I currently ride a Honda Shine 125 for a daily city commute of about 10 km (round trip), and about 20 km on weekends. I’m getting 40–42 km/l from the first year despite poor road conditions. I’m thinking of upgrading to either a Hunter 350 or a Honda H’ness 350. Is transitioning to a larger-cc bike a good choice for me? Or should I consider other bikes instead? I plan to use it occasionally for short weekend highway rides.

Autocar India

•5h

We would recommend you go ahead with the KTM 250 Duke purchase as your first bike. It will be an easier and friendlier machine to learn on. The upcoming 350 Duke will likely be similar in terms of its throttle response and power output to the 390 Duke, which will make it a much faster machine and thus less suited to a beginner.

Autocar India

•3w

Since you're looking at just a small upsize in your tyre sizes, you can go ahead and replace the tyres of your Jupiter with 100-section units from the stock 90-section ones. It will help give you more sure-footed handling as well as a slight improvement in ride quality. The flip side to this change will be that wider tyres will increase rolling resistance, which is going to have a small but noticeable negative impact on fuel efficiency. Another point to bear in mind is that the scooter's steering will feel heavier in general, but especially at slower speeds.

Autocar India

•3w

The Triumph Scrambler 400 X that you have shortlisted is a good one bike to do it all. If you have your heart set on it, you should indeed hurry up and get one soon before the 350cc replacement is launched in the coming months. While its slightly smaller successor will be identical in most ways, the smaller engine with likely reduced performance could affect performance at highway speeds. So it's better to go for the 400cc model while you can. The TVS Apache RTX 300 is another great all-rounder, and if you are ready to deal with its size and weight, then you should absolutely consider it. Do bear in mind that for someone of your stature, the RTX could prove to be a little much inside the city at slower speeds. So we would recommend a thorough test ride before you make a decision. Another option worth considering is the Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450. It has a very approachable 780mm seat height, which will be helpful for you and has good performance and comfort for both city and highway usage. Since all the bikes you're considering are quite different, take a test ride of each before making a decision.