Bajaj Pulsar RS200 City Review : Urban Gusto

How does it ride?

The riding stance is pretty relaxed, contrary to what the full fairing and the “Race Sport” lettering would like you to believe. For taller people it’s almost upright. For others, it is very mildly leaning forward. The foot-pegs are also slightly rear biased, but not committedly so. The tank pad is quite generous, and feels like an extension of the seat, especially with its knee guards. It’s quite a handy element, and you don’t feel metal between your legs.

The split seat just has the right amount of padding for a motorcycle of its kind, with it being neither too soft, nor too hard. The pillion gets a couple of hidden recesses to hold on to, but she prefers holding me. Optimum handlebar positioning means that you aren’t left with sore palms after your boring commute, which the RS200 aims to cheer up.

The fairing and aggressive bodywork are a façade that cleverly cover up what in essence is an everyday motorcycle. Instrumentation on the RS is also a carryover from the NS, and remains legible enough. In the dark, it glows blue, but the coolest trick has to be the bright orange upshift light, that blinks feverishly once you hit the 11,000 rpm redline.

To see that light, you have to really ride it by the scruff of its neck – something that the RS200 encourages every time you take it for a ride. The RS200 is quite a hoot to belt in the city. Fuel injection means slightly more response from the  199.5cc Liquid Cooled four valve  DTS-i Triple Spark Engine, which now emits 24.5 PS@ 9750 rpm,  1 PS over the NS. However being a faired motorcycle et al, it is 12 Kgs heavier too. So it doesn’t wallop your bottom any better than the NS, but as mentioned before, the BOSCH FI unit translates into more responsiveness and better refinement.

Any gap in traffic is thrashed shut with a burst of DTS-I chatter and fuel-injected whir, with the revs playfully bouncing off the limiter. Slightly shortened gear ratios also help the cause. Low end response could have been slightly better though, and she takes a moment to uncoil. Mid-range is meaty, while top-end, as has been revealed in detail in our track review, redefines Pulsar territory. Compared to the KTM 200’s snappiness, the Bajaj is more linear and forgiving with its power delivery.

The 6-speed gearbox is smooth, but it isn’t silk. Low speed shifts are clunky, and if you want to settle into a high-geared cruise, low speed cruise, you have to exercise your left toe a bit. The clutch is impressively light, and the engine is tractable, and settles into a comfortable hum when you just want to potter around town.

For sharper handling on the limit, Bajaj has decreased the rake angle by 1 degree for sharper and quicker turn-ins into corners. They have also reduced the wheelbase by 5mm and lowered it by 6mm, making it more agile than before. But, of course, these alterations don’t reflect in the city. The RS200 is a genuinely well poised motorcycle, and the ride quality, in my opinion, is brilliant. It is also extremely well-mannered in traffic, and doesn’t throw a tantrum or heat its guts off in stop-go conditions.

The perimeter frame and rear mono-shock gives it genuinely good stability, and excellent handling credentials, something that has been explained in expanse in our exhaustive track review. In the city, only an iota of the capabilities can be experienced, but it showed good promise and ushered immense confidence. Not that I pushed it, but the newly developed MRF soft-compound feels sticky enough.

The brakes are superb, and the addition of ABS clearly makes decelerating a safer experience. But the single channel setup means that the trickery is just limited to the front brake, which is fair enough for the price and performance. It can get a little weird at time though, especially under hard braking, with the front keeping holding its line, and the rear dancing around a bit.

In spite of hard riding throughout, the RS200 returned approximately 34.2 km/l, fairly shy of the claimed 54 km/l.

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