Nostalgia trip

completely different to the previous Bullet, with the J1 engine common to the 350 Meteor, Classic and Hunter, and a new firmer chassis.

Climb aboard the nicely curved bench seat and the riding position is classic Bullet – upright and neutral. There’s a single speedo, with a discreet digital panel below telling you what time it is and how much fuel you have left. Plus, there’s an equally unobtrusive USB power socket, neither of which detract from the traditional look.

It’s a position and view which makes you feel as if you’re riding through the Cotswolds after a day at the flying club doing aerobatics in your Tiger Moth and now pottering home to a fragrant English rose called Cynthia.

Or possibly pottering home after a day at your tea plantation to a bungalow in Bangalore where Cynthia is making sure the staff will have tiffin ready in time.

Start up, and the air fills with that happy Enfield putter. If that sound doesn’t fill you with what Australians call the warm fuzzies, you’re already dead.

Ride off and with a smidgeon over 20bhp at your disposal, progress is enthusiastic puppy rather than starving greyhound and certainly won’t set your pants on fire, although with the state of NHS burns units, who wants their pants on fire anyway?

In spite of the modest maximum power at 6,100rpm, the more important figure is the maximum torque of 20 lb ft at 4,000rpm, just where you want it for smoothly wafting past old dears in Nissan Micras with a cheery wave.

Indeed, you probably won’t even need to change gear, but if you do, the clutch is as light as the shadow of a ghost, the five-speed gearbox as sweet as a nut and the ratios perfectly spaced apart, like guests at a Covid dinner party. Well, except in Downing Street.

The handling, thanks to a wet weight of 195kg and a slightly more rigid frame than on the previous Bullet, is a happy marriage of lightness and agility, and the suspension was plush enough to soak up with aplomb the worst that Indian roads could throw at it.

As for braking, there’s only a single 300mm disc up front, but with the bike weighing so little, that’s all you need, although there’s similarly linear bite and feel from the 270mm disc at the back if you need it for keeping the bike stable through downhill corners.

After a morning’s spirited riding in searing Indian heat, I arrived back at base soaked in sweat but filled with happiness at rekindling an old love affair, which began when my pal Paddy Minne and I set off from Delhi on our Enfield Bullets to ride back to the UK in 1998.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see if Cynthia has tiffin ready.