TVS Apache RR 310 1,000km Touring Review: Very Comfortable But…

After about 1000km and 16 hours of riding (not non-stop of course), I got off the TVS Apache RR 310 back at my home in Pune with no ache or pain in my body. And that is with my 6’0 lanky frame…I love them but sportsbikes aren’t very kind to me. So how did the flagship Apache bike manage that? Through some very simple tricks! Here’s how: 

Super Comfortable! 

Yeah yeah, the term ‘sports tourer’ is thrown around for the TVS Apache RR 310 a lot, I know. But after really putting it to use for about 16 hours, I can tell you, this bike is comfortable! A combination of slightly raised clip-ons and slightly less extremely rearset footpegs can do wonders. These little alterations gave me the latitude of opting for a super upright riding posture when I wanted to take it a bit easy on my back. Even if I leaned in for a more proper sportsbike riding posture, it wasn’t taxing on my back.   

And before any Valentino Rossi fanboy (or fangirl) follows that up with the ‘but does that compromise on its handling abilities’ question, no it doesn’t! The RR 310, like the other Apache bikes, was an absolute hoot to ride through the Anuskura ghats. Be it the fast, flowing sections or the narrow, technical sections, the RR 310 felt at home. Combine that with the excellent Michelin Road 5 tyres and quickshifter and it all resulted in a bike that was an absolute hoot to ride up and down a set of twisties. 

The Real Star…

But what was the true highlight of the RR 310’s comfort was its suspension, which was nothing short of magical. At lower cruising speeds (say upto about 60kmph), it has a slightly firm feeling to it. While you will keep feeling the undulations under you, it never gets uncomfortable in any way. But the moment you cross those speeds and enter actual cruising speeds (north of say 80kmph), it turns magical. 

Our roads are very far from perfect and even a lot of the highways have undulations, which sometimes can be unnerving to go through when you’re cruising at a good speed. But not with the RR 310! After just 2-3 patches of bad roads, the bike gave me enough confidence to not have to roll off my throttle even if I saw any road imperfections up ahead. The bike’s suspension laps up bad roads better than a lot of ADVs. And this comfortable suspension doesn’t force you to compromise in the ghats. Never once did I feel that the suspension was holding me back and again, the way it absorbed mid-corner bumps was just excellent. I couldn’t have asked for a better mix between comfort and sportiness. 

But The Engine…

The RR 310’s engine has always been what’s holding it back and it is still the case. True, the engine now makes more power and there’s all of that but it’s still a very busy engine. For context, it sits at 100kmph in 6th gear at about 6800rpm. That’s quite high and it just didn’t let me sink into a peaceful cruising experience. The engine is already quite a loud one, and at 7000rpm, I was able to hear a fair bit of mechanical clatter from down below. And that meant that I just couldn’t settle into a peaceful cruise. While it’s not a deal breaker, I would’ve liked the engine to cruise at a couple thousand rpm lower. 

And that’s where RR 310’s smaller engine really lags behind. While I didn’t feel the RR 310 was very underpowered, it was more to do with how hard the engine was working to maintain a decent cruising speed as compared to say something like the KTM RC 390, a bike that maintains 100-110kmph much more easily given its larger engine capacity. 

And This Annoyed Me The Most!

The Apache RR 310’s fuelling is bad, there’s no other way to put it. Of the four modes, it is too jerky in three (Sport, Track and even Urban) and the more annoying part is that it’s jerky throughout. So it doesn’t matter if you’re slowly modulating it at city speeds or even just rolling on it at 100kmph, it lurches ahead in a rather jerky manner. In recent times I’ve encountered plenty of jerky throttles but truth be told, the RR 310’s throttle was probably one of the worst of them. So that was another thing that stood between me and a peaceful cruising experience. 

Minor Inconveniences 

And now that we’ve addressed the major annoyances, I’ll quickly run through some of the smaller ones, which if solved, could all combine to help make the overall touring experience better. For starters, the RR 310 has a 11-litre fuel tank. Now while we got a mileage of around 28kmpl (check out the reel below), some of you might get a bit lesser too. And funnily, the bike itself never really showed a range of more than 230km even on a full tank, meaning the fuel light came on every 200 odd kilometres, which is rather less. I think giving it a slightly bigger fuel tank (the RC 390, for example, has a 13.7-litre tank) could’ve helped it run that much more. 

Second is the pillion seat which has a surprisingly steep slope. Now while I understand this is a sportsbike, it’s also a bike people will use every day and that sort of a slope in the pillion seat makes it very, very hard to use for even slightly larger pillions. 

Now how this affects touring is when you mount tail bags. While there’s just enough space to mount a bag, the sharp slope meant that my tail bag started sliding down, more so each time I braked. That, in turn, pushed me and my *ahem ahem* crown jewels onto the bike’s tank which became painful after a point. Now I know tail bags are supposed to be set as tightly as possible and while mine weren’t super-duper tight, they weren’t exactly loose either. So in sum, making the pillion seat just a little bit flatter would’ve gone a long way in making the RR 310 more practical. 

Can You Tour On The TVS Apache RR 310?

The simple answer is yes. It has enough power, is very comfortable and has space to mount your luggage, three very important boxes ticked for a tourer. Are the noisy engine and jerky throttle dealbreakers? For most, no. A pair of good ear plugs and a smooth right hand will help solve them to quite an extent. But apart from that, the TVS Apache RR 310 does make for a rather comfortable tourer that will double up as a sexy-looking aggressive sportsbike when you want it to. Always nice to have the best of both worlds!