Crikey! I’ve lost my Mojo! Or Have I? (First impressions of the Mahindra Mojo)
Well, the title above is not for me, let me make that clear from the get go. :-D
This past Sunday, I decided that I wanted to test ride the Mojo and find out how capable it is. Mahindra has gone the whole hog and put in everything they could, barring the kitchen sink. Upside down forks, big disk brakes with radial calipers, twin pod headlamps etc. But does it really work?
Now, I am not a fan of the design. It doesn’t look cohesive and the side doesn’t match the front, and the rear doesn’t match the sides or the front. The twin pod headlamps even with the LED eye brows look out of place and don’t do anything positive for the looks. I would say that the Mojo is either a love it or a hate it design; more so the latter.
Now when I reached the dealership, it was deserted. However, there was a guy who informed me that somebody was coming. After waiting for some time, somebody did come and they took out the Mojo for the test ride without any fuss. I spent some time looking at it and decided that the looks didn’t work for me. Also, the tyres looked small for the bike although as per the specs, they are ZR17s. The bike is big!
The bike’s individual elements do look good, like the tyres, the LED tail light, the USD forks. However, as I said, they just don’t work together. At least for me. There are people who do like the looks though. I met one at the dealership!
Coming to the ride, when I was sitting astride the bike, I noticed that the seating position is quite wide and can make it difficult for shorter riders to have both feet on the ground. It can also trouble taller ones with some friction on the upper inner thighs. Also, because of the stubby and low slung dual exhausts, you might have problems in accessing the side stand. The console is analog-digital and liking it will depend on your taste. I would have liked a different design (a wider one) and a better digital display. Honestly, I forgot to see what all information the digital one shows.
The switchgear is OK and is neither bad nor great. The build quality of the bike looks OK also. The colour scheme could have been better as well.
The engine starts with a throaty grunt and is quite loud. You may not be able to realise it on the video as the microphone is inside my helmet. I would be quite irritated to hear it over a longer period of time like a long distance tour.
The bike also has quite bad vibrations in the first and second gear at least until 3-4000 RPM which is when it also picks up the acceleration. So the lower end torque is missing where it should be. The mirror stalks on the test ride bike were either damaged or not fitted properly especially the left one. Even if they were good, the viewing area was not that much and I felt they were pretty much useless. The opinion may differ though, if later on I were to ride a bike with better fitter mirror stalks. Also, because of the vibration, they were not very good at letting you know about the rear traffic.
The bike pulls really nicely after 5000 RPM. This is the part I liked. The mid-end torque is really good and I think you can keep quite good speed while cruising at 5-6000 RPM with enough power still to make short acceleration bursts like when you overtake on the highway. But you do need to be within this power band to be able to do that otherwise it just doesn’t respond to the rider’s request when you are at the lower RPM range. Also, the bike does take some of the bumps and cracks of the road well. It has good long suspension travel and hopefully it should translate into a good ride even on broken and rough roads.
The seating position felt a little weird. You sit on it straight and the handlebars are wide, so that’s good. However, the rake angle of the bike felt as if it was too much and because of this you just don’t get the feedback from the road as you should. Also, the balance you get while turning is not optimum and the weight of the bike may topple you. You should be a little careful while turning and therefore it is better to use a bigger turning radius.
Also, at first I thought that there was a problem with the gear changing but it was not. It was OK with the gears shifting properly without any issues. The seat for the rider is not as comfortable as it should be. Although there is enough thickness, the seat is hard and the lower back support is absent. Over longer tours it can aggravate one’s back pain. I was not very confident about the braking because of the above said issue about lack of feedback from the front. Honestly, I couldn’t notice the difference the Pirelli’s bring over in this test ride. The brakes lacked the bite although they seemed to be progressive but not enough.
Coming to the moot point; Would I buy the bike? I don’t think so. This bike is a little confused about its identity. Tries to don multiple hats but it doesn’t succeed. It’s got features that you would associate with a sporty naked but tries to be a cruiser as well. The best thing I liked about the bike was the mid-end pull which was not enough to pull me.
1) Costs Rs. 1,90,000/- on road in Hyderabad
2) 26 bHP and 30 NM of torque at 5500 RPM
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anybody to explain about other neat features and servicing aspects of the bike.
As always, if you need any more information, I would be happy to oblige. Thanks for reading.
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