TVS Apache RTX 300: The one bike garage
TVS Racing has been involved in motorsports since 1982, making it India's first factory racing team. In 2007, they developed the RTR 250 FX, a motorcycle that went on to win 12 national championships in supercross, motocross and rally. In 2015, they developed the TVS 450 Rally and became the 1st Indian manufacturer in the Dakar Rally. With a pedigree like that, when they said they're going to launch an adventure motorcycle, everybody stood up and took notice. So how good is the new TVS RTX 300? Has the decades of rally experience at TVS racing trickled down to technology that we can enjoy on the road? Is it too hardcore for a layman or too soft for the experienced rider? There's only one way to find out!
I had seen numerous pictures and videos of the RTX before I visited the showroom but trust me, nothing prepared me for the size of it in person. The tall, rally inspired stance, the bulky looking tank, the long seat extending into the rear rack, the wide tyres, the tall screen, the wide handlebars, this could easily pass off as a middleweight, 600+ cc motorcycle. Swing a leg across and the bulk disappears. Yes, the 835mm seat height may feel tall for some riders but TVS have done some mass centralisation wizardry on the RTX and you don't feel the 180 kgs kerb weight on your feet. The handlebars are tall and wide and fall exactly where your hands search for them. The bars have an amazing lock to lock range, which should translate into a small turning radius. The feet are set exactly below the rider's ass, making standing up on the pegs an effortless affair. The dual seat itself is long and wide giving excellent support to the rider's rear end. I think this must be the widest seat of any motorcycle in and above this category. The cushioning is firm but of high quality, making sure long hours in the saddle leave no sore. All in all, in terms of design and in terms of ergonomics, if someone had to design a quintessential adventure motorcycle, this would be it.
Cold start the engine and it comes to life with a long crank and a jerk. Old school grunt is back! This is a smooth motor for most of the part but when you give it the beans, it gives you the growl back. Some call them vibrations, I call them character. TVS has developed this new engine ground up and singlehandedly. No BMW partnership here. That explains why this engine is forward inclined and doesn't vibrate like a massager when revved hard. The motor generates 36 PS of peak power and 28.5 NM of peak torque but that's just half the story. This engine does not feel peaky or lacking grunt lower down like some of it's orange competition from Austria does. The tractability of this motor is what took me by surprise. Pick it up in a higher gear at slow speeds and there is no protest, no chain snapping judder, just a quiet compliance and the engine reaches the mid range. The mid range is where all the fun lies. It is mad. Pull it hard in the 1st gear and shift to 2nd and you are very likely to unintentionally do a wheelie. Those characterful vibrations are there above 5500 - 6000 RPM but they don't get bothersome at any point. It also means that in the 6th gear, the motorcycle would be happily cruising around the 100 KPH mark in this very mid range. Need to quickly overtake a truck, just twist the throttle, get the job done and get back to your cruising speed.
Speaking of cruising speed, this motorcycle comes equipped with cruise control, dual channel ABS, traction control and four riding modes as standard from the base variant itself. You can have the base variant in any colour as long as it’s black or white. A variant higher (top) and you get a lot more goodies like the bi-directional quickshifter, the TVS Smart Connect console with map mirroring, auto headlamps, dynamic headlamps which get brighter as the speed rises, switchable ABS, multi level traction control and two more colour options, the blue and the bronze. Moreover, you also get the rear luggage rack from this variant on. A variant higher (BTO) and you get fully adjustable suspensions, TPMS, a brass coated chain and the Triumph Tiger inspired matte green colour available. If you do not need the frills, the base variant is amply equipped for all your safety and riding needs. That said, the difference between the base and the top variants is a mere 17,000 rupees and for that money, you are getting a lot of kit in the top variant, making it my variant of choice. Go with the BTO variant only if you intend to go trail riding very frequently. I'll tell you why.
The RTX comes with a 19” front and a 17” rear tyre. Suspension duties are taken care of by 41mm USD forks up front and a monoshock with preload adjustability at the rear. For everyday riding, TVS has absolutely nailed the suspension tuning. The out of the box tuning is so good, so good, you barely feel the small tarmac ripples and concrete joints on the road. The larger ones are felt but even then, the bite of the hit is taken off and merely feedback reaches your spine. If I have to give you a car equivalent of this suspension set up, it would be that of the Tata Safari (the new one) with its Land Rover derived chassis and Lotus tuned suspensions, it’s that good! For fast paced trail riding however, you will need to go for the BTO and dial up the settings at both ends to prevent the suspensions from bottoming out.
If after the suspension set up, something really impressed me about the RTX, it’s the brakes. What a bite, what a progression, just stopping like a wow! Even the rear brakes give a nice, strong bite, something that has gone missing from our MotoGP inspired modern day motorcycles. I always maintain that good brakes make a rider go faster, knowing that you have the safety net of good brakes to bail you out. With good brakes, you need good tyres as well and the 110 section front and 150 section rear, dual purpose tyres are on the money on this front. Moreover, you get alloy rims and the peace of mind of tubeless tyres at both ends. All in all, a good braking and wheels package this one.
The slip and assist clutch is light to pull in and progressive in its bite, making the RTX predictable and convenient to amble around in bumper to bumper traffic conditions. Nothing is perfect and the RTX soon revealed the one chink in its armour: the gearbox. It may be because the motorcycle was brand new and the gearbox needed some teething in but I found the gearshifts to be quite notchy and clunky. Not something I would like dealing with in everyday traffic. This was the base variant and hence I couldn’t test the quickshifter but given how well mapped the units on the RR and the RTR 310s are, this should do a good job here as well. Another episode happened. I wasn’t aware that this was the base variant and tried doing an upshift to test the quickshifter. Since it didn’t shift up, I pulled the clutch to shift up manually. The engine had stalled. This is something many journalists have reported as well. The motorcycle stalling when the boots move the gear lever accidentally. I thought this would only be applicable to the variants equipped with the quickshifter but I was wrong. It happened in the base variant as well. Abruptly losing power is a safety issue and TVS needs to look into this and deliver a quick fix.
Aah. A tough one to sum up. Great design, great ability and extraordinary pricing. It’s difficult to look at a Hero Xpulse 210 or a Suzuki V Strom 250 or even a KTM 250 ADV after riding this one. Yet, there is something missing. TVS worked so hard to make a well rounded motorcycle that somewhere they forgot to give it an edge. That surprise element, that kick in the pants feeling, that master of one domain feeling seems lost somewhere. Maybe it’s there out on the open highway. Maybe it’s there out there on dry, simple trails but for now, I would hold my horses. The proof of the horses is in the racing and that “racing” factor is what is missing from the RTX. It will be your quiet companion, it will make you travel the length and breadth of this beautiful country without breaking a sweat. You can commute to work and conquer mountains with just this one machine and yet, you’d wish you couldn’t. This is going to be a head over heart purchase, a runaway sales success but when it comes to tugging at your heart strings, you might have to look elsewhere.
