Here's all you need to know before buying a Royal Enfield motorcycle

Stanford Masters Moneycontrol News

Royal Enfield motorcycles hold a special place in the hearts of Indian bike enthusiasts. Here is a look at some of the features that you should know before picking up one from the showroom.

Speed We see a lot of people strutting their Royal Enfields on the streets. However, these bikes were not built for downright power. While the bike does have good low-end torque, the fact is even a 200cc bike can take on a 350cc Royal Enfield in a straight-line race. But if you are not a speed freak and don’t mind rolling at no more than 70-80 km/h, a Royal Enfield will munch those miles without a care in the world.

Vibrations Yes, handlebar buzz is a thing and that’s not the only place you feel it. The low revving thump of the engine may sound good, but every beat is a hammer to the underside of the seat. Not a lot has been done to tame those vibrations however. On a Classic 350 that I had the opportunity to ride, speeds above 40 km/h caused my rear-view mirrors to vibrate so much that everything turned into a blur. To add to that, after riding the bike for 30 minutes, my hands went numb with the buzzing.

Cornering
Do not try to corner on a Royal Enfield. While making sparkies on most bikes is fun, most of them have footpegs that collapse upwards. Most Enfields have footpegs that are welded directly to the frame. If you corner too hard, there is a danger of leveraging the rear wheel resulting in a nasty crash.

Heavy
Royal Enfields are heavy bikes and no one can argue that fact. While it is marginally tedious to manoeuvre in heavy traffic, for the most part, it is not very difficult while on the move. The problem comes if the bike falls. It takes a bit of muscle to lift it back up and if not done correctly, there is a very good chance you can hurt your back.

ABS
Like I said, there are pros and cons to every bike. Royal Enfield is now starting to roll out bikes with ABS. The Classic Signals Edition was the first and the Himalayan is the latest Royal Enfield to achieve this safety feature. ABS adds a good measure of safety that is essential to every motorcyclist in India, especially with our riding conditions.

Maintenance While a lot of people say the Royal Enfield is sometimes an expensive bike to maintain, the truth is with a little technical knowhow, it is actually a fairly simple bike to take care of. Most of the maintenance work can be done at home with a little more than a basic took box.