India
Trip April 2019
It started with a
wedding invitation from a good friend. His daughter was to be wed in a hotel in
Guwahati, India. Flights were booked and with the collapse of Jetair rebooked
with Air India. It felt like someone didn’t want us to go. We did go and had a
great time staying with family and meeting a few of the Assamese pop stars. A
trip to Gangtok in Sikkim was organised and this where the motorcycle interest
starts.
For some reason we had to get lots of copies of things to be allowed
into Sikkim and this took ages. Someone doesn’t want us to get there again! The
next day in, lovely sunshine, views of the Himalayas came and went with passing
clouds, as the day progressed the air became more humid and the views became murk.
Time to stop sight-seeing and then a pleasant burble of a twin cylinder motorcycle
passed by: an Enfield with two exhausts. It could only be the new twin. It
carried on by and I didn’t get a good look at it. In going around Gangtok, which
is a town on a hillside there were numerous Royal Enfields around.
More than I
had seen anywhere else. I guess that the low speed pulling power of the single
was ideally suited to the terrain. The older ones clattered around like an old
British bike but the new ones were so quiet mechanically. In a few days we
would be in Delhi on the final leg of our trip and there would be a good place
to have a look at one as there were 20 showrooms to choose from. I did a web search
when I had internet access and discovered a new model, the Bullet Trials. I had
an idea to get a good look at a Himalayan, the Twin and this trials model. I
chose two of the closest showrooms to where I was staying and with a driver to
take us around went in search. The first one was a bit difficult to find but
had all three models. Outside was a twin which was an Interceptor, a parallel
twin with a 270 degree crank and a six speed box with some 50bhp on tap. It looked
a little like the old Norton Dominator.
At the same showroom was this Bullet
trials factory replica and it looked the business for classic trials. I was
hoping to get aboard a Himalayan but the only one was parked outside and
difficult to get at so after a nice chat with one of the sales reps we went off
to a second showroom. Still no luck in having a twin or Himalaya on display but
access to the trials model was much better and this one I had a chance to sit
on and get a feel of it. I did like it and the seat height was low enough for
me to get my feet on the ground even though it was on the centre stand. The 350
had about 20bhp on tap and the 500 25bhp.
Modest by today’s’ levels but it should
be satisfactory for the job. Think of the performance of the Ariel ridden by
Sammy Miller in the fifties and how successful he was on that machine. It is
about power delivery rather than ultimate performance. On leaving this showroom
another twin was spotted and looking at it, it was slightly different with
lower bars and was a Continental GT.
I wonder how many other variants there
are. I did not see one Continental on display, but there were Thunderbirds in
various guises, Classics and Bullets, perhaps the demand was not there? We had
a great time looking at Royal Enfields, driver, nephew and me.
No comments:
Post a Comment