R15 V3 vs RTR 160 4V vs Gixxer SF

Track-bred motorcycles have been let loose on the roads as we try to find out the best set of wheels that’ll help you hone your riding skills and prep you for the track

Race motorcycles can be a handful and taming them requires a great degree of skill but what do you do when these track hooligans come out on the road? You either pick up the stick to tame them the old-school way or you go with the flow and learn a few skills in the process. This is a shootout that’s a bit of a mash-up. On one hand we have the vener- able Yamaha YZF-R15 in its third generation, looking every bit premium as a younger sibling of the YZF-R1 should. On the other, stands the TVS Apache RTR 160 4V coming out straight from the pit garage of the six time national championship winning RTR 160 race bike. And, to complete the line-up, the Suzuki Gixxer SF which has been busy fuelling the dreams of young racing talent in its own one-make championship. So here’s the deal - all three motorcycles fit in as top contenders of the 160cc segment, one of them is a properly faired, exquisitely engineered motorcycle while the other is an ace street ruffian and the third combines both the former’s qualities, fusing them into one solid package. What brings them together in this test is the fact that all three