What engine size do you need? Usually less than you think

Peak power across the 64 machines here runs from 5.8 PS to 47 PS, with a median of 11.1 PS. That median is the honest answer for the great majority of Indian riding: eleven horsepower moves a machine of about 125 kg and a rider through city traffic at every speed the traffic allows, all day, cheaply.

The reason people buy past it is structural rather than foolish. Showroom comparisons happen at a standstill, where the only thing a machine can do is show you a number. A spec sheet has one big figure on it and no column for how the machine feels at a red light on a camber.

What you feel when you open the throttle is not power. It is power divided by mass. The arithmetic is easy to do in a showroom: take peak power in PS, divide by kerb weight in kilograms, multiply by a thousand. That gives PS per tonne, the only figure that compares a light commuter with a heavy tourer honestly.

Work it on the median machine here — 11.1 PS and 126.5 kg — and you get about 88 PS per tonne. Put an 80 kg rider on it and the moving mass is 206.5 kg, or about 54 PS per tonne. Add a 65 kg pillion and you are at 271.5 kg and roughly 41. A pillion costs close to a quarter of your acceleration, and that is physics rather than opinion.

Kerb weight here spreads from 99 kg to 241 kg. The strongest machine makes about eight times the power of the weakest, but the heaviest is only about two and a half times the lightest — and since the light machines in this market are generally the low-powered ones, the real spread in PS per tonne is far narrower than the headline figures suggest. At any given power, every 10 kg you leave behind is worth more than marketing.

Displacement is a rough proxy for power, and the market has settled into bands that each do a job well. Read the third column carefully: it is the part the showroom leaves out.

If you take one row from that table, take the 125. It covers the commute, it will carry a pillion across a city, and it leaves money for brakes, a helmet and two years of fuel. Everything above it is bought for a reason, and if you cannot name yours in a sentence you probably do not have one.

1. 1

   How far do you ride on a normal day?

   Under 10 km and displacement barely matters — buy for weight, storage and price. Between 10 and 30 km, a 110 or a 125. Between 30 and 60 km, a 125 is the floor and a 150 is right if any of it is open road. Beyond 60 km daily, 150–200: the difference between working an engine hard and cruising is what your shoulders feel by Friday. The finder asks this in those four bands.

2. 2

   How much of it is highway?

   None, ever: nothing above 125 earns its keep. A highway run most weeks: 150–200. Long runs most weekends: a 350 single or above. The point is never top speed — it is the reserve to overtake a truck without planning it two kilometres ahead.

3. 3

   Who rides with you?

   Solo riding wants the lightest machine that does the job. A daily pillion changes the sum: power to weight falls by roughly a quarter with an adult aboard, so a machine that is adequate solo will be marginal two-up. Carrying a pillion and luggage covers the rest of it.

4. 4

   How long will you keep it?

   Three years: buy for the riding you do now. Eight to ten: buy for the riding you will still be doing then, which for most people is the same riding, slightly less of it. A bigger engine charges you weight, fuel and tyres on every one of those days.

The cost of a bigger engine is not paid once at the showroom. It is paid daily, in four currencies, and three of them are invisible on a spec sheet.

• Weight. The catalogue runs from 99 kg to 241 kg, and you feel the difference every time you reverse out of a slot on a slope. Seat height runs 737 mm to 835 mm, and a heavy machine with a tall seat is a hard combination for a shorter rider; seat height and fit shows how to test it.
• Fuel. Running cost spans ₹0.20 to ₹4.20 per kilometre, with a petrol median of ₹2.30. The gap between the median and the thirstiest, at 30 km a day over 300 riding days, is about ₹17,000 a year — a recurring bill for ability you might use on ten days a year.
• Tyres and service. Wider tyres cost more to replace, and a heavier machine works its pads, chain and sprockets harder. This catalogue does not break those costs out, so treat them as real but unquantified.
• Traffic. The heavier the machine, the worse it is at the thing most Indian riders do most of: creeping through congestion in the heat. The commute happens 250 times a year, and that is where weight is felt.

The opposite mistake is real too. A 100–110 asked to cover 50 km of open road daily is worked near the top of its range constantly, which is hard on the engine and harder on the rider. Under-buying happens; it is simply rarer.

Once a machine has enough power for your riding, more of it is the least valuable thing the next ₹20,000 can buy. Brakes are the most valuable. The catalogue holds 19 machines with dual-channel ABS, 10 with single-channel, 17 with a combined braking system and 18 with discs and no ABS. Brakes and safety explains which wheel gets what.

Then there is the thing displacement cannot fix. Not one motorcycle in this catalogue has any storage at all, while all 26 scooters have both underseat and apron space, 14 to 55 litres with a median of 23. That is a hard dividing line, and scooter or motorcycle works through what it costs you.

If you are still weighing fuel against a plug, settle that first: the range and charging limits in petrol or electric rule out whole parts of this page before displacement comes up.

Start at 125 and move only if one of three things is true.

1. You ride under 10 km a day and never leave the city. A 100–110 will do, and the money saved is better spent on brakes and a helmet.
2. You ride an open road most weeks, or carry a pillion daily. Then 150–200, where holding a cruising speed stops being work.
3. You tour, or cover 300 km in a day more than twice a year. Then a 350 single, and a 650 twin only if you already know from experience that you want one.

Everything beyond that is want rather than need, and want is a respectable reason to buy a motorcycle. Just call it by its name, and do not let it push you past the budget you set before you started.