A LITTLE HISTORY
The relationship between Royal Enfield and India seems to have been secured shortly after World War II and Great Britain's ceding of independence to the newly formed nation. India, looking for a suitable bike for its police and military, order an unprecedented 800 of the 350cc Bullet models. In 1955, a factory was set up in the name of Enfield India, in Madras (now Chennai) to help produce the order. Bikes were rolled out, both for government and private use, and by 1962 all of the components were produced in India. While Royal Enfield and the Reddich company underwent difficulties and finally ceased operation, Enfield India kept churning out the same single cylinder 350cc and 500cc bikes, slowly slowly, and by the time my dad got there in the late 1980's the Bullet was the iconic Indian motorcycle throughout the subcontinent. They were the perfect bike--the constant workhorse with more than a touch of class--powerful enough to set you apart from India's laborious traffic, but not so crazy as to kill you in all that chaos. They were robust enough for India's incredibly varied terrain and easy enough to fix, or to find someone who knew how, if you broke it. And riding on one, above that single cylinder thump in that classic, upright position you actually felt cooler. No, you were cooler. No doubt about it.
OUR PAST
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Our first tours used brand new 1994 classic 500cc Bullets. They were basically the same bikes produced in the 1940s, '50s, '60's... all the way through the 1990s. We improved the suspension, put newer, louder horns on them, and gave them a nice, custom paint job. These bikes, like all the ones before them, had finicky kick starters, a front drum brake which was basically useless (and totally useless when they got wet), and an electrical system that was prone to disaster. They all had the classic right-side shifter and left-side rear brake, which was rather exciting at times... But you could drive them anywhere. You could submerge them up to the handlebars in freezing Himalayan glacier-melt, kick the starter a few times, and then drive them to the next obstacle. And sure, we had an engine meltdown every trip, but our mechanics could rebuild an entire bike in an hour and a half...
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OUR CURRENT FLEET
Enfield India, though, caught up with the times... They assumed Royal Enfield branding in 1999 and have seen slow but significant engine redesign and modification. Our fleet at the moment consists of mostly 2012 and 2013 Bullets and Classics, all 500cc models. They all feature electric start and Electronic Fuel Injection. We are constantly rotating out older bikes and replacing them with new ones. As always, we make improvements: we change out the handlebars and exhaust, we swap out the stock tires for better and stickier ones, we improve the suspension--all improving the handling of the bike and reducing weight by around 15 kilos.
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THE HIMALAYAN - THE FUTURE IS HERE
In early 2016 Royal Enfield launched its new adventure bike, the Himalayan. We were both excited and skeptical: excited because it promised to be a vast improvement over previous models for the bulk of our tours' terrain--the high Himalayas--but skeptical because Enfield has a history of releasing new bikes and features before they've been thoroughly tested... So we bought a couple and tested them on several of our tours, most recently through the punishingly rough Upper Mustang Valley in Nepal, and it turns out, especially with a few modifications, they're pretty terrific. We are now using them on all of our Tibet and Nepal Tours and we are in the process of switching our Indian fleet over to the Himalayan as well.
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