I Bought a Royal Enfield

[apex1_imp]

wow ... wait .... you traded in a ZRX (Highly sought after liter bike with quite a following) for a Royal Enfield 500 single. It'll take me a minute to absorb that. Maybe more than a minute lol

I have had 3 ZRXs over the years. An 1100 and two 1200s. In fact, I am member #23 on the ZRXOA forum, so I started with them at the beginning. Although they are cool bikes, my 2017 CB1100 EX is a better bike in a lot of respects, and i would not trade it on any ZRX. Since the OP has an EX, I understand his willingness to let his ZRX go and to move to a different experience with the Royal Enfield. A RE is a very attractive bike to me, both as far as its classic styling, but also as a mellow thumper.

[the Ferret]

I hear " I had a ZRX and wish I had never sold it" more than I've heard that about any other bike. I've never had one but I know 2 guys with them one green, one silver, and doubt you could pry them away from them.

[peterbaron]

A ZRX is a cool bike

[Wisedrum]

As much as I like to ride the big block CB or the smaller two fellow cylinders bike W800, I enjoy the single cylinder Bullet. Totally different but with its own charme and torquey riding feel. It shows how motorbiking has started and brings me always back to bikes, on which I started motorbike riding. On mofas, a mokick and afterwards smaller 2 stroke one cylinder bikes like Herkules, Mzs and even a W2000, a very special one.

It's the pure simplicity and reduction to the minimum that wins and facinates.



Wisedrum

[Paris_imp]

wow ... wait .... you traded in a ZRX (Highly sought after liter bike with quite a following) for a Royal Enfield 500 single. It'll take me a minute to absorb that. Maybe more than a minute lol

Yeah,100%. The ZRX is an interesting bike, and I thoroughly enjoyed mine. I owned it for fifteen years. My ZRX had many outstanding qualities, and one unforgivable flaw. It’s heavy standing still but very light when rolling; It is so well balanced it can take any type of curve. You just dial in the lean, twist the throttle, and the back wheel tucks in, except the one time it didn’t. That was my fault, and it was a learning experience. On another occasion, I and 600 lbs. of accellerating metal swept by a taunting jaywalker by maybe an inch on purpose. You could do that all day on the ZRX. You had such fine control over the green beast.

Its flaw are carbourators, four of them. In all the years I owned that bike, I think they ran well and were in sync not more than six months accumulated time. I guess they were designed to be right on the edge, between two different jet sizes. If everything was not perfect, you could tell the bike was off a little bit. How annoying that was! I probably spent as much on having those carbs worked on over the years as I did on the bike when I bought it (used).

This was something I never could understand why Kawasaki did. I have (and will keep forever) a firecracker red ‘81 GPz 1100 which is fuel injected. It is vastly more powerful, if not faster and less nimble, than the ZRX is. The GPz can crawl along smoothly at 5 mph. if I want to take it for a stroll in the park. So, twenty years later Kawasaki decides to ditch fuel injectors and go back to carbs? What were they thinking?

wow ... wait .... you traded in a ZRX (Highly sought after liter bike with quite a following) for a Royal Enfield 500 single. It'll take me a minute to absorb that. Maybe more than a minute lol

I have had 3 ZRXs over the years. An 1100 and two 1200s. In fact, I am member #23 on the ZRXOA forum, so I started with them at the beginning. Although they are cool bikes, my 2017 CB1100 EX is a better bike in a lot of respects, and i would not trade it on any ZRX. Since the OP has an EX, I understand his willingness to let his ZRX go and to move to a different experience with the Royal Enfield. A RE is a very attractive bike to me, both as far as its classic styling, but also as a mellow thumper.

I have had 3 ZRXs over the years. An 1100 and two 1200s. In fact, I am member #23 on the ZRXOA forum, so I started with them at the beginning. Although they are cool bikes, my 2017 CB1100 EX is a better bike in a lot of respects, and i would not trade it on any ZRX. Since the OP has an EX, I understand his willingness to let his ZRX go and to move to a different experience with the Royal Enfield. A RE is a very attractive bike to me, both as far as its classic styling, but also as a mellow thumper.
Yes, I agree the CB1100 is a keeper. I would have kept the ZRX too if not for the frustration over its carbs I expressed above. It even had sentimental value, since I bought it with some little money my mother left me. Thanks, mom!

But the Kawasakis and Hondas are, to me, totally different experiences. They may share some of the same specs, bike for bike, but it doesn’t matter. The ZRX and the GPz are like tequila and mescal, while the Honda CB 1100 is a fine Bombay gin. You would never confuse the two, although they might be the same proof. I only hope the Royal Enfield doesn’t turn out to be Pruno, that stuff they brew in prison toilets - just kidding.

[pekingduck]

isn't the new Kawasaki W800 hitting the market in the US at roughly the same time as the Interceptor? at approximately the same price? that's going to hurt....

The 2019 W800 has a MSRP of $9799 in the US, more than 50% above the planned MSRP of the Royal Enfield. Plus it has that pre-fab cafe/brat/custom look with low bars and black wheels, so that eliminates most of the older retro market.
Good luck with that, Kawasaki!

[Paris_imp]

wow ... wait .... you traded in a ZRX (Highly sought after liter bike with quite a following) for a Royal Enfield 500 single. It'll take me a minute to absorb that. Maybe more than a minute lol

I have had 3 ZRXs over the years. An 1100 and two 1200s. In fact, I am member #23 on the ZRXOA forum, so I started with them at the beginning. Although they are cool bikes, my 2017 CB1100 EX is a better bike in a lot of respects, and i would not trade it on any ZRX. Since the OP has an EX, I understand his willingness to let his ZRX go and to move to a different experience with the Royal Enfield. A RE is a very attractive bike to me, both as far as its classic styling, but also as a mellow thumper.

I have had 3 ZRXs over the years. An 1100 and two 1200s. In fact, I am member #23 on the ZRXOA forum, so I started with them at the beginning. Although they are cool bikes, my 2017 CB1100 EX is a better bike in a lot of respects, and i would not trade it on any ZRX. Since the OP has an EX, I understand his willingness to let his ZRX go and to move to a different experience with the Royal Enfield. A RE is a very attractive bike to me, both as far as its classic styling, but also as a mellow thumper.
Yes, I agree the CB1100 is a keeper. I would have kept the ZRX too if not for the frustration over its carbs I expressed above. It even had sentimental value, since I bought it with some little money my mother left me. Thanks, mom!

But the Kawasakis and Hondas are, to me, totally different experiences. They may share some of the same specs, bike for bike, but it doesn’t matter. The ZRX and the GPz are like tequila and mescal, while the Honda CB 1100 is a fine Bombay gin. You would never confuse the two, although they might be the same proof. I only hope the Royal Enfield doesn’t turn out to be Pruno, that stuff they brew in prison toilets - just kidding.

[GoldOxide_imp]

As much as I like to ride the big block CB or the smaller two fellow cylinders bike W800, I enjoy the single cylinder Bullet. Totally different but with its own charme and torquey riding feel. It shows how motorbiking has started and brings me always back to bikes, on which I started motorbike riding. On mofas, a mokick and afterwards smaller 2 stroke one cylinder bikes like Herkules, Mzs and even a W2000, a very special one.

It's the pure simplicity and reduction to the minimum that wins and facinates.



Wisedrum

Royal Enfield models are curious bikes. However, in our neck of the woods they tend to sit in showroom floors for several years before being sold at a discount. Probably nothing to do with the bike, but rather the neighbourhood.

[4 Paws_imp]

Royal Enfield has character, and then some. Fun choice.
Coleman’s is an “online” Army Navy store that might have some classic gear for you.Store local to me has some Royal Mail bags that might make neat panniers.

[Joash_imp]

I think we are very lucky to be able to own and enjoy such incredibly different motorcycling experiences. The RE literally transports one to the mid 50's. Blows my mind how cool it is to be alive today.
It's all about what gives you the most smiles per hour.