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Royal Enfield Meteor 350 Yamaha MT-09
With Royal Enfield celebrating 120 years of continuous manufacturing this year, it is entirely appropriate for the company to introduce its latest offering, the Meteor 350. This model follows on from the very successful 650cc Interceptor and Continental. They also introduced the rugged Himalayan adventure bike to break into that lucrative adventure touring market. Now, add this learner approved 350cc Meteor to the fold.
The Meteor 350 inherits its name from another iconic Royal Enfield motorcycle of the 1950s. Launched at the end of 1952; the Meteor was a magnificent touring motorcycle with an excellent reputation. The design engineers in UK and India have come up with a delightful little bike in the Meteor that will give them a platform for expansion with new models into the future. At the heart of this little “soft cruiser” is the new single cylinder J-Series air and oil-cooled SOHC engine. It has a 349cc displacement with a 72mm bore and 85.8mm stroke. That’s a key here as it gives a nice lazy feel to the engine ‚
being over-square. Couple that with a balancer shaft, reasonable flywheel weight and very well programmed
EFI, and you have a lovely feeling engine. It’s not a powerhouse by any means, with 20.2 horsepower at
6,100 RPM and 27Nm of torque at 4,000 RPM. This one won’t give you whiplash, but from the moment you hit the starter this little engine throbs away beautifully. There is little power band, as such, but you don’t need to rev the tripe out of it. To be fair, that doesn’t produce much more forward motion anyway.
The running gear is fairly standard entry level stuff; non-adjustable 41mm forks with 130mm travel, and six-way preload adjustable twin emulsion tube shocks out back with about 90mm travel. Both ends are actually well calibrated and give a stable, controlled ride with easy handling. With the semi-foot-forward riding position we aren’t talking racetrack nimble here, but what you have is a relaxed riding position that imparts confidence with a nice feel. The seat is wide and reasonably low and comfortable for longish rides.
Instrumentation is interesting. There is the usual analogue speedo with an LCD centre section for fuel gauge and dual trip meters. Beside this is another, smaller pod that is a basic navigation system that couples to Google Maps via an app on your smart phone. Royal Enfield calls this Tripper Navigation. Clever idea. Brakes are a 300mm disc up front squeezed by a ByBre floating two piston calliper. The rear is a 270mm disc with a single piston ByBre calliper. ByBre is an offshoot of Brembo making brakes for small to medium sized motorcycles. As you would expect, they work very well. The single front brake needs a bit of a pull on the lever, but works fine.
The rear is a tad too strong. This seems to be a cruiser thing, overly grabby rear brakes. The two-channel ABS is nicely calibrated and nonintrusive.
Our test bike was finished in Stellar Blue, one of seven colour options spread over three models. The fit and finish was very good, especially considering the price. A couple of areas showed cost cutting, such as the pressed steel foot controls. The gear change lever is a heel-andtoe design that I haven’t seen in years, but once you get used to it, it works just fine. The gearbox helped here with a nice feel. The hand controls are fairly normal alloy levers. An interesting addition is a USB charging port on the underside of the clutch lever pivot. How millennial. I guess if you have your smart phone blue toothed to the Tripper Navigation system, keeping it on charge makes sense.
So, was there anything that I thought could be improved upon?
Yes, just a bit more power, please, Mr Enfield. Otherwise, this is a very pleasant motorcycle that has that lovely old-world charm of a bygone era and feels unbustable. Just cruising along, at suburban speeds, or out on the open road, is a pleasure. Everything works as it should and I think Royal Enfield has another good seller on its hands.