Mark Williams
The £4199, 410cc Royal Enfield makes a refreshing alternative to big capacity adventure bikes. Bike’s founding editor took a Himalayan to Wales
This month: hardy, old-stager takes Royal Enfield’s midi-adventure machine to the high plains of Wales. He’s a good judge of these things, his verdict carries weight, and he wouldn’t mind a retrial either.
I’M HAPPILY BIMBLING along the A44 at a steady 60–65mph through the Cambrian Mountains heading towards Aberystwyth, enjoying the late-spring sunshine and the staggering Welsh scenery when suddenly I’m overtaken. It’s unannounced, unexpected and slightly menacing as a group of lofty and super confident R1200GSS, Tiger 1200s and Super Adventures drift past… And then whoosh, they’ve left me wobbling in their jet-streams as they accelerate past, the siren roar of their massive 1200cc motors leaving one in no doubt that I’ve
been visited, dazed, and perhaps even demeaned by wealthier men on machines that cost as much and are almost as large as a small family car. With their vast aluminum luggage, multiple lights, butch latticework crashbars and electronic trickeries they are the Mad Maxes of the new millennium alright, but beneath the aggressive-looking appurtenances, their chosen steeds are what we have come to call adventure-trailies. Except that they’re almost completely inappropriate for trail riding, and if by ‘adventure’ we mean
crossing the Gobi Desert or scaling the Himalayas, then that, too, might be a misnomer. They’re good for fast riding in Wales mind. But wait, that awesome mountain range that separates India from Tibet was chosen by the newly-ish revived Royal Enfield motorcycle company to inspire and then christen their latest model, a 411cc, single cylinder machine that has some of the stance if less of the mass of the aforementioned, knobbly-tyred behemoths. And rather than costing the earth you could buy four of these rather purposeful-looking Enfields for the price of a Tiger, or three for the cost of a GS or a Super Adventure. Of course you’d be getting a lot less bike, a lot less spiffy engineering and far fewer baubles for your £4199 – or £3999 if you choose your dealer shrewdly – but would you be getting a lot less adventure-trailie? Let us investigate… You may well know that the Enfield marque is licensed to the giant Eicher Motors conglomerate that manufactures Indian trucks and buses. In recent years Eicher have invested millions in new engine designs and tooling with the goal of claiming a larger share of India’s 20 million unit annual motorcycle market – I’ll write that again – 20 million unit motorcycle market, and perhaps more importantly, the export market, with machines that are more reliable, durable and better suited to modern conditions while retaining Enfield’s classic characteristics. The Bullet, the Continental and the Classic are the bedrock of this renaissance, all powered by 500 or 535cc fuel-injected engines but in 2016 the domestic launch of the Himalayan saw the range moving in a different and more contemporary direction. Different because its all-new LS410 engine features a chain-driven SOHC top-end compared with a pushrod OHV set-up dating back to the 1950s whose internal dimensions have barely changed since. However, all Enfield engines are of a longstroke configuration, and while this is true of the Himalayan’s 78 x 86mm driving force, it’s far more compact than its brethren and well suits the Himalayan’s purposeful, pared-down look. Now longstroke engines have been unfashionable for decades, and with good reason: they don’t rev as easily as oversquare designs, they’re necessarily taller and they vibrate more. All of which is why I can’t think of another current motorcycle that employs such a design. But longstroke engines also have benefits, most notably the early delivery of maximum torque, in this case 23.6 lb ft at 4000-4500rpm and it pulls determinedly from as low as 1200rpm which if you’re planning to plonk along off-road can
prove a distinct advantage – more on which later. And vibration is taken care of if not entirely eliminated by a gear-driven balance shaft, and the overall height of the Himalayan’s wet-sump motor isn’t really a problem in what is of course a tall, dual-purpose bike. And in fact the motor’s claimed ultimate power of 24.5bhp is just 2000rpm further north, making for really effective and linear acceleration up to and just beyond the legal limit. Down in the engine room there are other delights to behold and then savour. Actuated by a light clutch, the five-speed transmission is slick, well spaced but positive, even when hot – unlike early Enfield ‘boxes – and the Keihin fuel injection has no doubts about its duties at any given throttle opening. However, there is considerable tappet noise when the engine is really hot… which is a bit odd considering it doesn’t have tappets. The top-end racket was much criticised when the Himalayan first appeared in its home market but Enfield redesigned the rocker arm assembly and I’m assured it’s now merely a characteristic of an otherwise fairly quiet (for an air-cooled) engine. The chassis is a similarly intriguing mix of old and new. With design input from Britain’s ace-frame-benders, Harris Performance (who Enfield now own), it’s got a conventional, non-adjustable 41mm front fork – same girth as Honda’s CB500X, or Triumph’s Street Twins – a split-single downtube mainframe but in a first for the marque, a monoshock rear end with a full-floater style linkage. Brakes are discs at both ends grabbed by Indian Bybre calipers and they work well, even in extremis. At 182kg wet, the Himalayan is significantly lighter than either the aforementioned Triumphs or the Honda and feels nicely
‘I was pleasantly surprised at how well the thing handled when pushed to the max on mid-wales’ twisty upland backroads’
balanced when you want to move it around which is good because it’s very biddable on or off road. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the thing handled when pushed to the max on mid-wales’ twisty upland backroads. Abetted no doubt by the 17-inch rear wheel and 21-incher upfront with their fairly chunky 120/90 and 90/90 Pirelli MT60S, it was easily flicked from corner to corner with just a light touch on the ’bars and/or footrests yet felt planted at all times, a quality equally prevalent on main roads and motorways at the upper end of its speed range. Which in this case is 70–74mph which is about 6000rpm in top gear depending on where the wind is. 80-plus is a bit of an ask unless you’re on a downhill gradient because I just couldn’t get it to pull beyond 6200rpm and at that engine speed the counterbalancer runs out of patience and your fingers and bum begin to numb reminding you that this is, after all, a longstroker. Although, with its nicely padded split seat and compliant suspension endless cruising at 65mph was easy-peasy. But take it off onto the turf or a rocky BOAT (Byway Open to All Traffic) off the Elan and Wye Valley roads west of Rhayader and the Himalayan behaved almost like a full-on trailbike. The relationship ’twixt handlebars and footrests enabled a commanding stand-up-and-steer position that lets you pull the bike out of a rut or through dried-out marshes with ease, confidence and precision, and of course that supremely torquey motor meant little of the endless clutch and gearbox work associated with short-stroke off-roaders. With 200mm of nicely damped travel the somewhat steeply raked forks dealt with this well although ideally I would’ve dialled out a bit of the pre-load on the rear shock, but the otherwise impressive toolkit lacks a C-spanner for the adjuster nut and the handbook actually advises that this is a dealer-only task! True, the dry weather meant no chance to negotiate any gloopy stuff and being more tarmac inclined, I’m not sure the Pirellis would be up for that anyway, but I could certainly see the Himalayan as a genuine dual-purpose bike. Indeed it reminded me a lot of the Triumph T25T Trailblazer that I had in the early ’70s – a bike whose admittedly smaller but longstroke design had very similar power outputs… and one I often thought nothing about riding from London to Wales for a weekend’s trail riding. Be that as it may have been, we’re now firmly in the 21st century and emissions and so-called safety legislation have helped add a stout 100lb to the weight of Triumph’s latter day equivalent, and of course modernity demands that along with fuel injection and ABS, we have also got a comprehensive dashboard, small and largely cosmetic flyscreen, a useful if narrow rear rack, a rather snazzy alloy bashplate, oil cooler, a sonorous upswept stainless
‘A cracking and not-so-little bike for exploring the lesser-ridden roads and -trodden paths of this or any other country’
exhaust and a capacious 15-litre fuel tank embraced by a pair of, well I guess, crashbars. The latter can, I suppose carry extra luggage or jerry cans for that trans-siberian holiday and the tank itself gives the bike a range of some 275+ miles because as I haven’t yet mentioned, but now will, the Enfield’s thirst is incredibly frugal at a hard ridden test average of 84mpg. But I simply could not fathom how to program the dash with its dual trip meters (and a rather dinky, if capricious digital compass) – the excellent Owners Manual has no less than 15 pages on the subject which sorely taxed my comprehension – but otherwise the controls if rudimentary by today’s standards (no cruise or traction control malarkey hereabouts), were fine and clear. I never got to ride the Himalayan at night but the headlamp is a proper 60/55W halogen job with an LED rear, although its sealed unit was another nod to newness. Apart from the matt-black framework other nice touches abound which include vibration-sapping rubber footrest bungs and stainless brake lines. However, build quality is a bit patchy in places, especially some dribbly welding, cheap plastic bungs and a lack of clutch cable adjustment at the handlebar end, but overall it’s a good-looker in its matt white livery, and is now also available in all-black and an unfortunately named ‘Sleet’ design featuring a sort of pointy camouflage. And while sat outside the excellent Old Swan Tea Rooms in Rhayader waiting for photographer Chippy Wood, a bevy of serious tourers with their helmet cameras and intercoms arrived on their mega adventure-trailies which they parked alongside the Enfield. It created quite a stir amongst them, too, and as questions were asked I found myself extolling many virtues and citing few vices. Indeed after a further day in its saddle, I concluded that it’s a roadsnd cracking and not-so-little bike for exploring the lesser-ridden and -trodden paths of this or any other country.