Story: Muntaser Mirkar Photography: Kunal Khadse

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Tucked neatly behind the dark tinted fly screen, I'm sitting as far back as the split seat will allow me. I've been in top gear for quite some time now and my right wrist is keeping the throttle pinned to the stop. My eyes are focussed on the road ahead and the bumps in the tarmac cause my head to bounce up and down - occasionally putting my lid straight into the wind blasting from the front. Winter's here and the nip in the air have made its way through my Cortech riding gear all the way to my bones. The red Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi I'm riding has just finished its run in and feels strong even after holding at 126 km/h under my 82kg frame against some major head wind. Having passed Lonavla and already almost at Kamshet, I'm perfectly poised to make this my fastest run between New Bombay and Pune yet. It's a great feeling...

The basic architecture of the engines throughout the Pulsar family has always remained the same, but has also evolved with every passing generation and model. Compared to my 2002 Pulsar 180, the DTS-Fi's mill is almost space age. Bajaj's twin spark plug technology has been cause for their huge success not only with the Pulsars but with their lower capacity machines as well. On the 220, the dual sparkers are complimented by an oil cooler as seen on the Pulsar 200 DTSi. Bajaj has dropped the carburetor in favour of a fuel injection system to feed the 220cc motor. All that has left the biggest Pulsar yet with a power output of 20.06PS@8500rpm. The mill breathes out through a fat silver silencer with a repositioned resonator in Bajaj's Exhaustec system via larger valves and a straighter intake port to give it an induction roar that'll fool you into thinking the bike was fitted with a free flow performance air filter - especially when accelerating from low rpms.

Torque figures stand at 19.12Nm@6500rpm, but a rather linear curve means that there is no dearth of pulling power right from low down in the rev range and you're guaranteed wheelspins off the start line when pushing hard. In fact, you might even encounter a lil' bit of that adrenaline pumping feeling when you upshift from first to second if you've got your weight shifted far enough to the front. Rest assured, this is the bike you'd want to be saddling if you're the kind who loves being the first one out at the head of the pack when the lights go green just before a clear stretch of road! The increase in performance is not only because of the increase in cubic capacity - it is more because of the box constructed piston that makes it as light as the piece reciprocating in the 180s, thus reducing inertia and enabling lower losses in terms of the actual power developed by the engine. The Delphi-developed Fuel Injection unit meters in exact amounts of gasoline to ensure complete combustion for not only obtaining better power delivery and fuel economy, but lower emissions as well while the oil cooler prolongs service intervals without major harm to moving parts.

All the techno wizardry that goes on under the fuel tank aside, the Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi is an extremely entertaining bike to ride as well. Chunky bits in the bike's skeletal setup such as the thick oval section swingarm, fat front forks and rear 'Nitrox' gas-filled dual shock absorbers attached to the double cradle down tube chassis work extremely efficiently to extract the best out of the MRF Zappers both front and rear - which, by the way, are tubeless. Mounted on 17" Enkei six spoke rims, the 90/90 section front and 120/80 section rear rubber offers sufficient grip to be going berserk the way Varad went during the photo shoot. Rubber compound is medium-hard, so don't expect superglue grip like from a set of Pirellis but remember that the stock pair will also last you much longer. Braking is via a 260mm disc at the front and a 230mm disc at the rear - the latter though operated by a single pot caliper, offers more than adequate stopping power. The true delight of lugging the big Pulsar is when you take the bike to the twisties - that's when all the individual components come together to outperform most other bikes manufactured in the country today. The same all-smiles experience carries on into the city as well, where the motor runs smooth and silent to burble patiently at near-idle revs all day long if need be.