Hero Xtreme 160R review, road test

Powering the Xtreme 160R is an all-new 163cc, two-valve, single cylinder engine that makes 15.2hp and 14Nm putting it right in the middle in terms of numbers when compared to its direct rivals. Something you’ll notice right off the bat about this engine is how refined it is. Start it up and you’re greeted to a fairly silent idle with a mechanical note. Impressively, not much changes when the engine is under load as well. In fact, this single-cylinder engine feels smooth all the way up to the redline. 

While we are on the subject of the engine, what has to be said is that this one has been tuned for low and mid-range performance. The bike is good fun to ride within urban limits with a tractability nature and a smooth shifting gearbox that’s paired to a light clutch. You get through the first three gears quite quickly, by the time you hit the taller fourth and fifth gears, the engine begins losing steam and overtaking on the highway isn’t as effortless as we would’ve liked. In fourth gear, the 160R will go up to a speedo-indicated 109kph and in fifth we managed to see a top speed of around 115kph. Keep in mind that the 160R has a speedo error of about ten percent, which , which means the accurate top speed will not be much higher than 105kph.

The power delivery at low speeds is peppy and the throttle response is crisp, but when ridden flat out, the performance just isn’t as strong as as the spec sheet had us expecting. The test figures tell a similar story and the Xtreme 160R gets to 60kph in 5.77s while 100kph arrives in a leisurely 23.36 seconds. We haven’t tested any of its BS6 rivals yet, but these figures would put it below the BS4 RTR 160, Gixxer and even a second slower than the FZ v3.0.

These figures are disappointing, especially when you consider that the 160R is one of the lightest bikes in the segment at 139.5kg (rear disc variant). The rear drum brake equipped variant is 1kg lighter at 138.5kg. Clearly, Hero is going for punchy city manners along with refinement and efficiency rather than outright performance with this bike.