As an overall package, the Ambition comes across as trying to do too many things and not excelling at any. There are bikes in the market endowed with better Performance and others that deliver better mileage. However the Ambition I feel must be viewed from the perspective as a bike that strives to offer a reasonable balance between the twin requirements of power and Fuel Efficiency, draped in eye-catching apparel.

For sure the Ambition is an attempt to bridge the gap in Hero Honda's own portfolio and persuade existing customers from switching loyalties over to the competition. Whether the Ambition succeeds in achieving this remains to be seen and I really am not going to hazard any guesses on how she will perform in the market. Initial response seems to be encouraging though.

The base Ambition, without a self-starter and front disc brake is priced at Rs 47,973 on-road in Pune, escalating to Rs 50,870 for the disc-braked version and topping up at Rs 55,767 for the disc brake and self-starter version. Which seems kind of hard to justify when the base Pulsar 150 is priced in the region of 50 grand while the fully-loaded Pulsar 180 retails for 59 grand OTR in Pune.

It is this pricing aspect that will continue to give Hero Honda headaches in the days to come but till Hero Honda comes up with a genuinely new bike (which we hear will be out by the end of the year) or opens up a genuinely new segment in the overcrowded motorcycle market, the Ambition will have to hold fort. Which hopefully should not be for too long.