So anyway, I bought a Royal Enfield

About 10 years ago I wrote an article about why I would never buy a Royal Enfield. That stupid thing blew up, and has some 2000 damn comments on it.

I wrote that article with genuine hatred for the brand, I saw them as a greedy bunch of dickheads busy minting money on primitive technology, while an even bigger army of dumbasses paid them for the pleasure of being scammed. I also wrote that article because it’s always fun to finger a group of people who take themselves too seriously, which is also why I referred to the entire Royal Enfield catalogue as a “Bullet”.

But, it’s time to admit that Royal Enfield has proven me wrong.

I still believe that at the time when I wrote the article, RE was a den of degenerates shitting WW2 era blobs of metal that their groupies mistook for diamonds, but since then they have reinvented themselves into a company that’s not only making some fantastic bikes, but also some brilliant riding gear.

It’s also possible that now that I’m older, my brain has rotted away to the point a Royal Enfield looks desirable.

You can read about the whole buying experience here, I was incredibly lucky to find the Interceptor 650 that I did. What I want to do in this article is revisit my old piece and try to figure out just how much RE has progressed in a decade, going specifically off about my Inty. I will go through each of the 6 reasons I gave why I wouldn’t buy a Royal Enfield, 9 actually, and ask if things have changed or not.

1. Bullets are fucking slow:

Nopes, my Interceptor 650 is fast, scary fast. It’s scary because that thing is fat, it’s like making fun of your overweight friend thinking you can always run away, only for him to chase you, catch up, and sit on your ass.

This one time I was returning home from Chandigarh, and this was on a 2 lane highway with a divider in the middle. In the right lane there was an i20, and I approached it quite quickly from behind. I moved into the left lane and overtook it, wondering why he was going so slow in the right lane, only to look down and realize I was going over 140.

Top speed is not the strength of the Inty however, it’s the acceleration. The gearbox makes you pull high into the rev range, and shift often, it’s a hair raising, exciting way to get to illegal speeds quick.

2. Royal Enfields are unreliable:

I have only done about 12,000 kms on my Inty so far, but no real complaints yet. There’s some issue with the RR unit which causes the check engine light to come up randomly, but there’s no change in the performance of the bike so I don’t give a shit.

The advantage of this being an RE is that there are service centers every 5 feet. With my KTM I’d have to travel quite far for a service, but with this I’ve got 2 SVCs within a 15 km radius of my home, and I live in a tiny little town on the edge of Himachal.

I’ve got only 1 service done so far, but overall this thing has been rock solid, even when I took it to Spiti.

3. Bullets are noisy – and the bad kind of noisy:

Ah, I couldn’t have been more wrong here. The stock exhaust sound of the Interceptor is already quite impressive, but I’ve put in Powerage slip-ons, and my bike sounds absolutely heavenly now.

The 270 degree firing order of the twin cylinder is just the sweetest thing there is, it has a bit of a whine at low RPMs, which quickly turns to a growl as you pull through the rev range. With the Powerage you also get some pops and burbles during decel, and that’s just the best.

4. Bullets have really bad brakes:

This is one point which still hasn’t changed significantly. Although the Interceptor comes with disc brakes both front and back, they are inadequate for the speed this thing can go at, and the momentum that comes with that speed due to how fat it is.

My Interceptor does not want to stop at all, which is not helped by the fact that I need to use single finger braking on it. To make the bike more “manly” I guess, it has brake and clutch levers designed to fit Shrek. I always like to keep my front brake covered, but if I try to use 2 fingers I can’t control the throttle properly, not enough hand. What this boils down to is a rather mediocre braking experience, especially since the rear brake is nothing more than a mouse squeak trying to stop an elephant from stomping on it.

5. Bullets give shitty mileage:

Well, yeah of course the Interceptor does, it’s fat, wants you to push it hard, shift often, and makes some happy noises to encourage you in burning more petrol. I don’t think I’ve ever cracked 25 kmpl, but I don’t mind. For how fast it goes and how happy it makes you in the process, that mileage is justified, even though that fuel tank could’ve been a bit bigger.

6. Bullets are unnecessarily heavy:

Can’t really say that about the Inty, I’ve tried to find ways to reduce its weight, but haven’t figured out any. It barely has anything to remove, I think 95% of the weight is in the engine and the chassis, which is kinda mandatory. I mean it’s heavy as fuck alright, just that all of it is necessary.

7. Bullets have spoked wheels:

This also hasn’t changed, although RE did recently release alloy wheels for the 650 range. I haven’t changed the spoked wheels, although they do scare me. I haven’t changed them because they look nice. The whole bike has a retro theme going on, and those wheels add to it immensely.

I would’ve preferred 17 inch spokes though, it’s a bitch to find 18 inch tires that fit this thing, and the 17 inchers would probably help the bike handle better. But all things considered, the 18s are doing just fine.

8. Bullets have a fucking long waiting period:

This is my biggest annoyance right now, and this is something that hasn’t changed at all. I ended up buying a second hand Interceptor because a new one would’ve taken months to arrive. I was lucky in getting a pristine machine, but I would’ve preferred to buy it new.

I don’t think RE can’t build the manufacturing capacity to make the waiting period more reasonable, I think they’re choking the supply on purpose to make the product more “exclusive”. But then again I don’t have any business sense, I am no Elon Musk and I thank God every day for it, but maybe RE have a good reason for this delay in getting your dream bike.

9. Royal Enfield doesn’t give a shit about its customers:

I don’t think this applies anymore either, especially since RE have started selling very affordable riding gear made to some crazy good standards. Their SVC experience has always been great whenever I’ve needed to use one, and things overall seem to be going splendidly.

Well, reading back on what I’ve just written, it kinda sounds like I am an RE simp now. I would like to think that I’m an objective man, that I like RE now because they’re actually doing good stuff, and not just because I’ve been conned into buying their product, and hence justifying their every move, but who knows really.

What worries me is that all new RE launches also look beautiful to me. I test rode the new Classic 350 a while back and severely loved it. The Hunter looks great to me, and so does the 650 cruiser. Something seems to have gone terribly wrong in my brain, or maybe it’s just middle age catching up with me.

Stay tuned for my next article where I suck Harley Davidson off.