I like all different types of motorcycles and when my BMW dealer took a 2011 Royal Enfield Bullet 500, with only 1K miles on the clock, in on trade and then decided that they hated the thing being on their lot, I took advantage of their predicament to update my collection. For little more than I paid in taxes and fees for my Zero, I acquired this nice looking, all steel, Indian-made, relic from the 1950's. It is quite a contrast to my Zero. It weighs 440 pounds of road-hugging weight, makes less than 20 hp at the rear wheel and 27 lb-ft of torque. Other than the engine being updated about 10 years ago to comply with modern emission regulations, the bike is pretty much like the 350 introduced by Royal Enfield in 1952 - although it is slower.
Top speed is 80 mph, but you wouldn't want to go that fast for long, unless you had a lot of paint to shake and have no sympathy mechanical devices that are being stressed out . Royal Enfield is concerned enough about the engine running hot that they want you to use 15-50wt synthetic oil and change it every 2000 miles. And besides, a million Indians can't be all wrong. At least parts are cheap and the bike is easy to work on - which is good, as the local Royal Enfield dealer doesn't want to work on them and can't figure out the parts fiche to order parts. Fortunately, there is the internet.
So now anytime I get tired of riding my vibration-less, fast and almost maintenance-free Zero, I can jump on the Enfield, kick the thing for a few minutes until I finally give up and push the electric starter button and pop-pop-pop on down the highway while shaking up my innards - all the while recalling the way it used to be back when I was growing up and Royal Enfields were some of the best British motorcycle engineering that money could buy.
Author
Topic: The old and the new (Read 1450 times)