Honda CB350RS

I have ridden this bike on and off for about three weeks in total across two loaner spells, and my honest reaction both times was the same: this is the better motorcycle and the worse purchase, and whether that sentence makes sense to you depends on why you want a 350 in the first place. If you want a bike, buy this. If you want the sound and the crowd around it at a tea stall, you already know you are buying the other one.

Let's start with money, because that's what everyone asks me first. It's a modern classic bike, ₹2,13,000 ex-showroom, and about ₹2,46,000 (roughly ₹2.46 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 2021-2024 example usually goes for ₹1,32,000 to ₹1,78,000. 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.

Neater than the photos suggest. Round LED headlamp, a short tail, blacked-out engine casings and genuinely good paint - Honda's finish quality on the tank and welds is a step above what the segment usually gets away with. The switchgear feels expensive, the fuel filler cap shuts with a proper click, and after a monsoon week nothing on mine had started rusting, which I cannot say for every classic I have parked outside.

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 800 mm seat sounds fine on paper and then surprises people at a signal. At 179 kg, it felt easy enough to shove around, even if you're fairly new to bikes.

The numbers: 348.36cc air-cooled single, OBD-2B, 21.1 PS @ 5,500 rpm, 29.4 Nm @ 3,000 rpm, through a 5-speed with slip-assist clutch, and it'll see about 132 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.

Twenty-nine Nm at 3,000 rpm means you ride it lazily, in third or fourth, barely touching the gearbox in city traffic. It is smooth in a way the segment normally isn't - no buzzing mirrors at 80 kmph, no numb left foot after an hour. Push to 100-110 kmph on the highway and it holds there without drama, though the twin shocks get busy over broken tar and the 179 kg is noticeable when you are pushing it backwards out of a parking slot on a slope. The slip-assist clutch is light enough that Bengaluru traffic stops being a forearm workout.

Mileage worked out to 35-38 kmpl in mixed riding for me, with a 15 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: telescopic forks front, twin shocks rear with 5-step preload holding it up, and 310 mm front disc, 240 mm rear disc, dual-channel 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% — ₹49,200 — borrow ₹1,96,800 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.

Roughly Rs 8,000-9,000 a year at 1,000 km a month, with services every 6,000 km at a Honda BigWing outlet. That is the catch - BigWing dealers are city-centric, so if you live in a smaller town, check where the nearest one is before you book, because your regular Honda service centre may not touch it. Fuel economy sat at 36 kmpl for me with a mix of highway and city, and the 15-litre tank means 500 km between fills if you are gentle.

Servicing is Rs 1,800-2,600 per service, every 6,000 km, comprehensive insurance Rs 6,500-8,500 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.

Against the Royal Enfield Classic 350 you get better brakes, a smoother engine and fewer trips to the workshop, and you lose the thump, the accessory ecosystem and about Rs 20,000 of resale strength. Against the Hunter 350 it is simply more expensive and more grown up. Against the Jawa 42 it is far better built and considerably duller to look at.

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 ₹1,32,000-₹1,78,000 against ₹2,46,000 on-road new. That's a lot of money for the same riding experience. Resale here is good - around 62-66% 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 you plan to keep a bike for six or seven years and value not being in a service queue over being noticed. Skip it if the reason you want a 350 is the exhaust note, because no amount of Honda refinement will scratch that itch.

If you're under about 5'6", go sit on it before you book anything — that 800 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 Honda CB350RS on this list? Mainly smoothest engine in the 350 class and excellent build and paint quality. Its problems — bigwing service network is thin outside big cities, costs more than a classic 350 and gets noticed less, twin shocks feel busy on bad roads — 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.

₹2,46,000 on-road new, ₹1,32,000-₹1,78,000 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. — Aditi Raghunathan, Bengaluru, Karnataka