Today morning my friend Raghav called up and told me that his brand new black Yamaha FZ16 has just arrived. He was really excited and he started telling me how
great the bike was. Eventhough I had tested the bike a few weeks ago, I
wanted to ride on it again… in a more relaxed pace. So I told him that I
would arrive to his place as soon as possible and I started out. It was
a 18km drive as he is situated in the other end of the city. I enjoyed
the cruise in my Karizma along the NH7 road and around 11 am I was at his home.
His Yamaha FZ16
was in its best. As shiny as it could ever be. And this is the first
time I am having a close look at a black FZ16 and I should admit that it
is definitely better than the red one… in my opinion though. Before
taking a test drive, I wanted to click some photos and I was looking for
a nice spot. He told me that there is a university nearby and that
would be a nice place to click some snaps. So we took the bike there. So
here is the first shot… click the image to have an enlarged view.
I do not want to comment too much about
the looks because each person’s taste differs. But in my personal
opinion it is a very descent looking bike and looks much better than
other 150cc bikes in the market.
The dashboard is not so appealing and
the visibility of the readings is not so clear in bright daylight. I
feel it would have been much better if the bike had dials atleast for
the tachometer. The tank really looks big and macho, but the real tank
is inside, with a 12 litres capcity. All the outside fibre stuff is just
for the show off. Alright, now lets get into the performance part of
the bike…
When I took the bike for a ride, the
first thing I noticed was the awesome pickup. I took the bike along the
short roads inside the university campus and the next thing I noticed
was the great stability that the bike has when you take it along the
curves. The big rear tyre and the low centre of gravity makes it
absolutely easy to ride it in the city roads. As I told you earlier,
this is a street bike!
Then the next step was to test the bike
in the highways again. The bike performs great in the 20 – 55 kmph
range. Great pickup and if you really need, it would give you a tiny bit
of adrenalin rush too. But as we have already discussed in previous
reviews, the bike is not so great in the 60 – 90kmph range. I was going
around 65kmph and I had a truck moving ahead of me in almost the same
speed, when I wanted to overtake, I twisted the throttle and was really
disappointed… the bike dragged me slowly to 75kmph and the time of
overtaking was much more than I expected. Before we go into my final
verdict, here is another pic
If you really need a high quality
highway cruising experience, this bike is not for you. But if you need
performance in the streets, even Karizma or R15
won’t come close to the Yamaha FZ16′s performance. And trust me, Yamaha
engineers have done a good job in the overall design and specifications
by taking into account the need for Indian bikers and Indian road
conditions.
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