Top of the festive-season list for the Apache RTR 200 4V, above the Google Map mirroring and the Type-C socket and the panic brake alert, sits adjustable front suspension. New top variant, Rs 1,49,990 ex-showroom Delhi, and a fork you can finally set up. Terrific. It had one of those before, and TVS took it away.
In June 2025 the 200 4V was given a gold 37mm inverted fork lifted off the 160 4V, which looked far, far better than the Showa telescopic unit it replaced and did one thing less: the Showa had a preload adjuster, the gold one did not. ZigWheels said so at the time. That bike launched at Rs 1,53,990. TVS’s own spec page now reads “37mm Upside down suspension with Pre-load adjuster”, and the variant carrying it asks Rs 4,000 less than the one that lost it. Fifteen months.
So let me explain what that adjuster actually buys you, because it is not a bullet point. Preload sets where the fork sits in its travel before you have done anything at all. Wind it up and the front rides higher, holds its geometry when you are hard on the brakes, and stops the nose from diving into its own stroke on a bad surface. Wind it down and a lighter rider gets the suspension working instead of skipping. That makes sense, right?
A 151kg motorcycle making 20.82PS is not fighting physics here. It is, mind you, a bike whose front end changes character with a spanner and two minutes. I do the same thing on my bike every time a pillion and a tail bag go on for a long day, and the difference between the two settings on the Expressway is not subtle. Which is exactly why removing it was the wrong call, and why putting it back is the best thing on this list.
To be fair to TVS, the rest of the round is honest work.
A cheaper Ronin variant, the Base+ at Rs 1,42,490, gets dual-channel ABS, and it sits above Base variants that still start at Rs 1,30,290 in Chennai, so nobody has been pushed up a rung to get the safety kit. That matters more than a livery.
But look at what the room is actually excited about. We at SBW have spent the day reading Apache and Ronin owners, and the loudest reactions by a mile are about paint: the 310s, the RTR colours, the Ronin’s desert beige. Not one feature on the list. Meanwhile the one rider in there with real distance behind him, a year and 15,000km on a Ronin, talks about lubing his chain every 500km, expecting his too-soft tyres gone by 25,000km, vibration from about 85kmph, and service centres where the wait always runs longer than he was told. Does a Type-C socket answer any of that? No.
And TVS has published nothing about this on its own newsroom, which means the only official line anyone has is Vimal Sumbly saying the update “focuses on adding features across the Apache and Ronin portfolios”. Adding. Chances are that is fair for everything on the list bar the one item TVS deleted in June 2025.
What would change my mind is a spanner. Give me the 200 4V for a week with a pillion, wind that adjuster up, and if the front end does what I think it will, TVS will have quietly fixed the best-handling thing about its own bike and charged less for it than it did last year. Which is a gobsmackingly good outcome. It just took fifteen months and a festive season to get here.
