BikeWale TrackDay 2021: An Introduction

2021 TrackDay

Welcome to the 2021 edition of the BikeWale TrackDay. The global pandemic was a testing time for most of us, but it didn’t break our spirits. Nevertheless, things have been getting better for good and that meant, we could get back to riding and testing bikes. And thankfully, we managed to get access to a race track to celebrate some interesting motorcycles.

Now some of you know what this track day is all about, but for those who don't, well, over a span of two days we bring a bunch of motorcycles to a race track and put it through the paces. And these motorcycles are primarily street bikes that we enjoyed riding on the street but we believe have the pedigree to do a lot more. So here we are. At the Madras Motor Race Track. A venue to know and understand how these bikes behave on a race track.

But before I tell you more about the 2021 version, let me go back to the last two trackdays and tell you in brief about what we did. For the 2018 TrackDay, we got four motorcycles – the Suzuki Gixxer SF, YZF-R15 V 3.0, TVS Apache RR 310, and the Ducati Super Sport S. As you can notice, in this line-up, we tested only the fully-faired motorcycles because that year there were plenty of such motorcycles in India and Indians love the fully-faired flavor. Then in the 2019 edition, we decided to bring street bikes onto the race track. So we had the Yamaha MT15, TVS Apache RTR 200, BMW G310R the Bajaj Dominar 400, the Royal Enfield Continental GT and finally the famous Triumph Street Triple RS. For the 2021 edition, we just had one requirement – motorcycles that are extremely easy and fun to ride in the city. So, we brought together a total of five bikes from each category -160, 300, 600 and a litre class.

The first bike in question is the Hero Xtreme 160R - a motorcycle that everyone at Bikewale really liked it. It is super light. Easy to handle and gets a peppy motor.

Then we have the BMW 310R- the most affordable BMW in India that is known for its torquey motor, good riding dynamics and an extremely aspirational feel due to its German connection.

The third bike - well, it's the Trident Trident. I have ridden this on public roads. I toured a1000kms on it. Now, the only thing that remains to be seen is its track performance. So here we are.

Now, there are two more bikes and both are extremely special.

There's the TVS Apache RR310 Race Bike - a bike that has been specially developed for racing. As a result, it gets some interesting feature additions that have made the bike quite fast on the track and also lighter.

And finally, we have the legendary Suzuki Hayabusa - a bike that doesn’t need any introduction. It is a bike that was sold out in just a few days. And, as a matter of fact, this bike could also be the fastest selling Suzuki ever in India.

Now, these bikes will be tested by two of our budding track junkies – Neil Nair and Anuj Mishra.

Neil is the guy who handles roadtests at BikeWale. He is also the guy who loves to get new tattoos on his body and flex it in the gym.

Anuj, on the other hand, is a soft spoken guy who is responsible for the BikeWale Podcast and social media. In his free time, he likes to move his body and learn new forms of dancing.