10-12-2014, 11:56 PM
The new Cafe is a really nice looking bike.
Royal Enfield is trying really hard to make what is basically a 90 year old British engine design into a new motorcycle. They have better sealing now ( less leaks), better fueling (fi) better electrics, better brakes, but they are still way behind the Japanese. They also don't make much horsepower. 500 singles by their nature produce vibration so there is that issue and tends thing to crack and fall off from excessive vibration. Every time a magazine tries to do a comparison test and include a Royal Enfield they seem add the caveat that it broke down sometime during the test.
If you just really, really like the bike and are like the U-D mentioned above, are a competent home mechanic who doesn't mind spending some time wrenching as well as riding, then a Royal Enfield would be a fun bike to have...sort of like a sporty lightweight Ural.
I would think dealer network, parts availability would be thin compared to Japanese, or even European makes.
Royal Enfield is trying really hard to make what is basically a 90 year old British engine design into a new motorcycle. They have better sealing now ( less leaks), better fueling (fi) better electrics, better brakes, but they are still way behind the Japanese. They also don't make much horsepower. 500 singles by their nature produce vibration so there is that issue and tends thing to crack and fall off from excessive vibration. Every time a magazine tries to do a comparison test and include a Royal Enfield they seem add the caveat that it broke down sometime during the test.
If you just really, really like the bike and are like the U-D mentioned above, are a competent home mechanic who doesn't mind spending some time wrenching as well as riding, then a Royal Enfield would be a fun bike to have...sort of like a sporty lightweight Ural.
I would think dealer network, parts availability would be thin compared to Japanese, or even European makes.