Well rounded but no fire breather.

Honda never set out to build a Performance motorcycle with the Unicorn, that will come at a later date. For now they have the intelligent commuter in sights, the one who wants Performance as well as Fuel Efficiency with riding pleasure thrown in and that’s what the Unicorn delivers.
Despite being handicapped by a 139kg kerb weight (giving her the lower power to weight ratio of 97.12PS/ton in its class) on our test track the Unicorn shot to 60kmph in 6.19sec, took 10.97sec to get to 80kmph and hit 100kmph in 20.43sec. She took 21.25sec to complete the quarter mile drag with the VBOX II data logging gear reading 96.29kmph at the 400m mark. Top whack was 110.7kmph with the speedo reading an optimistic 124kmph.
Compared to the other 150cc contenders, the Unicorn is two-tenths slower to get to 60kmph but then on she is the quicker machine being half a second quicker to get to 80 and almost a second quicker getting to 100kmph. However her top speed is not in the same ballpark as the Pulsar 150DTS-i.
Where she scores is in her roll-on times, taking 8.35sec for the 30-70kmph roll-on in third gear, 9.41sec in fourth and 12.32sec in fifth. Ultimately in the real world these are the figures that matter, more so than the top speed or outright acceleration even. The strong flexibility of the engine ensures city commuting is a breeze requiring far fewer gearshifts.
The Unicorn will only be available with a 240mm front disc brake allied to a 130mm rear drum which is good thought on Honda’s part. Braking times we got were fantastic, the Unicorn taking 16.19 metres to come to a dead stop from 60kmph, taking 1.50sec in the process. Good rubber, excellent feel and control through the levers and the flex-free nature of the forks all contribute in making the Unicorn one of the best bikes on the brakes.