Royal Enfield M-I-Y Helmet
A motorcycling icon engages further with their market
Nothing is more pleasurable than owning a customized motorcycle and it looks like the team at royal enfield have aced this formula. Within months of introducing the make-it-Yours (miY) initiative for customers to configure their royal enfield motorcycles, the company has now extended the programme to its range of helmets and t-shirts. i was given an opportunity to put my creativity to test — to customize a helmet and get a first-hand experience of styling it from scratch. through the online configurator, customers get to choose from as many as 7,000 unique options, three helmet types (open-face, full-face, and the very cool and retro urban trooper), and a whole range of colour options offered in matte and gloss finishes.
once you select the helmet type, the website takes you to the next page where you can customize the paint, add trendy decals or personalized text. i chose “havoc troop”, a small but prestigious motorcycle riding club of Kolkata that was formed with my college buddies in the late 1990s. after all, royal enfield is all about nostalgia. the second line of text is my blood group, for obvious reasons. i went for the open-face dipped in rich british racing green accompanied by racing stripes. there are plenty of one-liners and other funky decals that the bolder can go for, but i preferred to keep it subtle.
through the miY programme, buyers can select the helmet’s lining colour which includes a fiery red. since i haven’t hit my mid-life crisis (so i presume), i chose a more practical brown instead. urban trooper is a visor-less helmet and the full-face gets a standard visor, but you do get the option of picking either clear glass or a yellow tint. open-face gets three options: chopper, bubble or simply a peak. i picked the chopper with the tinted yellow finish, hoping that it will reduce glare from the sun during the day and even the glare of headlamps after sunset.
the overall experience is pretty seamless. the website renders 3D images of the customized helmet fairly quickly and you can even turn it around in 360 degrees to see the lid from all angles. a custom helmet will set you back by rs 3,200 onwards (depending on the model) and will be delivered at your doorstep between 15 and 30 days.