Honda India recently launched its first 100cc commuter bike in India, the Shine 100. It's the most affordable bike in the Japanese brand's portfolio, and here's our take on the Shine 100 after riding it for a brief period.
Apart from its name, the bike also borrows its design philosophy from the Shine 125. So, you see a very bare-bone and purposeful build. The Shine 100 gets a halogen headlight with bulb indicators, a single-piece seat, a grab rail, and a slim and flat fuel tank.
Honda has equipped the baby Shine with a 98.98cc single-cylinder air-cooled engine that makes 7.28bhp and 8.05Nm. It's mated to a four-speed gearbox and sits inside a diamond-type frame.
The engine is fairly smooth and refined, and offers good traceability as well. We rode the bike at speeds as low as 20kmph in the fourth gear, and the motor still managed to gradually increase the speed further.
Even though the gearbox is quite responsive for the most part, we feel the upshifts could have a little more feedback. The mechanical click while running through the gears isn't very evident so you might want to upshift again.
The Shine 100 rides on telescopic front forks and dual rear shocks. The setup is quite plush at the front but a tad stiff at the back. However, the pillion's weight would help to compress the rear springs more and make the overall ride softer than what it is with just the rider onboard.
Its braking hardware comprises a front and rear drum brake with the combined braking system. Even with this simple setup, the Shine 100 stops quite predictably. We even stomped on the rear brake multiple times, but it didn't lock.
Honda has given the Shine 100 a very basic set of features like a twin-pod analogue console and CBS.
However, there's one unusual bit about the bike and we've talked about it in detail in our first ride review of the Shine 100.
