3 GREAT NEW BIKES
Royal Enfıeld 650
WE’RE RIDING NORTH along California’s iconic Pacific Coast Highway at 9am on a late September morning. Cold mist is blowing in from across the sea to the west, and our string of 12 shiny new motorcycles is pleasantly bopping along at a steady 90mph. Admittedly, this is an odd time to be thinking about the Indian economy, but it’s actually fundamental to understanding what we’re doing here. In the UK Royal Enfield are seen as a niche manufacturer of quirky, old fashioned single-cylinder bikes that appeal to eccentrics and old men. But last year RE made 850,000 motorcycles, mostly for their domestic market – India. That’s some niche. More bikes than Ducati, Triumph, KTM, BMW and Harley-davidson. Combined. In global terms they are huge. And this is the most significant new Royal Enfield motorcycle since they last launched an all new parallel twin. That was in 1949, so they deserve a party to celebrate the new one, and this is it. As well as making 5000 bikes a day at their Chennai factory, RE also employ 142 people at their UK development centre in Leicestershire. This all-new 650cc twin is the first fruit of this Anglo-indian endeavour (the Himalayan lightweight adventure bike was conceived and developed in India, with some UK input). It’s tempting to think that this bike’s main purpose is to open new markets for the RE brand, but that’s only partly true. It’s also a bike for RE’S three million Indian customers. Never mind what happens with sales in the UK, USA, Europe or other mature markets, the bike that we’re riding will surely be the world’s biggest selling big bike of 2019. At 90mph on the circular analogue speedo the matching tacho reads 6000rpm, but the redline is still 1500 revs away. There’s a
faint vibration, but only enough to tell you that the air-cooled, 650cc parallel twin with 270° crankshaft is thrumming away between your legs. The engine lacks the punch of bigger capacity rivals, but delivers torque from 2500rpm to a peak at 5250rpm and beyond. When forced to slow by a dawdling car, you can regain momentum and waft past on a twist of the throttle, or speed things up by changing down a couple of gears in the crisp six-speed box. The occasional clear road opportunity on the PCH suggests the 47bhp, A2 licence compatible bike will deliver a top speed of around 110mph. There are two variants of the new bike. A Continental GT café racer and this, the retro style Interceptor, a chrome, alloy and bronze paint tribute to the last UK made Royal Enfield twins. Those 736cc machines were built in an underground factory in Westbury-on-avon between 1968 and 1970, when the brand went belly-up in the UK. In the 48 years between then and now the Indian concern, which made their first bikes in 1955, survived and eventually prospered to a degree the old buffers who put Royal Enfield into the motorcycle business in 1901 couldn’t have dreamed of. 850,000 bikes a year! They’d have had a heart attack before getting to one tenth of that figure. It’d be nice to continue north on Highway One to Oregon, Vancouver and Alaska. The Interceptor feels solid, comfortable and capable. The riding position works for my 5ft 10in, albeit with the neck:wind pressure caveat that comes with all naked bikes. It’s stable, secure and reassuring. After 35 miles in the cool coastal air we turn inland onto the Pescadero road and the mist disappears. This is a wriggling, giggling, up and down and round and round, rollercoaster of second and third gear, turns, blind crests and short straights. With
‘The whole bike has a similar feel to Triumph’s 900cc Street Twin. Given that lots of the development staff are ex-hinckley, that’s not surprising’
wide-ish bars and unfashionably narrow, 18-inch, tubed Pirelli Phantoms, the Interceptor is great fun. It changes direction quickly, but there’s enough grip and for me nothing touches down (though later one of the factory testers appears with destroyed footrest blobs and chunks of the centre-stand ground away). The front fork action feels good, offering decent ride quality and progressive damping when you push along on these badly surfaced roads. The rear is more of a compromise. Limited travel (just 88mm) means that it can get a bit squiffy if you hit a bump mid-corner when pressing on. Led by former British Superbike racer and now Enfield test rider Paul Young, we were. The single disc front is gripped by a sliding twin piston caliper. Braking power is adequate for the 200 kilo bike and, re-assured by Bosch ABS, you can be pretty cack-handed with it. The gearbox is sweet and the slipper assist clutch is light, but the engine’s torque spread is such that you can drive out of corners from quite low revs, and then hold the gear all the way to the redline. The power delivery, burbling exhaust note, and actually the whole bike, has a similar feel to Triumph’s 900cc Street Twin albeit with a few less horses. Given that lots of the development staff are ex-hinckley, that’s not surprising. Because the torque curve starts low, and is basically flattish you can be in any one of three gears at any given time. But absolute power isn’t reached until peak revs, so there’s no sense of when you need to change up. You have to watch the revcounter, not to keep it in the power, but to stop you smashing into the rev limiter. It makes you wonder why it’s got six gears with just 500rpm between each of the top three ratios. It also makes the engine’s characteristics a bit bland and you’re never really sure what gear you should be in. You change down more for engine braking than for drive. Those power traits will make it a great bike for nervous newcomers. Low seat and narrow stance help here too. From low rpm the fuelling is perfect. Enfield haven’t bothered with ride-by-wire, there’s a throttle cable attached to butterflies in the throttle bodies, but the smoothness of the throttle response from a closed throttle is exemplary. If Enfield, using a Bosch system, can make this work and hit Euro 4 emissions targets why can’t KTM? In equipment terms it’s refreshingly simple. There are no modes and no TFT dash. Just a basic analogue tacho and speedo with a trip meter. But on the Interceptor model you do get a centre-stand and a passenger grab rail which are genuinely useful. This is a gloriously simple machine. At 200 kilos without petrol it’s also lighter than most other mid-capacity retros. Enfield make no claims for fuel consumption, but the 13.7 litre (3.6 gallon) fuel tank suggests a range of close to 200 miles. Inland from the coast the skies are clear and the sun is shining. From Pescadero we snake up through the state park, through the changing smells of eucalyptus, pine and redwood trees, up to
‘In equipment terms it’s refreshingly simple. There are no modes and no TFT dash…’
Skyline Ridge (with a view down to San Francisco bay) and La Honda, for lunch at Alice’s Restaurant. Basking in the Californian sun the Interceptor looks great. The paint, chrome and polished alloy glint, and the air-cooled engine is handsome. It’s a visually well-balanced bike, with nice details. But not perfect. The finish on the forged alloy top yoke looks cheap and some of the fasteners and plating look suspect too. We’re riding pre-production bikes, so some of these issues may be sorted by the time UK bikes get to dealers. There are two versions of the new bike. The upright Interceptor and the café racer style Continental GT only differ in riding position and body work, but it’s enough to give them a very different feel. The GT footrests, mounted on alloy forgings, are three inches further back, while the swan neck clip-ons drop your hands by a good four inches. Engine and chassis, barring two notches of rear pre-load to marginally increase rear ride height and quicken the steering, are identical. The GT’S rider stance is sportier and more aggressive, and it changes the weight distribution, giving more feel to the front end in turns and providing a less windblown stance on the highway. On the GT you can ride harder in the curves around La Honda, and faster on the PCH, but it pitches upper body weight onto your wrists at lower speeds and places my knees below the line of the tank, so they have nothing to grip except
the back of the cylinder head. A fact acknowledged by the fitting of little wire guards. The GTS we rode had the optional solo seat (no price yet) which restricts tall rider’s ability to push back. But the main difference is cosmetic. Do you want classic or the café racer style? I prefer the Interceptor’s looks and riding position, and I think that the engine characteristics match the stance of the bike better, but both are great machines. Enfield suggest that this is a new market sector with no direct rivals, but as retros you stack them against the Triumph Street Twin and Ducati Scrambler, which are both more powerful and better equipped, but feel less authentic, and the Moto Guzzi V7, which has a similarly simple ethos, a lot of charm and usually wins Bike’s group test. And there’s also Harley-davidson’s 750 Street, which is Indian made too. In the A2 category they’re alternatives to modernist twins like the Kawasaki ER6 and Honda CB500. The Enfield’s will hold their own against any of those bikes, and we haven’t started talking about money. The UK price won’t be announced until early November but in the USA the base model Interceptor will cost $5799 (with the GT $200 more), while Enfield’s trusty single-cylinder 500 Classic is just 5% cheaper at $5599. In the UK the 500 Classic costs £4699, adding 5% to the price would make the Interceptor just £4934. If that turns out to be close to the mark, it could be a enough to really shake up the market.
‘If £4934 turns out to be close to the mark, it could be a enough to really shake up the market’