Siddhartha Lal

As Royal Enfield unveil their most significant new bike in 70 years we go for a ride with the company boss, starting from their new technical centre in Leicestershire

IT’S A CRISP autumn morning in Leicestershire, with blue skies and bright sunshine, but the trees are bare, there are damp patches on the shaded tarmac and it’s a bit parky. These are nice roads though. Typical English undulations with a mix of open corners and blind bends that follow routes fashioned by footpaths and field enclosures hundreds of years ago. Mud on critical apexes suggests local farmers are still struggling with road:field differentiation though. We’re ten minutes into a ride with Royal Enfield boss Siddhartha Lal aboard a pair of the company’s new 650 twins that were launched in California last month. They’re agile, flexible and engaging bikes that arc effortlessly into the corners and blatter along the straights. These roads could have been made for them. Though of course the reality is the other way around. They might be manufactured in India, but the new