Enfield of dreams
Royal Enfield’s 650 twins have been a roaring success since they reached dealers in the spring of 2019. So how can a classically-styled machine appeal to such a wide range of riders? John Nutting rode one to find out
What’s most exciting about the success of the new Royal Enfield 650 twins is that they are classically-styled machines in the truest sense, yet have been developed to the most up-to-date performance and design standards.
Even more remarkable is that they’ve been manufactured to specs that mean newbie A2 licence holders can ride them, and at a selling price that almost defies logic. No wonder then that the bikes, offered in Interceptor and Continental GT versions, have been the UK’S top sellers in the 125cc-650cc category since they reached dealers in March 2019.
At Classic Motorcycle Mechanics, whose focus is Japanese machines from the seventies to the noughties, there’s recently been a broadening of the coverage that embraces modern bikes like the Yamaha XSR700 twin, Kawasaki W800 twin and the latest four-cylinder Suzuki Katana, all of which use classic styling based on a contemporary platform. Stretching the argument to include bikes like the latest Moto Guzzi V-twins and Triumph Bonneville 900cc and 1200cc parallel twins involved a measure of bartering with the editor, because the official line was that these were covered adequately elsewhere in the Mortons portfolio. But now the gates have been opened, as you see here, to the latest Royal Enfields.
Plenty has been written about the re-emergence of Royal Enfield, even long before the 650 twin was first revealed some years ago. How the factory in India – owned by the Eicher truck manufacturing group and buoyed by rising sales of its venerable Bullet-based OHV singles whose history goes back to the beginning of the 20th century – had decided to compete on a world stage with a machine offering wider appeal. And how it had invested in a high-tech UK technical centre at Bruntingthorpe near Leicester where it attracted the best design and development engineers.
The result is a motorcycle that meets not just the latest regulatory requirements but – and it is this that makes it remarkable – looks like it could have fitted into many ranges of machines from the 1970s. It has a conventional duplex tubular frame with a sturdy telescopic fork and twin rear shocks. The fuel tank, finished in a glossy lacquer, is a pear-drop shape with matching side-panels. The wheels have
light-alloy rims with tension spokes. For the dyed-in- the- wool fan of bikes from the seventies (like me) the Interceptor 650 is a feast for the eyes, the sort of bike you would happily ogle in the garage or at the pub of an evening, when people come up and remark: ‘ That’s a lovely old bike. Had it long?’ And you have to answer: “It’s brand new, and it’s made in India.”
And yet this is a bike that youngsters also find appealing: the sales figures – almost 1400 units shipped in the UK in the first eight months since the bike arrived in March 2019 – proved it. Perhaps it’s the simple balance of the design, or the unthreatening styling. What I find surprising is that this 650cc twin can be ridden by newcomers to motorcycling, probably with just a few months’ experience, even though with 47bhp on tap and a top speed of about 110mph it offers the same performance as a 1960s Triumph T120 Bonneville when it was one of the most potent road burners. The Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor is proof that provided the fundamentals are right – the engine and chassis – a machine doesn’t need ‘aggressive’ styling or exotic electronics to appeal.
So what makes the 650cc Interceptor such a great machine? For a start it’s a manageable size, easy to push around and place on its centre-stand. You can sit astride it with both feet flat on the ground. Switch it on with the key between the conventionally-styled instruments and the needles dance, indicating that there’s some electronics at work. A warning light in the rev meter face shows that the disc brake ABS is operational.
Dab the starter button and the fuel-injected engine burbles into life with a happy chatter from the valve gear. This is a parallel twin in the traditional British style, but now brought up to date with internals that are not far removed from Yamaha’s MT-07 twin, one of the UK’S most popular motorcycles. With a light clutch lever action and a silky bite as the drive takes up, the bike pulls away smoothly.
It has that now familiar syncopated rhythm of modern m twins in which the power is delivered in a way w such that the pulses can be felt, but with none of f the tingling vibration of old British twins at higher re evs. This is all to do with the use of a crankshaft with w offset pins so the cylinders fire more like a V-twin, V and an engine-speed balance shaft. Better still, the gearbox is crisp and the tr ransmission snatch free. One of my tests is to cruise at 40mph in top gear and open up: the Interceptor responds immediately without any co ough from the injection system and the drive is fu uss-free. Power is delivered without any sense of drama; d it’s there all the way to the modest 7500rpm red-line, not that there’s much need to explore the top-end. Response to the twistgrip is immediate, but not in any way intimidating, just as it should be for those getting used to a big bike for the first time.
A real-world measure of the 650’s performance is that it will cruise at up to 85mph if need be, with a bit in hand, but the raised, braced handlebar makes this tiresome, as it would on any sit-up-and-beg bike. That’s not to say the Interceptor
won’t appeal to the experienced rider. Mature and skilled riders appreciate good manners in any motorcycle. No wonder that Jeff Ware, CMM’S man in Australia and a more than handy racer, bought an Interceptor as soon as one was available early in 2019.
The engine shows immense potential, and indeed S&S in America has launched a number of performance parts that include an increase in capacity to 865cc and which improve the mid-range and top-end dramatically (though not for road use, says S&S).
It’s likely though, that Royal Enfield’s marketing and design team already has this in mind for bigger capacity versions with alternative styling, some of which have been already shown as one-off specials. What’s exciting is that the factory has emerged as a promising contender in the global motorcycle market with a machine that’s as good as anything.
It hasn’t taken long to get there, though. Royal Enfield’s chief executive Siddartha Lal decided that the factory in India should expand and in 2015 set up a base in the UK from where the new model would be developed. A larger two-storey £3.5 million Technology Centre was set up at Bruntingthorpe in the Midlands and design staff recruited, while a bigger factory was built in India.
Amongst the development staff was Triumph’s former product manager Simon Warburton and other engineers from the Hinckley factory, who had likely been working on the new Bonneville twins that were launched in 2016. Eicher also acquired Harris Performance, the Hertford-based race bike and parts specialist, for its chassis development expertise. Warburton, head of product development, explained to Leicester Live early in 2018 why the Technology Centre was built. “Here is where we have the best chance of recruiting excellent engineers, since most of the UK’S automotive engineering businesses are in this area,” he said. “Most of our staff are designers or engineers, and by engineers I mean degree-qualified design engineers, so these are the skills we are mostly looking for.”
While it should therefore be no surprise that the Royal Enfield engine shares much of the architecture of the latest Bonneville twin, using a crankshaft with asymmetric crankpins, a contra-rotating balance shaft, four-valve combustion chambers, single overhead camshaft and six-speed gearbox, a range of other configurations were tried and tested before the final design was decided, as Simon Warburton explained to me: “We used a similar layout for the same reasons that we did at Triumph, but we tried a
number of crankshafts – with crankpins at 180 degrees, 270 degrees and 360 degrees – before making a decision. We wanted the feel you get from offset power pulses and lower vibration levels, to give a more pleasant experience. It’s all about the feel. Our aim was to offer something that the owner would be proud to own, and be desirable, but also to keep it simple without all the bells and whistles found on many modern bikes.”
Harris Performance’s Lester Harris, who with brother Steve and friend Steve Bayford founded his firm back in the seventies, is currently its head of performance engineering. Harris Performance had helped with the design of the sporty version of the 500cc single and continued with the new twin’s development. “Siddartha Lal had a passion for Royal Enfield to be a player on the world stage,” says Lester. A priority was for the bike to appeal both to the market in India, where Royal Enfield now manufactures around 800,000 bikes a year, most of which are still 350cc Bullet Classics, and worldwide.
While it might also be easy to think that Harris Performance drew upon its racing experience to design the chassis from scratch, the running gear was developed for Royal Enfield with an open mind and for riding styles as diverse as they might be on the tracks of the sub-continent as the twisty roads of Europe. “We were only part of the design team,” says Lester. “We weren’t the major component in that. They’ve got a massive design team at Bruntingthorpe – with 155 staff – and our job was a sort of ‘sanity check’. They’d come up with designs and then we’d look at them and give our views. Then we made the prototypes and worked with the test team in refining them. The project strategy people came up with the concept of the motorcycle and identified it as what it was they needed. It also needed to be something suitable for the Indian market and the western market. Now that is a tall order, because what they want out of a motorcycle in India is not what we want. We came up with a concept for the chassis and we made the original ‘mule’ bikes very adjustable so we could do pretty extensive testing by altering all the parameters, to get the ergonomics right, get the fork angle, the swingarm, to fine tune it to what we felt what the western consumer would like. Then it had to go back to India for the Indian test team to ride, and for their input. And I can tell you, it ain’t the same! On top of that you’ve got the financial constraints, because the motorcycle has got to be made at a price that makes it saleable on the Indian market.”
That involves ‘productionising’ the design for the manufacture of parts such as the frame on robotic lines, which requires additional constraints. Even so, Lester recalls having to alter the design of the frame where the centre-stand is mounted to accommodate this, but it also had a side benefit in that the handling was improved.
The result is a machine with impeccable roadholding and sublimely neutral steering, despite the lack of any adjustability in the suspension, apart from spring preload adjustment at the rear. Up front there’s a sturdy telescopic fork with 45mm diameter legs, while at the rear twin shocks nod to contemporary style by sporting remote gas reservoirs. There’s no hint of nervousness from the Interceptor front-end which holds a line with precision, the
“Companies are already selling performance parts including big-bore kits up to 865cc. What's really exciting is that the factory has emerged as a contender in the global motorcycle market with a machine that's as good as anything.”
Pirelli tyres offering secure feedback when cornering. I twice rode a demonstrator provided by Groombridge Motorcycles in East Sussex, and by the second time it had clocked more than 15,000 miles and felt just as good as it did a few months earlier.
If anything the disc brakes – a single 320mm rotor at the front gripped by a twin-piston caliper matched with 240mm rear – had improved. On my first ride the initial bite was weak, but this had evened out the second time round, and you could hammer them enough to provoke the ABS into action in the dry.
Despite the higher mileage there was no sign of deterioration in the Interceptor’s finish. Build quality is good and I was impressed by the way in which items like the battery are packed into the under-seat area, but still with easy access. Unclip the modestly cushioned, but stylish seat and old-timers will be reassured to find a toolkit generous enough to carry out routine tasks such as drive chain adjustment and the like. I wasn’t much impressed by many of the bolt-on components such as the footrest brackets, indicators and headlamp supports, which look like they are supplied from a back-street parts bin. The foot-rests interfere with your boots and I’m sure the tiny instrument faces could have been larger without incurring too much of a cost hike. But when the basic price tag is £5699 (£5899 with a two-tone tank or £6199 with a ‘glitter and dust’ tank) it’s churlish to criticise items like this. They all work satisfactorily and if you want to improve on them there’s a growing choice of aftermarket accessory suppliers willing to help.
There’s going to be much more coming from Royal Enfield. The award-winning 650 twins are just the start of what I’m sure will be a series of bigger and more impressive offerings. New chief executive Vinod Dasari, who took over last year, will no doubt drive for a wider range with international appeal while keeping faith with the domestic market. Siddartha Lal has been freed to pursue his passion with ventures such as design projects and activities such as a speed record attempt with an S&s-tuned twin at Bonneville Salt Flats that resulted in a top speed of more than 150mph, which is remarkable for an unfaired machine powered by a normallyaspirated engine.
In the meantime, I’m sure learners and experienced alike will continue to buy the 650 twins in droves. After all, why wouldn’t you want to get one if there is room in the garage?
“So what makes the Interceptor so good? Many things: it's a manageable size, the fuel-injected parallel twin is lusty, the gearbox crisp and the power delivery is youngster and post-learner friendly. And the styling is spot on!”