There is one thing which I would like to apologise for at this juncture. In our last issue, my colleague Aspi Bhathena who covered the media ride and launch of the Victor stated that the frame of the new bike was of the single downtube cradle frame but this is not correct. The word cradle was the offending part and I would like to place the record straight by stating the Victor employs a single downtube which uses the engine as a stressed member of the frame. It might look as if it is a slightly updated version of the basic AX100/Supra/Samurai/Shogun/Shaolin frame and to an extent that is true but there has been a great deal of work done with regard to wheelbase lengths, steering angle, rider ergonomics, ride and handling to make it a completely new design.
  
Using Pro Engineer and 3D software, a separate team worked on not just frame and suspension but also rider comfort and ergonomics. Digital mannequins were employed to get the Indian male/female and child forms correct for safety, placement, weight, etc. Using a host of accelerometer probes on their test riders and making them run on the Belgian pave tracks, it was possible to monitor g-force and its direction of movement and suspension travel and frequency. With instrumentation and other video facilities, it took two solid months of testing to get the front and rear suspension rates perfectly matched. There is a sort of stomach churning feel which manifests itself on some bikes at a certain frequency and this they wanted to avoid at all cost.
  
Arvind Pangaonkar and his band of race mechanics worked flat out to get the damping values matched to the road response from the front telescopic forks (supplied by Gabriel) while also keeping in mind the high ride quality which was their project requirement. At the rear the shocks (Gabriel or Armstrong) employ triple rated springs. Harne stated that at the rear load carrying was of the essence and compression damping roll was less critical but spring rating was far more important, hence the triple rated springs. In contrast up front both compression and expansion damping are critical factors and his team worked closely with Gabriel to develop the telescopic forks.
  
The wheelbase was finalised at the concept stage itself and the swingarm was always designed to be of a pretty short length so as to afford strength without much weight.
  
Ample NISA and ANSYS software was employed by the FEM group working on the frame design to keep bending (left to right and vice versa) and twisting (front to rear) forces to a tolerable level for a flex free unit. The box-section swingarm helps provide the strength which is so crucial under hard cornering while the front downtube is swaged (flattened) as you can see for the same purpose of imparting strength.
  
Sadly TVS didn't think about a disc brake yet again, making do with a 130mm dia drum in front and 110mm dia drum at the rear. The Victor runs on newly developed TVS Srichakra tyres which contribute their own to making a good product even better.