consumption figure which is terrific by any account and a bonus to add to the explosive performance the bike packs in. Given these fuel efficiency figures, the Pulsar can do the dash to Goa from Mumbai on a tankful and that is another strong attribute on offer.
to get you into trouble quicker than in the blink of an eye!
The brains behind the brawn
So what has changed the performance across the rev range? Oh yes let me tell you that the most important change as everyone apparently thinks it to be on this bike is the adoption of a humble but trick Ucal UCD 32 venturi carburetor in place of the Delphi-supplied throttle body type fuel injection system. The bike in carbureted form makes 21.04 PS at 8500 rpm, one horsepower more than in fuel injected form. In the torque stakes both make the same amount of twist force - 19.12Nm but the 220DTSi does it at 7000rpm which is 500 revs more than the 220 DTS-FI. A word of caution though now that everyone has seen the enhanced power output and the resultant performance that has emerged from the bike and if this seems to be the mantra for the other bike makers to go and slap on a large carb, I am afraid doing so without more tech tweaks internally would only douse the flame front!
Born under the patronage of Rajiv Bajaj, the spiritual father of the Pulsar range since its advent has been the genial Joseph Abraham who heads a close knit team of young enthusiastic engineers wedded to making great motorcycles and not afraid of pushing the envelope to achieve their desired objectives. To many it might look a step back in tech and time but that's not so when you see what they have achieved with a set-up which is powerful, fuel efficient and yet comfortably meets the emission standards. Central to the carbureted 220 is the DTSi top end but everything else is new. There is a new combustion chamber design, all new port geometry for optimized thermodynamics, newer valve coat materials to eliminate carbon formation and also friction reduction and an all-new camshaft. This is indeed a hot cam featuring both higher lift and duration and this set-up seems to be the best optimized DTSi top end ever.
While cylinder dimensions have remained the same as in the DTS-FI version at 67 x 62.4mm, the short-skirt piston now comes with new material (screen printed graphite based molycote) which helps reduce friction and also improves the engine's anti-seizure qualities. An engine which is yet air-cooled needs to keep its operating temperatures intact and to do that it needs the oil to maintain a steady temperature. There is a larger oil cooler on the 220 DTSi with 33 per cent more cooling area and if that's not all, Joseph's team have developed oil jets to spray on the con rod's big end to give positive oiling not just to combat the high forces acting on this high revving engine but also to cool the piston skirt as well in the process.
An all new ignition system with engine temperature sensors built into the cylinder head helps monitor engine mapping all across the rev band and in the process the rider doesn't encounter any flat spots which might detract from the sheer riding experience but the torque delivery and very low NVH levels are great rewards. Even with a carbureted set-up, the bike now features an auto-choke which is so unobtrusive yet practical and highly effective in its operation.
On the track
And finally let's take a look at how the power and torque really make themselves count where it matters - at the rear wheel. Did I mention earlier about very precise and sure shifting? We had three bikes to play with at the Chakan track and one bike for on-road duties for real world testing and what was very impressive was the way Varad, Sopan and yours truly kept on hammering away on the 3.00 km circuit for lap after lap. The three of us must have put in a combined 140 laps with Sopan doing about 30 laps while the rest were split equally between Varad and myself. Not once did we ever feel the transmission slotting into false neutrals or missing shifts. It was so uncanny yet natural like in a Honda or a Yamaha and credit this to new gearbox internals, chief of which has to be an all new completely enclosed clutch supplied by FCC Riko (a Honda company no less!). We thrashed around so much on the track and also in the real world but this is a Pulsar with refined shift actuation to, dare we say it, humble the Honda Unicorn! Both feel and bite are near perfect and since the joy of motorcycling is all about quick shifts, the new clutch aids in the delight quotient no end.
Effecting the strong yet silky forward thrust is new sprocketing allied to a revised and wider spaced higher fifth gear. In the 220 DTS-FI, fourth and fifth were very close but because the revised power characteristics enable a wider torque spread with added power, it was possible to space out the fourth and fifth cogs in the 220 DTSi. You can immediately check this out when you are truly in the top recesses of the bike's performance zone and you do get a noticeable kick once you shift from fourth to top.
Verdict
I think it would only be a dunce to understand that this is a serious fun machine capable of appealing to both sense and sensibility as well. It has genuine real world ability which doesn't tire anyone even in the daily commute. In fact if it happens to any of our staffers they would always want to take the long way back home every night if they were astride this bike. The overall turnout of the new big Pulsar is truly of a high order and while visible differentiation between FI and carbureted versions might be limited to the tank and fairing graphics (the raised Pulsar lettering is the one detail we found garish and not in sync with the form and turnout), you have to ride it to experience the benefits there for the taking.
I say that this is a bike which you don't need to take our word for but get out there and ride it to believe all what we have experienced and narrated. It is the quickest and the fastest Indian production bike ever and also one of the safest and most nimble of handlers. I can't help repeating myself that clever techno thought has helped it lay it across many tech laden machines with their single minded focus for the track and to find a genuine all round motorcycle in the market better than the Pulsar 220 DTSi is tough.
Especially when you factor in the price of the machine which Bajaj Auto has pegged at Rs 70,000/- ex-showroom in New Delhi. Yes this is no typo error or wistful conjecture on anyone's part but absolute fact. If you are yet reeling on the ropes with the performance onslaught, I am sure that you would be floored with the pricing.
Did you expect a knockout from such a simple softy? On first sight I didn't and I am sure it's the same about the competition. So what we have are winners here - the burgeoning Indian biking community which has a homegrown standard once again in the forefront, the OEM in question which has consistently updated and raised the bar with the Pulsar performance brand and of course the rival bike makers who would pay it the ultimate compliment by going back to their own skunk works to come up with worthy rivals. How soon this manifests itself is critical because Bajaj Auto has proved the Pulsar is not a static target but constantly and consistently on the prowl. Difficult then to aim for a dynamic target, especially one which is the fastest and the quickest Indian out there.
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