Bajaj Avenger 220 (India)

Description / Specifications / Reviews

What Kind of Beast Is This

The phrase "Indian motorcycle" still sounds strange to many and doesn’t inspire trust. Let’s first unravel this phenomenon before moving on to the machine itself.

So, Bajaj is not only one of the largest companies in India but also ranks among the top three (!) biggest motorcycle manufacturers in the world! Across its four factories, the company produces around one and a half million units of motor vehicles annually. More than a thousand motorcycles roll off the assembly lines of the Pune plant every day. In two days, the factory produces more motorcycles than our country buys in a year! And these aren’t just the famous "Bajaj" bikes; they also include the entire small-capacity KTM Duke and RC lineup, from 125 to 390 cc. Thought you had an Austrian KTM? Ha! The motorcycle we’ll discuss below and that iconic orange Austrian bike are assembled on the same production line by the same hands! On top of that, the Pune plant also manufactures Kawasaki motorcycles for the domestic market. So, when it comes to manufacturing quality, assembly, and everything else, everything here is top-notch—on par with more hyped-up industrial countries. Bajaj factory.

Speaking of Kawasaki, that’s where our story begins. As we know, the style of motorcycles with lots of chrome, long forks, horned handlebars, and thick rear wheels was invented by American veterans after World War II. Adjusted for American quirks: cheap gas, vast mileage of straight, wide roads, and a love for everything oversized. That’s how custom bikes and cruisers like Harley-Davidson and Indian came to be.

A little later, recovering from the war’s shock, Japan started reviving its industry by carefully copying the world’s best practices and tweaking them to its own style. Naturally, American motorcycles fell into this category. However, 1.5-liter engines didn’t quite appeal to the frugal Japanese, and over time, their unique national flavor led to the creation of a reinvented cruiser.

Our folks also tried inventing a cruiser, but it didn’t go beyond a couple of pretty dismal industrial prototypes and endless garage tuning. Maybe that’s for the best, but we’re not talking about us right now.

India has a strong motorcycle tradition. Here, a motorcycle isn’t a means of self-expression or a hobby—it’s daily transportation. Traffic density on Indian city streets approaches maximum, and speeds rarely exceed 80 km/h. Thus, the ideal Indian motorcycle is a lightweight machine with a single-cylinder engine: a heavy bike is cumbersome in dense, slow traffic, a large engine isn’t needed due to the lack of demand for dynamics, and fuel efficiency is paramount. That’s why the vast majority of India’s motorcycle fleet consists of bikes from 100 to 200 cc.

But beauty isn’t foreign to anyone, especially not to the residents of an ancient country—the cradle of civilization. So, besides the dull-as-road-dust basic motorcycles, Bajaj started producing a true chopper, the Avenger 220.

You might wonder what Kawasaki has to do with it. Only those unfamiliar with Japanese second-hand bikes would ask! Indian bike builders decided there was no need to reinvent the cruiser—Americans and Japanese had already done it twice—so they leaned on their old friendship with Kawasaki and borrowed the discontinued Kawasaki Eliminator, previously made at Bajaj’s factory, phased out in 2010. Today, in some Asian countries, Kawasaki sells a jointly developed bike with Bajaj as the Kawasaki Avenger 220.

Thus, we have a motorcycle inspired by America, designed by Japan, and refined by India. An American-Japanese-Indian hybrid.

The Indians didn’t mess with the prototype’s design, ergonomics, or even chassis construction. They just freshened up the colors a bit and adapted this bike from the last century to modern safety standards. They didn’t skimp on styling either—you can buy the bike in two variants: a classic one with spoked wheels, plenty of chrome, and gloss, or a dragster version with a low handlebar, matte finish, and cast wheels. Still, both bikes are identical in terms of specs.

Up front, there’s a disc brake from the Indian Brembo Bybre factory—by the way, the same mechanisms are used on all Indian-assembled KTMs. But at the rear, it’s a blast from the past: a drum brake with a mechanical drive. Let’s not forget the Indian love for economy and the engine’s power: officially, it’s just 19 horsepower. The front brake is grippy and predictable (it’s Brembo, after all, not some cheap knockoff), and the rear drum is perfectly adequate for slowing down—it’s not a sportbike, after all.

You can’t fault the driver’s seat ergonomics—just like you can’t with most Japanese bikes. Everything’s been measured and polished to perfection over decades of refinement. Even factoring in that this is a small-capacity bike designed by the Japanese for their shorter buyers, it’s still comfortable for me, with my nearly 190 cm height. Sure, it’s not a Gold Wing, but my knees don’t hit anything, and I don’t have to hunch over. For those where seat height is a deciding factor in choosing a bike, this could be one of the few options. The seat height is 710 mm, and its light weight and narrow profile make it very appealing, say, for ladies just starting out on two wheels.

The torquey single-cylinder engine rumbles bassily at idle and doesn’t screech at high revs. By the way, after this test—which, mind you, took place in India—I can confidently reassure all the air-cooled engine critics. Folks, even in Indian traffic jams at 40°C heat, these engines don’t overheat. In our near-polar latitudes, it’s impossible to overheat them even if you tried.

On Our Roads

Alright, alright! I’ve already admitted I rode the Avenger on Indian roads—not even public ones, but a factory test track. Still, we need to evaluate this bike on our roads. And I can say it’ll settle in here very firmly and for good.

The second time I got behind the handlebars of a bike with a "B" on the tank, I again enjoyed the fact that beneath me wasn’t a pile of parts slapped together because "the threads matched," as is common with most Southeast Asian products, but a proper motorcycle. What else would you expect from a Japanese design, even an old one? The suspension is chopper-style soft and comfy, the footpegs—true to this class of bike with its signature geometry—scrape the asphalt in turns well before the tires run out of grip, and the brakes have plenty of power reserve and are completely intuitive for the rider. Even the rear drum.

The engine confidently pulls forward toward new adventures—not fast, but it delivers its lawful 130 km/h. And how often do you need to go faster? No, I’m not talking about those guys who think anything under a liter isn’t an engine and fewer than 160 horses doesn’t exist in nature. In terms of engine size, our country leans far more eastward than westward—bikes with engines up to 500 cc sell here in much greater numbers than big-capacity ones. For many riders, "two" doesn’t mean 200 km/h—it’s fuel consumption per hundred kilometers. Sure, the Avenger uses a bit more gas per hundred, but it’s close enough.

No one needs convincing anymore that Japanese bikes from the ‘90s are the most indestructible machines in the world. So, reliability won’t be an issue with the Avenger either, meaning it won’t lose much value after a season or two. This isn’t some Chinese bike made of playdough and aluminum foil, only good for melting down into beer cans after two years. On Indian roads, I saw a Bajaj with 87,000 km on it. Its owner said the bike was ten years old, and he’d never touched the engine—just routine maintenance (in the Indian sense, of course, not a pristine dealership service bay—sometimes it’s an oil change right in the middle of the street; Indians don’t really use garages). In short, phenomenal reliability.

Isn’t that exactly what you want from an affordable motorcycle? Multiply that by the specifics of our biking culture. Small-capacity bikes are mostly either starter machines for one or two seasons for the youth or dependable rides for many years for the older generation. The Avenger fits both perfectly. Especially considering its price-to-quality ratio.

YOU NEED A BAJAJ AVENGER 220 IF:

• You just got your Category A license,
• See point 1, plus you own a leather jacket and cowboy boots;
• See points 1 and 2, plus you want to ride a lot and repair little.

YOU DON’T NEED A BAJAJ AVENGER 220 IF:

• You’re a snob and think a cruiser under 1.5 liters is laughable;
• You still believe a 25-year-old Japanese bike is better than a new non-Japanese one.