I went to the Yamaha company showroom at Whacked-Ae-Waddi on Pune-Mumbai road yesterday. This place earlier belonged to Yamaha dealer Ajinkya Motors. Now it has been taken over by Yamaha company directly and has been done up and is abuzz with activity. The showroom is run by pretty girls who are pretty good at P-R-giri, but short on tech-info. Socially they are verri guud, but they need tech-training. Yamaha should also train them to ride these bikes, so that they can answer tech-questions with confidence.

After the legendary 2-stroke Yamaha RX-100 bike was stopped almost a decade ago, Yamaha was NOT doing too great in India, with a market share of barely 3%. It seems Yamaha was just not able to go above 125 cc. But now with the launch of TWO totally different 150 cc bikes, Yamaha seems to be getting its act together. It seems Yamaha has learnt from Bajaj Pulsar that looks matter. And in the premium segment Looks matter tremendously. And the FZ-16 is quite a Looker.

Viewed from any angle, the FZ-16 looks mean and muscular and is sure to give the Pulsar a run for its money. The outrageous looking 12-litre fuel tank is pure Pamela Anderson. The 35 watt headlight is Katrina Kaif. The 41 mm diameter solid front forks (claimed to be thickest in India) are The Great Khali. The front mudguard is a Mallika. The 100/80 X 17 front tire is John Abraham. The 267 mm front disc brake with 2-pot caliper is Paresh Rawal while the rear drum brake is run-of-the-mill. The silencer is Arnold Shivajinagar. The 140/60 x 17 rear tire is King Kong==Fattest standard tire on any Indian made bike so far. Both tires are tubeless. And the overall package is absolutely Bipasha. You can”t keep your hands away from this bike. You HAVE to ride her immediately.

Filmi parodies apart, how does the bike shape up technically? It is powered by a 153 cc engine having bore X stroke of 58 mm X 57.9 mm, making it an almost square engine balanced almost equitably between low end pull and high end performance. Breathing thru a BS26 carburetor, the 2-valve, air-cooled, 4-stroke, single overhead cam BLACK engine produces 14 PS (==13.81 bhp==10.3 kw) at 7500 rpm and develops a Tork of 14 Nm at 6000 rpm at a compression ratio of 9.5.

The 1335 mm wheelbase diamond frame chassis has a 160 mm ground clearance and has a dry weight of 126 kg (kerb weight 137 kg). The five speed transmission operates thru a constant mesh wet multi-plate kluch in a wet sump. Starting is only elektrik (there is no kicker) and ignition is CDi. Engine Oil capacity is 1.2 litres.

Rear suspension is mono-cross, i.e. single shock absorber having 120 mm wheel travel while the front fork has 130 mm travel. Instrumentation is LCD which is nothing new any more.

Currently available in three colors red, black & orange, the red color suits it best. Costing Rs.73,000/- on road in Pune, this is one more addition to the 150 cc segment which is sure to make heads turn.

Technical-Comment: The power produced by the 153 cc FZ-16 is on par with the other 150 cc (Apache150, CBZ Extreme & Hunk) bikes which all produce between 13.5 PS and 14.5 PS, though at 8500 rpm. Thus Engine Life Factor (==ELF) of this FZ-16 is 1.4. As a comparison, the ELF of both Apache150 & Pulsar150 is 1.24 and of CBZ Xtreme (& Hunk) is 1.293. Thus you can expect the Yamaha FZ-16 to have 13% longer life than Apache & Pulsar and 8.3% longer life than Xtreme & Hunk. The difference in power-weight-ratios of all these bike is less than 1% and hence insignificant. On the price front the Yamaha FZ-16 is the most expensive at Rs.73.000/- on road in Pune. By comparison, the Honda Unikorn, HH Xtreme & Hunk and Pulsar150 are between 64K and 65K, while the TVS Apache150 is 61K. Each model in the 150 class has very distinctive looks. Among all these bikes, the Yamaha FZ-16 is the newest and latest entrant and also has mono-shock rear suspension (like Unikorn) and the FATTEST rear tyre. Are you willing to pay Rs.12K more than Apache for it?