Kinetic K4-100 : The most economical bike in the world!!!

The search for the most economical bike is a never ending one. This includes buying price, cheap spares, least maintenance cost, and above all, best fuel average. All companies are forever trying out various combos to push down costs - different engine sizes, chassis frame types, wheels, handlebars, seats, transmissions, and almost each and every acoutrement. Homologation and use of common parts in different models is another way of cost cutting.

While the above mentioned are ways of cost cutting, the way to price reduction is another additional dimension : The bike should be all things to all people. While the first way - that of trying out various combos - has to do with design and production, the second, i.e., "being all things to all people", has to do with application. Thus the first requirement for success starts at the very beginning, i.e., the design stage, while the second requirement, i.e., the widest possible application is for the marketing gurus to spell out.

Because the path to price reduction is thru mass production - The larger the number of units of a uniform design you produce, the smaller is the cost (of production) per unit. Slightly changing looks and performance and using as many common parts as possible among different looking - and differently named & hyped - clones, pushes costs down even lower. Thus the TVS-Suzuki series : Shogun, Shaolin, Samurai, Max 100 and Max 100 R have a very high number of common parts. The same applies to the Bajaj KB series of bikes from KB 100, to RTZ, to RTZ delta, to KB125 as well as to the Bajaj scooter series from the ancient Priya (nee Vespa 150), thru various Chetak modifiques to the current Bravo. Nothing wrong in that. In fact, it is the most done thing in every manufacturing business. Every manufacturer is doing it and should do it. It is interesting to note that retail prices of bikes in India - in terms of absolute dollar value - are the lowest in the world. For example, a Hero Majestic moped, which sells for @ Rs.15,000/- on road in India (say @ US$330/-) was selling for US$1,500/- in Casablanca in El Maroc (Morocco in North Africa) in December 1992, which is more than FOUR TIMES what they sell for in India.

Enter Kinetic Engineering Ltd. (KEL), the company that re-invented the moped almost 30 years ago in the form of the ubiquitous, still going strong, verri verri basic, LUNA, which is powered by a two-stroke engine. However, with concern for the environment getting stronger and stronger, and the govt. coming out with stringent anti-polluto laws such as Euro-I and Euro-II, the future of the two stroke engine is bleak, and any company which has to survive and continue in the two wheeler business, MUST come out with four strokers.

While Bullet and Hero Honda have always been four strokers, Bajaj also came out with four strokers such as the 4S/Champion and Caliber. KEL could not afford to be left behind. It HAD to come out with a four stroker too, to corner a slice of the market. While all the other four stroke bikes have a classic motorcycle frame, KEL decided to go the step-thru way, and came out with the K4-100 almost two years ago.

Why step-thru? History for one. All KEL models till then - Luna, Safari, Swift, Spark and their variants - had/have been step thru. For another - and more important reason - step thrus allow females to ride while wearing their traditional flowing dresses. Thus the K4-100 would be (an is) usable by both males and females. This ensures a larger market base. The large diameter wheels ensure better roadholding, stability, handling, braking and safety than small wheeled scooters. Step-thru frame based two wheelers are also cheaper to produce. The use of side shields protects feet from splash and grime during the rains.

The large wheeled step-thru theme, albeit two-stroke, is already well accepted in the form of the Bajaj M 80. Thus KEL's design brief was to produce an affordable, step-thru four stroker, which could be ridden by both sexes, which would be cheap to buy, cheap to run, cheap to maintain and give the best mileage among all Indian two wheelers.

And to my knowledge, with the K4-100, KEL has been able to achieve these objectives very well. The step-thru frame allows both males and females to ride. At Rs.31,000/- on road Pune (cheaper in other states), it is the cheapest four stroker in the market. In my Road Test of the K4-100 two years ago, the K4-100 gave me an astounding 105 kms per litre at steady 40 kmph.

Yet my road test was done in the environs of Pune two years ago. Due to pressure of deadline the test distance was just a few hundred kms over a short period. A long term test was not yet done because "long term" necessarily means long time must pass and nobody can make time pass faster (or slower) than it does without exceeding the speed of light, which according to Einstein, is impossible.

Thus it came to pass, or rather when sufficient time had passed, we decided to do a LONG test on the K4-100. The brief was to go from Kargil to KanyaKumari on K4's. I was quite excited. The event was named the "K2K Mileage Challenge Rally".

Two stock K4-100s were selected for the rally. That the bikes were stock, I can vouch with guarantee. I vetted them myself. Besides, it doesn't serve any purpose for KEL to give non stock bikes, since this rally was not about high speed and high performance but about low speed and lowest fuel consumption.

The Pune Auto Garage Owners Association chipped in. The two K4's were ridden in turn by a team of four members of this association. All four were youngsters in their twenties. None of them weighed more than sixty kilos each.

The two K4s were followed by two Tata Sumos. These carried tools, spares, petrol and a back up team, consisting of a KEL service engineer, a team manager and myself. The bikes were shipped to Jammu by train while the rest of the team drove off from Pune to Jammu in the Sumos.

By the time we got to Jammu, the war was in full swing. This was @ 10 June. We wanted to start from Kargil. Meet the soldiers. Cheer them up. Maybe give them a few joy rides on the K4s. But getting to Kargil was difficult if not impossible. Not that we were chicken in the face of gunfire. What we chickened out for was the bureaucracy. If we wanted to go anywhere beyond the Banihal pass/tunnel, we would need to go thru so much paperwork that the rally would take another month to start. So we decided to give Kargil the bIg AVOID and start our rally someplace else.

After checking out various options we decided to let the soldiers do their job while we did ours, viz., complete the rally in one piece. So we decided to start from Patnitop, south of the Banihal pass/tunnel. Patnitop is quite a touristy place. Very popular with paragliders in season. However at the time we were there we didn't see any paragliders. Maybe it isn't the season. Or maybe the slow paragliders would be sitting ducks (flying duds) for the Paki gunmen. However there were many guides pestering us to show us this and that. But we had a schedule to keep, so we gave the guides the avoid and headed south to Jammu.

Before we began from Patnitop, I made a mark with a scraper on the inside of the tank neck, about two cms below the rim on both the K4s. I then filled petrol from a 20 litre jerry can (which we had bought in Jammu) into the tanks of each of the two K4s, exactly upto these marks. (Incidentally petrol was Rs.24.84 per litre in Jammu as compared to Rs.28.88 per litre in Pune. How come? Obviously Maharashtra is subsidizing J&K state, which is OK). I then fitted back the tank caps and sealed them with split-tapes such as they use on check-in baggages when you fly by air. These tapes are tamper proof, such that if you try to remove them, they fall into pieces and the tampering can be immediately discovered. This method of preventing tampering is absolutely effective. By God, if the govt. of Japan can trust the safety and lives of 526, rich, Japanese, Jumbo Jet (Boeing 747) passengers on such a split-tape, it is good enough for me!!! Of the two K4s, one was black and the other was red. At the starting point, the odometer on the black K4 showed 397.4 kms while the red one showed 411.3 kms. To checkout the accuracy of the odometers of the two K4s, I noted down the odo readings of the two Sumos as well. The blue Sumo read 76034 kms while the white Sumo read 53203 kms. These sumos were hired from a local operator on a commercial basis.

We started off from Patnitop late in the afternoon of Tuesday 15th June 1999, after a B-grade lunch at a C-grade dhaba and arrived at Kranti Hotel in Jammu @ 8:30 p.m. in the evening riding slow, trying not to exceed 45-50 kph, which was not always possible on account of other traffic as well as the general downward slope, since we were coming DOWN from PatniTOP to Jammu in the plains. The Sumo in which I was sitting was always behind the two K4s, so that I always had them in my sight. The first thing I did as soon as we arrived at Kranti Hotel (even before checking-in) was to immediately refill the petrol tanks of both K4s with an accurately caliberated measuring flask (such as used in chemistry labs), exactly upto the earlier mentioned mark. Thus I knew the exact amount of petrol consumed by each K4. After this the fuel tank caps were again sealed with split-tape.

While the black K4 consumed 0.74 litres with odo reading 518.6 kms, the red one took in 0.82 litres with the odo reading 532.2 kms. Thus the black K4 had covered (518.6 - 397.4 =) 121.2 kms in 0.74 litres and the red K4 had covered (532.3 - 411.3 =) 120.9 kms in 0.82 litres. This gave a fuel average of (121.2 divided by 0.74 =) @ 164 kms per litre for the black K4, and (120.9 divided by 0.82 =) 147.5 kms per litre for the red K4.

At first glance the above figures of 164 kpl and 147.5 kpl appear absurd, but if you factor in the fact that we were coming DOWN-hill FROM PatniTOP, then these figures are quite realistic. Cross checking for odo accuracy with the two Sumos at the same spot (Kranti Hotel, Jammu) at the same time, the blue sumo read 76153.8 kms and the white sumo read 53322.5 kms. Thus the blue sumo had travelled (76153.8 - 76034 =) 119.8 kms while the white sumo had travelled (53322.5 - 53203 =) 119.5 kms. Comparing these figures, 119.8 kms and 119.5 kms of the two Sumos with the 121.2 kms and 120.9 kms of the two K4s, the variance is almost zero (less than 1%).This proves that the odometers of both the K4s and both the Sumos' are absolutely accurate.

The next morning, Wednesday June 16th we headed out of Jammu towards Ludhiana, approx 280 kms as the signboard said. Before starting, the split-tape on the fuel tank caps was removed and level in both the K4s were re-checked. The level was exactly at the mark as last evening. The tank caps were again sealed with split-tape. And odo readings were again noted. Starting early and stopping at wayside dhabas for breakfast and lunch, we reached Amaltas Motel, Ludhiana (bang on the highway) much before dark.

Immediately, the above "unsealing-refilling-measuring-re-sealing" and noting odo reading, was done. The black K4 had covered 280.9 kms, red K4 281.1 kms, the blue Sumo 282.2 kms while the white sumo had travelled 279.4 kms. Hardly any variation, again further proving the accuracy of all the odometers. On this sector, the black K4 gave 77.2 kms per litre while the red K4 gave 73.2 kms per litre. These figures are about half of what the K4s gave on the down-slope and quite realistic.

Another fact was further proved : As vehicles get run-in, their fuel average improves. Thus as our caravan moved on, fuel average, on the whole, improved. On some stretches, level roads, not much traffic and not much head-wind, bikes averaged over 100 kms per litre. On other stretches they averaged anywhere between eighty and ninety-five kpl.

The route was all across the Indian heartland. On the way from Jammu to Ludhiana, we passed Pathankot.

Traffic in this region was thin except for army trucks. We also saw many tanks being transported on massive 12-wheeled tractor trailors. We saw Bofors guns, being transported as well as strategically placed - ready on-call. At one place some distance from PatniTOP, we gave a lift to two BSF soldiers, one from Bijnor and one from Kanpur, who were proceeding on leave after having seen action, and had missed their bus. When we dropped them off at Jammu station, they wanted to pay for the trip!! I was very touched. I said, " It is my privilege and good fortune that I am able to help you. I live because you die. Do you really think I will take money from you? My Sumo has been blessed because you travelled in it." They said their thanks and went into the Railway Station.

From Ludhiana, it was on to Delhi, the capital of corruption. At the border we were stopped and asked for "El-cleano-de-la-polluto" certificates. We showed them the certs which we had got from Pune. "Nahi chalega", said el-coppo, show me a Delhi cert".

"Eh? How could I show a Delhi cert. When I haven't even entered Delhi?" "Are you a gadha?, asked the cop. "The certificates are printed by the Reserve Bank of India. I am sure you have many of them in your pocket. Each is of a face value of Rs.50/-. What's your problem? What to talk of Sumos. With a few of these certificates, We'll even classify a coal-burning, smoke-spewing, steam engine (Railway) as a oxygen emanating NEEM KA PED. Can't you unnerstann? I unnerstood!! Two fiftys for two sumos did the trick. No cop bothered about the bikes (K4s) since bikes being "poor man's vehicle", are exempt from corruption tax simply because cannot afford to pay!! We did some video-giri in Delhi, Red Fort, Rajpath, Qutab Minar types, for tourism purposes. Everywhere coppos (or other el-corruptos in various types of uniforms) came beging/bullying. We didn't pay el-corrupto tax because as soon as we saw such people approaching, we just took off. I am convinced Delhi is the most corrupt place in the universe, where even ministers survive on stolen electricity, because they live in places which are not even supposed to exist!!!

We pushed on ever southwards. To Agra. what more can you say about the Taj? And on to Jhansi, where we parked at the Prakash Regency, an EXCELLENT hotel with a pool. Everywhere, the rigmarole was the same. As soon as you reach, even before check-in, first note the mileages, fill-in measured quantity of petrol (from caliberated flask) and seal the tank cap. Next morning, before starting again check petrol level in tank to be at marked level, seal tank cap and move on.

Thus from Jhansi to Narsimhpur (night halt), and on to Nagpur. From Nagpur to Adilabad (in Andhra) was a nervous journey. This is the heartland of the People's War Group (PWG), an off-shoot of the Naxalite movement of the 70's. This is the place where all the bus passengers get killed in the first scene in the movie "Sarfarosh", starring Amir Khan, Nasisruddin Shah and Sonali Bendre. The patriarch of the PWG is eighty year old Kondapalli Sitaramiah, whose credo is, "If you want to build, first you must destroy". I take it to mean, if you want to go four-stroke, first get rid of two strokers!!!! From Nagpur, it was on to Hyderabad, where we cleaned the oil filters and changed the engine oil. By now we had covered 2300 kms. The K4s were performing beautifully. Not a single hitch. Not even a bulb fused nor a cable broken. We did have tyre punctures twice though, which cost us Rs.15/- and fifteen minutes delay each time.

The Yatri Nivaas Hotel in Hyderabad is kwite good. For Rs.550/- you get a very decent, clean, large room, and in-spite of being "sarkari", the lights and fans work, no cockroaches and there's even water in the taps!! Thanks to Chandrababu Naidu. This is one man who makes things work. He is fit to be PM. His religion is INTERNET and his temple is LAPTOP computer, same as mine. The Roads in Hyd had no potholes. The traffic lights actually worked. The flyovers mitigated traffic and there were no traffic jams. I wish this guy was the CM of Maharashtra or at least the Mayor of Pune. My life would be so much easier.

From Hyderabad we rode to Kurnool. We were welcomed at Durga Tractors, KEL's dealer, who deals in many other auto products as the name suggests. Kurnool to Bangalore was kwite interesting, in two ways. For one, we passed a huge single-rock mountain like Ayers Rock of Australia, which the Australian Aborigines worship. Ayers Rock is a much media hyped place where lots of tourists go. Everybody makes munny and the tourists are taken for a ride. Why not hype up this rock as Iyer's Rock where all the Iyers originated? Have a couple dozen of Iyers continuously worshipping there from all angles, build temples and attract the tourists? Its a gold mine of tourist munny. All we gotta do is hype it and mine it. But its gotta survive the war between Deve Gowda and Ramakrishna Hegde!!! This Iyer's Rock is exactly 80 kms before Bangalore.

We checked into Hotel Rama in Bangalore before dark, an excellent hotel. Being a metropolis, there was a maha parking problem, and I had to do my "measure-fill-note odo-seal tank" routine in a bye-lane. The next morning we did some still photo-giri and some video-giri around the Vidhan Soudha (Vidhan Sabha to you and me) and some more photo-giri on the outskirts before shooting off further south on the 26th June 1999.

We arrived at Hotel Dwarka, Salem at 14:00 p.m. same day (26/6/99). This early arrival was planned. I had heard of a dandy hill station called YERCAUD, just 25 kms from Salem. I HAD to go there. It was a childhood dream. So we borrowed two K4s (not our rally ones) from the local dealer and rode up t Yercaud. It is very beautiful, with a lake and a lot of good missionary schools. We did the rounds of various tourist spots like Suicide Point, Lover's Point, Monkey Hill and all that and rode down back to Salem before dark, since we again had a press conference to attend. The Yercaud hills are much forested and illegal timber chori (stealing) was in full swing (see photo). In the evening at the press conference (where all the local press was present) I mentioned about the illegal timber theft and even gave the number of the lorry carrying the timber. As far as I know, nothing came of it and soon Yercaud will become like the high altitude Aksai Chin desert at the north-east tip of Kashmir which the Chinese took away from us after the 1962 war.

From Salem we rode to Madurai, where we were welcomed by M/s Solai Malai Motors, KELs dealers. At Madurai we visited the famous Meenakshi Temple and offerred prayers. Next morning, 28 June 99, we headed for Kanya Kumari, the last leg of our 0dessy.

As the Rally was reaching its end, people started joining us. Celebrations were already happening in the Sumos unknown to the K4 riders who rode steadily on regardless. People wanted to have a leisurely luxurious lunch. I wasn't too keen. I wanted to get to to KK kwiklee. Then tragedy struck: A rasta roko in a narrow village by farmers who were not getting the expected floor price for their rice. We were the first to be stopped. While others were behaving very relaxed, I panicked. If we got delayed here, we would not be able to reach KK before sunset, in time to do photogiri. These salaried people have no knowledge of Geography. I wanted to do photogiri with the Sun behind me and beaming towards the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, the landmark of KK. Tomoro morning the Sun would be on the opposite side and I would have to shoot INTO the Sun. The photos never would have come out good.

So I told the salaried people to cock up. I gotta schedule to keep. I gotta shoot before the Sun went down. I told Kenny, the team manager who spoke Tamil to ask if there was any detour. The guy was behaving very leisurely. I got down, beckoned a likely looking kid and waved a fifty Rupee note at him and told kenny to ask him if he could take us around the jam kwik-kwik, before the trafique piled up behind us and the Sumos would be unable to U-turn. Fifty did the trikk. The kid jumped onto the bonnet and pointed towards a narrow gully. We U-turned and sped off, the K4 riders leading honking. Three more kids jumped onto the bonnet. The driver threw a fit. The kids were screeming with delight. I told the driver to bash-on regardless. Lucky. We made it to the other side of the village without a mishap. Kenny was ecstatic. He headed for the paan shop to buy smokes. I pulled him by the collar and shoved him back into the Sumo. I said, "you want smokes, send the kids to buy a pack, but you stay put in the Sumo". I told the K4 riders to speed off and not stop for at least five kms. I gave the promised fifty to the chosen kid and gave a twenty to another kid and pointed to the paan shop and said, "Chocolate, chocolate". Kids are kids and chocolate is chocolate, whether in Tamil or Chinese, they all understand chocolate. The kids took off like rabbits chased by hounds. I got into the Sumo and told the driver, "BHAGO!!" Kenny was fuming. "Hey, I thought you were sending them to buy smokes", he screamed.

"And wait here for the crowds to collect?", I retorted. "Get wise man, we can buy smokes at the next village, but if a curious crowd collects we are sunk. Can't you see that if we get away their whole rasta roko will be a failure?".

"Oh ! Ya. Ya." Kenny lit up, wisdom of my hurry hurry suddenly dawned upon him.

We made it to KanyaKumari about 35 minutes before sunset. On the way, between Nagercoil and KanyaKumari, we saw forests of windmills. Hundreds of shining white windmills on both sides of the road and far into the horizon. They generate electricity, lots of it. Quite expensive to buy and install. Each is worth crores. And each had a different company's name written on it.

As soon as we reached the cape (KanyaKumari), I immediately started shooting - with the camera of course. Kids selling shells kept pestering us. But I was more interested in the SUN and the Vivekananda Rock Memorial. Unfortunately, the geography of the place is such that it is not possible to take vehicles (bikes included) close enough to it for photogiri. I shot the best angles I could, given the dwindling sunlight and the geographical juxtapositions.

This was the end of an Odessy. I was abit downcast. I was happier moving on the road than at reaching the destination. But there was no more to go, even if I wanted to. India ends at KanyaKumari. It is Land's End. There is no more land. Only the Indian Ocean. It is the ONLY Ocean named after a country. All the other four oceans (there are five in the world) have independent names, not named after any country, place, person or thing. They are Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic and Antarctic. All other (salt)water bodies are seas, gulfs, bays and such, not OCEANS.

At final point KanyaKumari, the black K4 odo read 3989.2 kms and the red K4 read 3996.9 kms. The starting readings were 397.4 for the black K4 and 411.3 for the red one. Thus the black K 4 had covered 3597.8 kms and the red one 3585.6 kms.

What about the petrol, which is what this whole thing was all about? The results were better than expected. Sulajja Firodia Motwani, the J. Managing Direktur of KEL had set a target of 50 litres per bike from Kashmir to KanyaKumari. We did it in less than 40 litres per bike! To make a long story short, let us look at the figures. Let us take the distance from Kashmir to kanyakumari as 3600 kms, which is 12 to 15 kms more than what we recorded. The actual petrol consumption was less than 40 litres per bike. Which gives a figure of 90 kms per litre. Actually it was 92.3 kms per litre, going into detailed figures. Not important. Any bike that gives over 90 kms per litre on a Kashmir to KanyaKumari run, has to be SOME BIKE!!! Even performance-wise, it is / was excellent. Except for three punctures, we had absolutely no problems with the bikes (nor the Sumos for that matter). Not even a cable breakage, nor a bulb fused. Absolutely trouble free. We did change engine oil though, exactly as per recommendations in the OWNERs MANUAL.

Having done this 4000 km excercise myself, I can confidently say here that it is the ultimate ECONOMY bike. Of all the bikes made in India today, no other bike can match this figure. If any other manufacturer has economy pretensions, I shall be happy to do the same excercise, or even a longer one - on a different route if they so choose.

Based on this LONG test, It is my considered judgement that this is the ultimate economy bike in the country. Not only in terms of kms per litre, but also in terms of buying price and spare parts.

In the end, I have just one suggestion for KEL and its dynamic J. Managing Direktur Sulajja Firodia Motwani, who is a first class MBA from the Ivy League Carnegie Melon Instt., USA, and quite a feminist. Now that MEN have proved that the K4 is so economical, why not do another such rally with FEMALE riders? From Ahmedabad to Aizawl for example? "North-south to ho gaya, ab east-west kiya jaye?". After all the Kinetic K4-100 is a UNISEX bike. I am game anytime she decides. Any female riders volunteering?