Next morning I laid the torn between the Eliminator-Enticer puzzle on the boss’s table, but instead of providing monosyllabic verdict, he let fly a blizzard of questions my grey cells are still somersaulting over. But the boss acting the boss, with a few strokdes of pen chalked out a route, along with four-figure mileage and set 7-day deadline for Eliminator-Enticer comparo.

So there we were, Bertie astride the Enticer and me perched on Eliminator saddle as we retraced the ride-of-our-lives route. Trundling out of Pune I couldn’t shake Bertie off my tail no matter how hard I tried on the virtuous Eliminator. Traffic is a great leveler which cancels out the 40.6 per cent difference in swept volume and 38.2 per cent discrepancy in horsepower, in favour of the Eliminator. The faster I acclerated out of traffic lights the harder I had to brake for some dawdler, thereby sweeping the road for Bertie as he made swift progress in top gear.

I’m grinning however once we are past Mulshi lake as the road surface improves and traffic thins out, Bertie being shown a clean pair of heels. To throw in a cliché, “there is no substitute for cubic inches”. Which brings us to what sets these bikes apart: the engines.

The units in the Eliminator and Enticer are as different as chalk and cheese. One cradle cages a powerplant whose primary objective is to raise big fat horses while in the other’s cradle slumbers a unit tuned primarily for more mileage, horsepower being secondary.

The Eliminator has to be the best mill in service in India today (an accolade it also shares with the super Pulsar 180). Essentially displacing 173.9 cubic centimeters and developing 15.2bhp and 13.2Nm of twist, the Kawasaki unit excels in almost all respects. Propelling this 156kg bike to 60kmph from rest in 7.2 seconds and 80kmph in 12.6 seconds, is no mean feat, to top which, top speed registered is in excess of 111 kmph. The Mikuni CV carb that handles breathing duties delivers crisp throttle responses which is an eye opener even to one who commutes daily on a Pulsar. Let's not forget the 5-speed 'box, the best in Bajaj Auto's stables that has a super clean and slick action with no falsies anywhere in the range.