Now coming to the heart of this motorcycle, the 249cc single-cylinder air-cooled engine. Even with BS6 update, it continues to make 20.5bhp of power at 8,000rpm and 20.1Nm of torque at 6,000rpm. And just as expected, the torquey nature of this engine is still there and it continues to impress us.
We were always a big fan of the way the FZ25’s engine performed. It had oodles of torque at the low end of the range and also the mid-range. And this aspect helped us give it a tag of fast commuter on our social media updates. Also, with this torquey character, overtaking in the city is extremely easy. In fact, during work commutes, you always have a strong mid-range at disposal and this allows you to filter through traffic quickly and also be the first one to go off the traffic signal line.
And then being a Japanese bike, the refinement and smoothness of the motor has been taken care off very well. The throttle response is crisp. The fueling too, is quite good. Even with all these Japanese aspects, there’s a certain amount of crudeness in the engine that makes it churn out an experience that clearly says it’s not a motorcycle from the lower displacement.
The overall ride quality of this Japanese bike is well balanced – it’s not too stiff or plush. But it manages to exhibit some good amount of comfort while riding in the city and also on the highway. There’s hardly any fatigue that comes out of riding this motorcycle. But when it comes to the overall braking performance, we wished the front brake was adequately tweaked. The front lever needs to be pulled quite a bit to bring the motorcycle to a stop and this becomes bothersome especially while riding every day in the city. The rear brake though, works well.