Weekly Bike News Wrapup: Kawasaki Z H2 Launched, Himalayan Spotted Testing With Tripper, Aprilia Tuono 660 Launched And More

As we complete the first week of 2021, there’s quite a lot of news to report from the world of two-wheelers. Unfortunately, a lot of it is bad news, but as with all black clouds, there is a silver lining as well. Here’s everything you may have missed over the last seven days:

Price Hike Galore

Everywhere you looked this week, there was news of price hikes. It started off with Hero MotoCorp ramping up the prices of all its bikes and scooters, followed by KTM and Husqvarna. Kawasaki then took the plunge and increased the prices of its Z650 and Versys 1000, closely followed by Honda, which made its mighty H’ness CB350 dearer as well as its entire scooter and commuter ranges. To round things off, Royal Enfield hiked costs across its entire range, including the novel Meteor 350 and the mighty Classic 350.

KTM 390 Duke To Get Cruise Control?

The KTM 390 Duke is already such a feature-rich motorcycle that we’re sure engineers in Mattighofen have a hard time deciding what more to add with each new generation. Fortunately, the bike features ride-by-wire and one of the many advantages of this technology is the potential to add cruise control. If these patent images are anything to go by, KTM will take things a step further and possibly, offer radar-guided adaptive cruise control on the 390 Duke at some point in the near future.

Kawasaki Z H2 Launched

After treating us with Kawasaki’s supercharged goodness on the Ninja H2 lineup, Team Green has now made the same explosive package available in naked guise, with the launch of the ludicrous Z H2. With the Ducati Streetfighter still some time away from Indian shores, the Z has taken up the mantle of the most powerful naked bike on sale in India. Full details available here.

Himalayan Spotted With Tripper

RE has promised to throw updates at us with a ferocious pace in 2021 and we think we have an idea of what’s coming next. The revered Himalayan adventure tourer has been spotted testing with RE’s new-fangled Tripper navigation pod squeezed into the dashboard, so it’s almost a certainty that the production version of the bike will be updated soon with Bluetooth navigation technology. Check out the images here.

Aprilia Tuono 660 Launched

The middleweight naked segment is abuzz at the moment and Aprilia understandably wants to get a piece of the action. It unveiled the RS 660-based Tuono 660 as a concept at EICMA 2019, after which the bike has been spotted testing on multiple occasions. Now, the Italian brand has finally launched the Tuono 660 in production form. Full details and images are available here.