30,000 km in just 2.5 years with my Ather 450X: How it has impressed me

You can chuck it rapidly into a corner and the chassis just responds. Never got the CBR to do something like that in tight corners.

BHPian ankurrevankar recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Ather 450X Gen 2 after 2.5 years & 30,000 km

Ather 450X was the first time, we bought a first-hand vehicle.

This sound might sound crazy as this was my seventh two-wheeler and I have been riding for 12 years.

It was an aspirational buy that too moving on from a Honda CBR 250R. The CBR was a no-nonsense bike but it struggled in city usage, so I wanted something simpler for the city commute and retain the CBR for outside the city.

My daily commute is roughly 35 km including the daily errands. Having previously owned a Hero Pleasure, Honda Aviator and Activa in the family, I was not really looking for an ICE moped with a 100~125cc range. The higher category was not practical enough. So the natural progression was electric.

In 2022, the options were Ola S1 series and the Ather 450 series. In fact, I had paid the 500 to pre-book the Ola and immediately cancelled it. Some friends, who work at Ola, told me not to get one for the first batch or avoid it for 2 years. Thanks for their advice and we all know what has happened. So it was the 450 series. Now was value-conscious and was looking actively for the 450 + over the X. But after tasing the Warp, it was a no-brainer. At the time of booking, the wait times were upward of a couple of months. Luckily a friend of mine working at Ather helped me get delivery within 7 days of booking. Crazy right?

Somehow, in the usual Bangalore commute from HAL to Banashankari every day, the ather felt an upgrade over the CBR in city use. Every day it was riding on warp mode, clocking roughly 1000kms per month. The way the vehicle filters through traffic, it's like you are riding a cycle. You can chuck it rapidly into a corner and the chassis just responds. Never got the CBR to do something like that in tight corners. The brakes responded great, turning circles are tight and it also does a mini well-controlled burnout are you exit tight turns. My wife always says I go like a snake through cars in a standstill traffic. We loved an occasional Sunday evening battery drain on the outer ring road on warp mode to enjoy the vehicle.

Talking battery life & range, I could bet on the range numbers on the dash. There are multiple times the range displayed was lower than my distance to home even on eco mode, but a little hypermiling did the trick every time. Yes a couple of times it was short by 50~100mts from home, but that is just my stupidity to wring it on warp mode at that instance.

After 30k km and 2.5 years, I still bet on the numbers without a margin of safety.

The MRFs on them are great, the gen 3 got an upgraded tyre which I am happy to move to now. I was determined to squeeze the life of the tyre before the upgrade and I think I took it too far. Also on the onset of the rain, it's a great upgrade and the vehicle feels just as new after the new rear and the belt tensioning.

Talking service and charging infra, regular service was a breeze, and there were nothing to change apart from the brake pads and the belt tensioning. I realised the 5k kms periodic service was really not necessary and I increased the duration to 7k kms. The brake pads were initially expensive, and I found a hack that old Hero glamour brake pads fit perfectly well. But later on, maybe after the 20k service, the cost of the Ather brae bads dropped drastically. The hero partnership worked I believe. Charging, luckily for Bangalorians Ather is local so there are a lot more charging stations. Good, they introduced the 1rs per min changing fee and the 80% charging cutoff, the line is always low. There are times I have only topped up 2 mins of charge which gives 5kms of range which is enough to reach home, reminds me of college times when I used to fill petrol for 10 bucks on a Bajaj Discover 100 just to make it to campus.

Talking about home charging, the algo always changed for the optimised charging which never gave me an issue. The current setup where you get 100% every morning after slow overnight charging is great. So any unexpected detour is catered to with ease. My home charger conked off when the bike was at 27k km and Ather replaced it FOC as it was under warranty. Strange when the other experience was so spotless.

Thats it, I am close to breakeven on the Ather investment and on doing so, I will send another post. I will explain my math too and the comparision to the CBR. I do not have a picturesque moment with the 450X but a large smile every time I ride it, and I hope to continue for the days to come.

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