16/04/2026
On some days, more than others, I feel grateful for retaining my road-testing boots. Like, when Honda called to say I could have the Shine 100 DX for many, many days. Honda rarely calls, and to wrangle test motorcycles out of it is about the same level of feat as being able to tie your shoelaces with your teeth.
I was really, properly excited about it. Commuter motorcycles are always fun to ride. No-nonsense machines, obsessively fuel-efficient, light and generally as bare-bones as marketeers will let them be.
A test loop was quickly chalked out and, for once, I wasn’t thinking ‘lunch.’ Tripmeter reset, I happily darted out of my apartment complex at daybreak. The Shine came home with nearly a tankful of petrol, which meant I could, theoretically, take a break about 500km later. Too hot a day to try any such thing, of course.
For the most part, I stayed firmly within the city. Exploring bits of my own extended neighbourhood I’d never bothered with before. The stray dogs that guard these bits took strong exception to the Shine’s tank decals though, almost always angrily chasing me away. That, or it was my yellow riding jacket. I’ll never know.
On one morning, I spent time parked at a desolate spot pondering over its kick-starter; it’s one of the few remaining motorcycles to feature one. The heel-and-toe shifter isn’t as obsolete but still warrants being photographed for posterity.
Then followed a lasting thought I couldn’t shake off until long after the Shine was returned.
Motorcycles such as these run households.
Of course, it won’t annoy me any lesser to be held up by a gent committed to not exceeding 40kph on this sort of bike, but I can empathise. To some of us, frugality is a philosophy, something to romanticise or debate. To most, it’s about subsistence.
Frugality decides what’s for dinner later that evening. I can deal with being patient with that.
- Ruman
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