Pulsar

Pulsar

The Bajaj Pulsar family is growing in size and the company has now created an'affordable adventure bike' segment with the AS 200.

I do stress on'affordable adventure bike' in the true sense, that segment of motorcycles boasts of great on-road and good off-road capabilities like the Triumph Tigers, KTM Adventure and the BMW GS series. And so, the Pulsar AS series can't really be termed adventure bikes but then maybe they're more affordable touring motorcycles.

But the attempt is there to look adventurous. The design offers some bits of an'adventure' feel with the quarter fairing blending well with the sculpted tank and the split seats. Things that will catch your eye at first glance are the projector headlamps, tall windscreen and the 10-spoke 17 inch alloys that give it a touring character. The rest of the bike is familiar and styling is largely borrowed from the 200 NS. Unlike the RS 200, which looked a tad over-styled, the AS seems more precise. We like the backlight switchgear and the semi-digital instrument cluster that's easy enough to read with two trip meters, an odometer and a clock.