Of Glitches and Gremlins

First of all, my best wishes and congratulations for bringing out Bike India month on month, covering interesting feature articles and all the news related to bikes in India and abroad, which has enhanced my learning curve. I am an avid reader and fan of Bike India.

I wish to read your long-term review of the Royal Enfield Himalayan which, I suppose, must be a part of your long-term fleet for testing. You had come out with a road test of this bike in the July 2016 issue. Since a lot of issues have cropped up in this bike from the customer’s angle I would like to have your say on it. In spite of being tested for four full years on varying Indian terrain and abroad, why do so many issues crop up? Being a great off-roader, it has the potential to be the ‘Pride of India’. It has the looks of a winner. What’s the company’s constraint in its R&D? Pinakin Vinaychandra Shah, Vadodara

Hello, Pinakin, The Royal Enfield Himalayan isn’t a part of our long-term fleet, so we cannot give you a perspective on how it performs over a length of time. We saw its potential when we reviewed it in the past, but there have been issues that have cropped up over time, which the company has identified and is currently working to rectify. There is no lack of international engineering talent at Royal Enfield as they have Harris Performance, and famous designer Pierre Terblanche was also part of the team that developed the Himalayan. What you need to remember is that the Himalayan was supposed to be a budget adventure bike, and attempts to keep the cost down may be one of the reasons for the issues that owners have complained about.