Welterweight king

The new Honda Hornet gets a new engine, chassis and fresh styling. It leapfrogs a segment now finding itself in the company of 200cc entry-level performance bikes

- Dipayan Dutta

Only Honda can enter a 200cc segment with a 184cc bike and say that all the rest of the segment is overkill, but then again only Honda could make it work. The Honda CB Hornet was first introduced as a sporty alternative to the computer-oriented CB Unicorn, but for BS6 Honda decided to finally take the gloves off and throw their lot in with the 200cc entry-level performance bikes with an entirely revitalized new Hornet, christened the Hornet 2.0. This is an all-new motorcycle the only things that it shares with its predecessor are the name and the X shaped LED tail-lamp. Honda has also given it a huge price bump that now puts the Hornet in the company of the TVS Apache 200 RTR and the Bajaj Pulsar 200 NS. The question then remains as to whether Honda has indeed found the replacement for displacement, or the old saying still rings true.