Thread: HH Glamour Bike

On its year-long stint at Glamour FI has been the last word in reliability. The Glamour truly has been bullet-proof, being ridden flat-out (which is kind of justified given its lack of outright go) over Pune's moon-crater road surfaces. For any bike of its segment, the congested and chaotic city roads are considered home ground. The slick shifting four-speed box sports unusually tall ratios, mated with an equally long-stroked engine with torque peaking at an unfazed 4000 revs. For a city annihilator like the Glamour, it works out to be a blessing in disguise. In simple terms it means one doesn't have to rev the nuts off the engine or toe 'n' heel the gearshift lever frantically to avoid being run over by the city transport bus breathing down the rear mudguard.

The Glamour thus allows generous room for extremely late 'n' lazy gear shifts, capable of pottering around in 3rd gear while doing 20 clicks. Spot the gap and open the taps and one is instantly forced to salute the PGM-Fi tech that this small soldier comes armed with. No hesitation, no snatch, just a clean and predictable pull from almost tickover revs irrespective of the gear one is slotted in. After getting going, the next question is about stopping? Stopping quickly is an indispensable virtue for a clogged city like Pune where there are as many bottlenecks as there are junctions.

One never knows when a deep crater (calling them mere potholes seems an understatement) which wasn't present in the morning on the way to work has sprouted up, an illegal love child of the non-stop down pour and the sorry excuse for roads we are unfortunately gifted with. One usually spots the crater in question at the very last moment, partly because the headlight spread of the Glamour which is just about adequate on a normal dark night diminishes considerably in capability during a downpour. This translates to an instant tug at the front brake lever which thankfully gives amazing feedback, letting the rider squeeze the KBX discs to their threshold without locking up in a jiffy.



This allows for last minute front-end corrections to avoid bottoming out the suspension, a common scenario due to the typical low spring rates all Hero Hondas are known for. There have been only a couple of black marks on Glamour's shining record as a long-termer. For one, redlining each gear to the rev limiter (irrespective of the need) has resulted in some unwanted vibration emanating from the front fairing. A routine service saw it disappear for a couple of days before raring its ugly head again.

The second grouse (if one can call it that) is a flat that happened towards the end of its term, nothing taken away though since it was only one over these six-odd months its keys were in my possession. Even though the Glamour doesn't satiate the need for hair-raising performance, it does admirably well what it has been made for making the excruciating pain otherwise known as the daily commute, a breeze.