Jive Road Test Report by Dilip Bam

Jive is the name of a particular style of Jazz music and dance, and TVS JiVE bike dances to that music, that is why it is named Jive. The Kluch-Less-Ness (no kluch) of Jive is its main quality, its USP==Unique Selling Proposition, which every product must have, as they teach in MBA at HARVARD, XLRI Jamshedpur and BiMM (Balaji Institute of Modern Management), the AiCTE approved topmost MBA college in Pune [100% placement] and the third ranking MBA institute in South Asia after XLRI & IIMs.

Imagine the ease of driving a gearless Ladies skooter like Kinetic Honda and yet getting 70+ mileage like geared 100 cc bike of Hero Honda or Bajaj or TVS. That is what JiVE does. If you don’t WANT to change gears, you DON’T have to change gears at all. You can even always kick-start in neutral, shift directly to fourth gear, stay in fourth gear throughout your journey in whatever type of traffik: slow, stop-start type of trafik, or smooth flow type of trafik, and complete your journey driving Jive like a gearless scooty, and yet enjoy the comfort, privilege, mileage and economy of a geared bike.
That’s Jive for you. T–MaTiC does the T–RicK !

ENGiNE & DETAiLs

The pot that powers this bike is TVS’s most tried and tested engine. This 109.7 cc engine having bore X stroke of 53.5 mm X 48.8 mm first appeared on the Victor GL110 almost ten years ago. Today this greatly improved engine powers a host of TVS bikes and scooters. It is this engine with the same bore X stroke that powers <1>TVS StaR City110 geared bike<2>TVS WeGo un-geared scooter and<3>the geared but kluch-less (no kluch lever) TVS Jive motorcycle.

So what makes this bike Jive? The digital ignition fired 109.7 cc engine produces 6.18 kw of power==8.4 PS==8.29 BHP at 7500 rpm, and develops a Tork of 8.3 Nm at 5500 rpm at a compression ratio of 9.2. The engine is fitted on a single down-tube frame having engine as stressed member on a wheelbase of 1260 mm. Rear swing-arm is of rectangular cross-section having 41 mm vertical arm and 26 mm horizontal arm with wall thickness of TWO mm. This keeps the chassis quite flex-free and makes for excellent road-holding and cornering. The bike rides on 2.75 x17 tire front and 3.oo x 17 tire rear. Suspension is 30 mm diameter twin forks front and regular twin shock absorbers rear. Starting is by kick as well as electric (5 Ah battery), and stopping is by drum brakes, 130 mm front and 110 mm rear. Dry weight is 110 kg. Fuel tank capacity is 15 liters, including 2.7 liters reserve. The full enclosed chain cover is a plus point.

The comfortable seat is 63.5 cm (25 inch) long and 25.5 cm (10 inch) wide at its widest. Handlebar width is 68 cm (27 inch) and the excellent Rear View mirrors have an 86cm== almost three feet field of vision. Ground clearance (bike off-stand, no rider) is 150 mm at the rear end of the retracted main stand.

GiZMOs & METERs

One exclusive feature of this bike is that it has a small under-seat lockable dicky, where, in addition to bike papers you can either keep a small umbrella or even a ONE LiTER rectangular plastic bottle of McDowell RUM to carry WATER.

Bottle of McDowell Rum for ONE Liter of water.

No other bike in the country has such a LOCKABLE facility. Another notable feature is the gear indicator in the right hand side dial of the dashboard which also has the fuel gauge, as well as Hi-Lo beam & turn indicating blinkers tell-a-tale lights. The LH dial is the speed0-0d0. One notable fact which is important (though often overlooked) is that in this bike the separate tell-a-tale lights for left turn & right turn are different and distinct, which is a great safety feature and can save your life. There is also a beeper which makes beep sound as long as the turn indicating blinkers are blinking, thus reminding the driver to switch off turn indicating blinker. This again is an excellent safety device [can save your life] because “a wrong indicating signal (which happens if you forget to switch it off) is much more dangerous that no signal at all”.

ROAD MANNERs

The paramount advantage of this bike is GREAT MiLEAGE and EASE OF DRiViNG. Imagine, while driving in 4th gear you come to a red light and have to stop. To start again when the light turns green, to get into first gear, in any other 4-geared bike you would have to press kluch & change from 4th to 3rd, same for 3rd to 2nd and again same for 2nd to 1st. That is – you have to do THREE kluch-press & THREE heel-press actions, whereas in Jive, only TWO toe-press actions are required (no kluch), and you know that toe-press is easier than heel press: Either engine running or switched off, TWiCE toe-press on the gear shifter, and bike goes from 4th gear to neutral and then to 1st gear. While bike is in neutral, switch on the ignition key, press E-start button and move off in first gear. This saves much effort and makes it much easier for the driver to drive off. Also, going from fourth gear to first gear by TWO toe-press movements can happen ONLY when bike is NOT moving. This is the beauty & safety of T–MaTiC technology.

If you have stopped at red light in 4th gear, in Jive you have TWO options to move on: First option is to start from 1st gear as mentioned in the above paragraph, and the second option is to stay on in 4th gear, and when the light turns green, just gently twist the throttle (staying in 4th gear only) and the bike will move on like an ungeared scooter. Sure it will not take off like an Apache RTR180, but then Jive is not intended to be like RTR180. And in heavy traffic even taking off like RTR180 is of no use because traffic does not allow it! I would say this bike is specially designed for easy driving in heavy city traffic in which bikers crisscross for moving space between cars and other larger traffic units such as trucks, buses, autorixas & etc.

Even being so easy in heavy city traffic, the highway capabilities of Jive have not been compromised. The top speed test was done by Devjeet Saha, who has quite a few bike speed records to his credit, including IBA’s BUN-BURNER award (details at www.devjeetsaha.com). Jive does a respectable speed0-indicated top speed of 92 kmpH (single driver 55 kg), same as other 110 cc bikes. In the past few years we have seen that the geared scooter as a species has gradually died out and ungeared scooters (or skootees) have taken over. But variator driven ungeared / gearless scooters just cannot give the kind of mileage that geared bikes (or geared scooters) can give.

Enter Jive with T–MaTiC Technology: Get great Mileage like a Geared Economy Bike, and Get Ease of Driving like a Gearless Scooty.

MILEAGE

I did an accurate mileage test on this Jive on exactly the same 20 km circuit on which I do mileage test on all bikes which I test. Jive gave excellent mileage under different traffic conditions as below:

S.No	Test conditions of TVS Jive	Distance Covered (km)	Fuel Consumed (litres)	Fuel average (kmpL)
1	Speed mostly below 40 – heavy traffic. Two overtakings at speed of 50. 15 gear changings mostly to 3rd, twice to 3rd and twice to 2nd.	6.3	0.08	78.8
2	Speed up to 45. Not much traffic. 4 brakings. Four gear changings to 3rd , One full stop at traffic light. Engine off. Button start and move on.	4.2	0.055	76.4
3	Steady 40 in 4th gear. No braking. No gear change	2.5	0.03	83.3
4	Three gear changings & brakings.2 overtakings & accelerations plus upslope. Max speed 50.	6.1	0.085	71.8
5	Overall Fuel Average	19.1	0.25	76.4

I have written earlier in this report that you can use this bike as a totally gearless scooter by staying in 4th gear FOREVER. When you want to use this bike, you can kick-start in neutral and go directly to 4th gear by heel-press, OR self-start while bike is already in 4th gear, and move off. When your journey ends and you park your bike, let the bike be in 4th gear. When you want to use this bike again, just switch on the ignition and self-start the bike and move off. Thus you can have a gearless ride forever.

Of course, pick-up from zero (rest) directly and continuously in 4th gear is slower than by shifting thru 1st, 2nd & 3rd, but the point is, you CAN do it, only on this bike because of the (theoretically) INFiNiTE Low-End-Tork (like un-geared skotees). Thus as per the Laws of Archimedes & Newton, this bike has the BEST Low-End-Tork among all geared bikes in the whole country. This bike gives YOU a choice which no other bike gives. If you are in a hurry and want to do quick gear changing (like ordinary geared bike) and try to run like RTR180, then you are going to lose mileage and gain time. But if you hold a steady throttle and let T–MatiC do its job, you will lose time but gain mileage. You can choose to do a job in TWO hours at economy speed and save Rs.20/- worth of petrol or choose to do the same job in ONE hour at quick speed and save ONE hour of time. The choice is yours. It is in your hands – literally – only on this bike – traffic conditions notwithstanding! The choice is simple: If you earn MORE than Rs.20/- in one hour then do quick gear-shifts and save time, and if you earn LESS than Rs.20/- in one hour then stay in 4th gear forever, have a relaxed drive and save Rs.20/- but lose ONE HOUR.

To find out if there was any difference in Mileage if Jive is used <1>as a geared bike, changing gears as per traffic & speed requirements as in normal geared bike, and
<2>using Jive as an un-geared scooter, starting in 4th gear and staying in 4th gear continuously even while coming to complete stop to make U-turn. I did TWO fuel tests of 3-km each on the same road under exactly the same traffic conditions measuring fuel consumption accurately for these two conditions and found that mileage was exactly the same under both conditions.

So here is a bike which you can drive totally like and un-geared scooter forever, or use it like a normal geared bike, and GET THE SAME MiLEAGE in both cases. The only condition is that you shouldn’t quick-shift gears as in ZoooM-ZoooM-VRoooM-VRoooM speeds and try to be like RTR.

You want mileage and no tension – T–MatiC does the TRicK !