Kristian von Hornsleth’s Ducati collection sure to arrest attention
It is almost impossible to make these Italian beauties more alluring, but London-based conceptual artist, Kristian von Hornsleth, thought otherwise. So what inspired this Danish artist to paint Ducati 1098 and 1198 in a riot of colours? Hornsleth says that when he asked one of the salesmen if it was dangerous to ride a bike that’s capable of doing 0-100 km/h in less than four seconds, the salesman was quick to reply, “You don’t feel anything as you hit the wall at 320 km/h”.
These special edition bikes come under Hornsleth’s ‘Kill Me Fast’ series and are priced at Rs 38 lakh in the UK. Since we can’t afford his piece of art, maybe if we save we might be able to get one of the posters!
Meanwhile, you may visit http://www.hornsleth.com/Hornsleth/Home/SHOP/POSTERS/2007/DUCATI-1/5-1-70.m to pick one up.
Words: Sarmad Kadiri
Royal Enfield go the lifestyle way with their latest merchandise
TVS are all set to launch the RTR 180 with ABS. Is the new safety feature good enough? Adhish Alawani tries to find it out on a track especially devised to test brakes
To start with, the demonstrators from TVS rode two bikes – one without ABS and the other equipped with the unit – on various wet surfaces. The RTR without ABS had an out-rigger with four support wheels to keep the bike upright whenever it lost traction. Without doubt, the wheels of the one without ABS were bound to lock up and skid and so they did. However, the RTR equipped with the ABS unit showed immense road hold even when a fistful of brake was applied.
To test it myself, I hopped on to the bike with the out-rigger and went out on the various wet surfaces. First, with the ABS off, I slammed the brakes and experienced one of the most fearful things ever on two wheels – the front wheel got locked, the front end went down and there was no chance of recovery. This was on the regular wet tarmac. On the blue basalt it was bad and even worse on the ceramic. After getting a feel of what happens without ABS, I switched on the unit and went in again. To my extreme disbelief, the bike was amazingly composed and stable even with the brakes slammed. I even tried braking at the end of the wet patch and carrying the brakes on to the dry patch. What I found out then was that the wheels, of course, didn’t lock up on the wet. However, when they hit the dry patch, the ABS was still working, but now it knew that the bike was on dry patch and it immediately improved the braking and reduced the stopping distance. Mightily impressed by the ABS unit, I returned to the resting area admiring one of the best upgrades on an Indian bike I had seen. 
TVS say that the ABS system was developed and tested initially at the IDIADA testing facility in Spain under all possible road conditions before fine-tuning it for the Indian environment. Also, the company has stated that when the ABS system was tried on professional racers’ bikes at the Madras Motorsports Club racetrack, they were able to cut down their lap times by over one full second, which showed that not only was the ABS effective in day-to-day use for the average rider, but also boosted the performance riding of the skilled ones.