Naked Truth

Bajaj has relaunched an updated version of the NS series, we hop on to see just how different they are to ride

- Dipayan Dutta

The Bajaj Pulsar series is the most expansive range of motorcycles in the entry-level commuter-to-sport segment. It’s appropriately insane to think that over a span of 125ccs, there are nine different Pulsars. There is the Pulsar 125, Pulsar NS125, Pulsar P150, Pulsar 150, Pulsar RS200, Pulsar N160, the N250 and F250, and literally, as I write this story Bajaj has relaunched the 220F. Now ideally when the 250 Pulsar twins came out, one would have thought that the NS’ would go out of the window sheerly by the fact that this new platform stands apart from the KTM-based Pulsars, sticking to their foundational ethos. But here we are with the updated NS160 and the NS200, bringing the count to 11. Usually, this kind of in-segment cannibalism would be suicide. But Bajaj exports the Pulsar all over the world from India, this gives them economies of scale like you wouldn’t believe, and they play to their strengths. For the local market, this means that they can afford to cater to microsegments of customers within a single segment who want different things from their motorcycles.