Hero Xpulse 210

I took this one up the fire roads behind Lonavala on a wet August weekend, which is the sort of thing you can do with an Xpulse and cannot really do with anything else at this money. It is not fast, it is not particularly refined, and by the end of the second day my palms were buzzing. I also had a grin I could not get rid of. That is the whole pitch for this motorcycle, and if it does not land with you, buy something else and be happier for it.

Let's start with money, because that's what everyone asks me first. It's a mountain trail bike, ₹1,85,000 ex-showroom, and about ₹2,12,000 (roughly ₹2.12 lakh) by the time it's on the road in a metro. That gap is road tax, insurance and dealer charges, and it moves a fair bit between states — Delhi is around 6%, Karnataka nearly 14%. I've seen two friends pay ₹9,000 apart for the same bike in different cities. Ask for the breakup in writing.

Used, a tidy 2023-2025 example usually goes for ₹1,18,000 to ₹1,56,000. What decides where you land in that band isn't the odometer as much as the service book. A single-owner bike with every stamp in place will cost you 10-15% more, and honestly, pay it. The cheap one always turns out to be the expensive one.

Tall, narrow, and unapologetically dirt-bike shaped. Round LED headlamp with a small screen, a proper flat seat you can slide back and forth on, decent bash plate as standard, and wire-spoke wheels - 21-inch front, 18-inch rear - which is the single most important spec on the bike. Plastics are basic, the switchgear is ordinary, and the whole thing looks better with mud on it than off the showroom floor.

When you're standing next to it in the showroom, do the boring checks. Run a finger along the panel gaps near the tank, click the switches a few times, and sit on it with the side stand up and both feet down. The measured 830 mm seat sounds fine on paper and then surprises people at a signal. At 158 kg, it felt easy enough to shove around, even if you're fairly new to bikes.

The numbers: 210cc oil-cooled single, OBD-2B, 24.6 PS @ 9,250 rpm, 20.7 Nm @ 7,250 rpm, through a 6-speed, and it'll see about 134 kmph if you find the road for it. You won't. What actually matters here is what the bike does between 40 and 90 kmph, because that's where your entire riding life happens in this country.

On broken hill roads it is genuinely brilliant. The long-travel suspension swallows ruts that would have you standing on the pegs in pain on any road bike, the 21-inch front wheel rolls over rocks instead of tripping on them, and the switchable rear ABS means you can lock the back and slide the tail around a hairpin without fighting electronics. On tarmac it is a different story - 90 kmph is comfortable, 100 kmph is a buzzy, breezy compromise, and overtaking a truck uphill on the highway needs planning. The knobbly-ish stock tyres give up early in the wet on tar too.

Mileage worked out to 35-38 kmpl in mixed riding for me, with a 11 litres tank — so you can do the range maths yourself and plan fuel stops without drama. Fair warning: your right wrist decides this number far more than the brochure does. Ride it hard and 15-20% of that mileage quietly disappears.

Everything mechanical is in the table below. Short version: 43 mm telescopic front with 210 mm travel, monoshock rear with 205 mm travel holding it up, and 276 mm front disc, 220 mm rear disc, switchable rear abs slowing it down. One opinion I won't budge on — if you ride in rain or unpredictable traffic, dual-channel ABS is worth whatever it costs. Single-channel only looks after the front wheel, and it's rarely the front that catches you out.

Almost nobody pays cash for a bike, so let's do the loan maths. Put down 20% — ₹42,400 — borrow ₹1,69,600 at 9.5%, and you get the EMIs in the table and calculator below for 12, 24, 36 and 48 months.

Two things I tell everyone who asks. A longer tenure makes the EMI look friendly and quietly costs you thousands more in interest, so take the shortest one you can actually live with. And don't sign the dealer's finance form just because it's on the desk — a pre-approved offer from your own bank usually comes in 1-2 percentage points cheaper, and if you're salaried, the PSU banks are normally the best of the lot.

Keep ₹1,500-3,000 aside for processing fees, plus documentation charges and the five-year third-party insurance that's baked into the on-road price. Then read the quotation properly. Accessories you never asked for and an "extended warranty" you didn't agree to are the two lines I find padded most often.

This is the cheap part. Hero's network is everywhere, spares cost commuter money, and services run Rs 1,100-1,700 every 5,000 km. At 800 km a month with a mix of trail and road I averaged 36 kmpl, so about Rs 2,300 in fuel. Budget an extra Rs 6,000-8,000 a year if you actually ride off road, because chains, sprockets and tyres wear far faster in mud and grit than the brochure figures assume.

Servicing is Rs 1,100-1,700 per service, every 5,000 km, comprehensive insurance Rs 5,200-7,000 a year comprehensive. On top of that, tyres every 20,000-25,000 km, a chain and sprocket set around the same time if it's chain-driven, and brake pads once or twice a year if you're in city traffic all day.

The one number I'd actually compare bikes on is cost per kilometre. Take your fuel spend at 35-38 kmpl and today's petrol price, add a year of servicing and insurance, divide by however much you really ride. Do that for two or three bikes and the decision usually makes itself — no showroom pitch required.

The Xpulse's only real competition is a used KTM 250 Adventure at similar money, which is faster and far worse off road, or the Kawasaki KLX 230 above it, which is a better dirt bike and a worse road bike for Rs 1 lakh more. Nothing new at Rs 2.1 lakh on-road does mountain trails as well as this.

If you can, ride your shortlist on the same day, on the same road, wearing the same gear. Demo bikes are set up differently and your memory of yesterday's test ride is unreliable. Watch three things while you're at it: how heavy the clutch feels in traffic, whether the mirrors blur at 60 kmph, and how comfortably you can put both feet down at a signal. Those are the things that decide whether you still like the bike two years in.

A three-year-old one goes for ₹1,18,000-₹1,56,000 against ₹2,12,000 on-road new. That's a lot of money for the same riding experience. Resale here is fair - roughly 55-60% after three years, so if you buy used and sell in a couple of years, you lose very little in between.

Physically: check the date codes on the tyres, chain slack, fork seals for any oil weep, how much disc is left, and get your phone torch under the engine looking for leaks. Cycle all the electricals too — the ABS light should come on with the ignition and go off once you're rolling. Then take it for at least 5 km, and brake hard once from 50 kmph so you know what you're buying.

Paperwork, briefly: ₹500-1,500 for the RC transfer, insurance moved into your name within 14 days, and never pay the full amount before the transfer forms are signed and submitted. I've seen that go wrong more than once.

Buy it if there are dirt roads within an hour of your house and you intend to use them. Skip it if your riding is 90% highway, because the engine runs out of breath exactly where a highway bike should feel relaxed. Add handguards, a rear rack and a set of proper trail tyres before your first real ride - that is another Rs 12,000 and it transforms the thing.

If you're under about 5'6", go sit on it before you book anything — that measured 830 mm seat height is the single most common regret I hear. And if someone rides behind you every day, take them along on the test ride. Pillion comfort varies wildly between these bikes and no spec sheet will tell you that.

So why is the Hero Xpulse 210 on this list? Mainly 21-inch front wheel and 210 mm travel at commuter running costs and switchable rear abs is genuinely useful on loose surfaces. Its problems — struggles above 100 kmph on the highway, stock tyres are a compromise on both surfaces, vibration through the bars on long tarmac stretches — are real, but you can see all of them from the showroom floor. Nothing here ambushes you six months later, which is more than I can say for some of its rivals.

₹2,12,000 on-road new, ₹1,18,000-₹1,56,000 used. Right bike for the rider I described above, wrong bike for most other people, and that's fine. Before you go anywhere, put your own down payment and tenure into the calculator above and hold that EMI against what's actually left in your account at month-end — not your salary. — Sneha Kulkarni, Nashik, Maharashtra