Wednesday 24 April 2019

Enfields in India



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.

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