Weekly Round-up: BMW G 310 R and GS, Suzuki Burgman Street, 2019 Kawasaki Ninja 300 Launched, And More!

Here are the most important news of the last week in the two-wheeled world summarized into one story

The two-wheeler market in India witnessed quite a flurry of interesting launches in the last week. BMW Motorrad expanded their portfolio with two of their most affordable products ever, the G 310 R and the G 310 GS. Understandably, the German marque has priced the bikes at a premium over their rivals in India. But surprisingly, the baby BMW costs less than the 390 Duke in the foreign market! You can read an in-depth cost analysis of the bike in key international markets here. Another interesting fact is that BMW Motorrad has only seven dealerships in the country at present. However, the brand offers a three-year, unlimited kilometre warranty on its products, which sounds like a good deal compared to its rivals.

Yamaha and Suzuki also launched their new scooter offerings in the country. The Yamaha Ray ZR Street Rally edition is essentially the same Ray ZR but with sportier clothing. You can read about what’s changed here. Suzuki launched its flagship maxi-style European scooter, the Burgman Street. The Japanese brand debuted the scooter at this year’s Auto Expo, and it rivals the Aprilia SR 125, Honda Grazia, Vespa LX 125 and TVS NTorq.

Honda updated its monkey bike, the Navi, for 2018. The new model features a metal exhaust heat shield, body-coloured headlight nacelle, grab rails, rear view mirrors, and red rear shock absorbers. More importantly, it gets a fuel gauge which will make riding much more convenient considering its range anxiety-inducing 3.5-litre fuel tank.

With the advent of competitors from BMW Motorrad and the long-gestating KTM 390 Adventure finally taking shape, Kawasaki decided to launch the Ninja 300 in a heavily localised form. More importantly, it now gets dual-channel ABS as standard! The tyres are from MRF, and the wheels and body panels are localised as well. However, the engine and the chassis come from Thailand. These changes have resulted in a price drop of Rs 62,000 over the previous CKD model. This makes the Ninja 300 the most affordable twin-cylinder motorcycle in the country! What’s more, the bike also gets a really good warranty deal, the details of which can be found here.