Bajaj Dominar vs Royal Enfield Himalayan in a tug of war: Who wins [Video]

Tug-of-war was a popular sport before we humans got X’BOXed’. This once popular sport has been taken up by the automotive fraternity, which is reflected in the ever increasing number of tug-of-war videos. Today we bring you a tug-of-war video of two interesting contenders. This video features a Bajaj Dominar competing with a Royal Enfield Himalayan. Some may say that it is an unequal/mismatched competition as Dominar has got much more power than the Himalayan (34.5 Bhp >24.5 Bhp). But to let you know, in situations like these, peak power doesn’t matter much. More on that later, but first, let’s take a quick look at the video.

In the video, in a short while, the bikes are double tied and the engines get fired up. Then, the Dominar gains some ground initially but then the Himalayan takes over, with the Dominar suffering a wheelspin too. The second round yields the same results with the Bajaj bike making feeble attempts to get in the game. The third round, however, contains some drama with both the bikes pulling each on to the other side but the end result is the same as before. The Himalayan wins all three rounds with flying colours.

Next, the riders interchange their bikes (fair play) and set up against each other once more. In round one, the Dominar gets pulled away again; however, it now puts up a fight. To cut the long story short, the second and third round too are won by the Himalayan, though the Dominar constantly fights for the title with full might.

The video clearly illustrates that more power does not necessarily propel you to the top.

It’s true that more the horsepower, better the machine’s capability to attain speed. But in situations like these, what matters is how much low-end grunt your vehicle has got. Simply put, the higher the torque available at low RPMs, the higher the chance of winning such situations. In this respect, the Himalayan produces 32 Nm of torque at 4,500 rpm whereas the Dominar produces 35 Nm of torque at 6,500 rpm. So now you see why the Royal Enfield bike won all the six rounds over its Bajaj counterpart, which is seemingly more powerful.

Also, if we take into consideration the fact that both of them are different types of bikes, things will become more apparent as to why there is less low-end grunt in the Dominar. The Royal Enfield Himalayan is an ‘adventure tourer’ category bike whereas the Dominar belongs to the category of ‘sports tourers’.

As with everything that’s meant to go off the road, the Himalayan needs power at much lower RPMs to counter difficult terrain. But being a sports tourer, the Dominar is meant to be used at higher speeds than normal commuting speeds to realise its full potential, hence more power on the higher rev band. Think of it as being more near its full potential while munching miles on an highway rather than doing low speed short-distance runs.