With the 223cc, 17.76bhp, 18.35Nm Karizma, Hero Honda has once again wrested the title of king of the Performance hill (it helped create with its CBZ some four years ago) from the Bajaj Pulsar 180 which held it convincingly for over a year and a half. OVERDRIVE's Adil Jal Darukhanawala gets to grips with the bike which is not only quicker and faster than its competition but also handles, steers and brakes like no other bike in the country - today.

There I was flat out on the Pune - Ahmednagar highway, in a very good frame of mind after testing the Karizma and heading back to base. The new 223cc bike from Hero Honda had impressed yours truly and our road test expert Aspi Bhathena no end with its Performance, not beccause it had clocked the quickest acceleration and roll-on times plus also recorded the fastest speed for a present day production motorcycle but because the bike was in too mellow a state of tune and therefore had tremendous potential to perform even quicker and faster!

With this thought paramount in my mind and the bike really zinging that day in the fourth and fifth cogs for much of the 120km run, I guess it was all going too much to my head as I came upon an open stretch of road with a slight uphill section curving to the left. What I saw was no traffic when all of a sudden a cyclist with a large trunk crawled out of the woodwork and suddenly decided to do his variation on the twirl perfected by John Travolta in Grease but right in my intended flight path. While it looked pleasing and aesthetic in the film, it was anything but so On the Road. While Travolta and team delighted the audience, here the audience suddenly had his heart in his mouth. The one bit which is obviously a sore point (of just a few such) on the new Hero Honda was proved no end and I am referring to the inadequacy of the horn because I am sure the cyclist never heard it and in the whirl of those few seconds it didn't ring a bell in my ears as well!

But in case you are thinking about a stunning crash scene as in Grease there was no such thing. The superb dynamic balance of the Karizma with its highly pleasing weight distribution and suspension geometry came to my rescue as did the fantastic 276mm dia disc brake up front (courtesy a new player in the motorcycle brake market - Tata Yutaxa). A slight squeeze on the front brake lever, a rapid downshift to third from fifth, a blip on the throttle and the gyrating bicyclist was passed with metres to spare and thankfully no contact. For a moment I thought it was all going to end in tears but when I had got my breath back and was motoring sedately (if cruising at 110kmph can be called that on our roads), I once again began to appreciate what a fantastic bike Hero Honda had produced. In fact by the time I had ended doing the test the Karizma had done enough to wipe out the memories of the CBZ which had promised much but had failed to deliver, and it further emphasised that it was the best bike ever made by Hero Honda but with tremendous potential yet lurking to be unleashed should the competition cook up some goodies on similar lines.

It is a different way to start a road test report but then this is a different bike in itself and unlike any from Hero Honda. In fact Hero Honda officials have had their run-ins with us on many an occasion because rightly or wrongly their econo-misers have not impressed us much with their dynamic ability and those which have, do not pack in much to enthuse on the Performance front. With the Karizma, I think that they finally have made a bike which has the potential to silence doubters like yours truly but here again they have failed because instead of silencing they have everyone of our Performance driven staffers yelling out in glee! Sometimes 'even when you win you lose' sort of syndrome (works the other way round as well) but better for Hero Honda to be saddled with such than nothing at all.