You got to admit, Siddharth Lal has style! Yes, indeed, “Before roads there were Mountains”! The world’s oldest motorcycle manufacturer in continuous production now has a bike which is all set to climb the planet’s newest fold mountain range. The Himalayan, their long touted adventure tourer has been teased by the company on their website – officially confirming the name and revealing a few other bits.
In a string of videos and pictures, showcasing the development phase of the bike, Royal Enfield reveals that one of the key people in the bike’s development was CS Santosh, the only Indian to have finished a Dakar rally! His years of off-roading experience must have helped the folks in the R&D team tremendously.
The chassis and suspension has been designed, developed and improved by Harris Performance, the same organisation which worked on the Continental GT. They worked on two prototypes one of which, as per Lester Harris (Director of Harris Performance Products), had been over engineered! What followed was obvious weight saving moves and the motorcycle sported a single cylinder four stroke mill.
Mr Sanjay Tripathi, Former Head, Product Strategy, Royal Enfield, reveals that the bike has a new LS 400 engine with Overhead cams (oh yes!). He also reveals that in the particular form he was talking about, the engine was producing 25 HP so the final output of the production version is expected to be around the same ballpark. The oil cooling is claimed to sustain ideal temperature and the performance of the engine is claimed to be good throughout the rpm range. The service interval for the engine is revealed to be 10,000 km and the spark plugs have to be replaced once every 25,000 km.
The Himalayan gets a 21 inch front wheel which will allow it to go over rough sections comfortably. Minus the heavy Hulk Hogan weights and sans electronic mumbo jumbo of the bigger capacity adventure tourers in the market, this one surely has the power to attract even non RE lovers towards it!
All eyes will now be turned towards the press conference the Chennai based manufacturer has scheduled on February 2. Till then, take a bow Royal Enfield, we are hooked & itching to ride it up…Here’s the first video with CS Santosh doing what he does best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsPc1y7YeiI
The second one reveals several details about the bike (and don’t forget to enjoy the gallery after this):
Royal Enfield Himalayan Pic Gallery
