Is the note of an engine music to your ears? You may be a superbiker at heart

NEW DELHI: So you have a few lakh rupees sitting around, and you want to splurge it on that superbike of your dreams. Almost all bike makers of the world are in India now: all you now need to do is decide what to buy!

You would probably need to match the bike to your budget, but even more importantly, you would need to match its personality to yours. What is it that you want to convey on a bike?

There are two basic kinds of bikes — sportsbikes and cruisers. If you are young and love speed, sportsbikes are your thing, be it a 200cc baby or a 1,000cc superbike. If you are in your forties or older, and have already had your share of speed (or, be honest, you are too old to crouch for long), look no further than cruisers. With their laid back seating, plush sofas, forward placed footpegs and flaring handlebars, maybe even a music player, they bring creature comfort to rides.

So what is your image? Machismo? Fearlessness? Raw speed? Lady killer? Or just a placebo?

The most popular sportsbike in India is probably the Suzuki Hayabusa. With an electronically restricted top-speed of 297 km per hour, it is among the fastest in the world. At slightly above ` 16 lakh, it is also priced most attractively.

Its main competition is the recently-launched Kawasaki Ninja ZX 14R, priced at ` 16.9 lakh, and has a lean, mean and green attitude (green is the native colour of the Ninja series). These two are the largest sportsbikes around.

Then come the litreclass: bikes with 1,000cc engines. Kawasaki Ninja 1,000, Suzuki GSX-R1,000, Honda Fireblade and Yamaha R1 jostle with each other in this slot.