Just been making room on my camera's memory-card and spotted this Royal Enfield pic from Goodwood Revival.
As quite a few forum members may have guessed by my posts, I'm no WD guru, but I'm guessing that an Indian-made, disc-braked, indicator-wearing, Euro 3 engined bike (wearing an '11 plate) might not belong on this forum. But I couldn't help take a pic to share with you all.
I wonder if I can get that headlight peak to fit my M20...?
I'd be interested to know how reliable these new Enfields are..With the older ones you tended to put up with some of the defects in material spec and build quality because they were cheap.
With the introduction of the 5 speed gearbox, unit construction, fuel injection and other mods to meet emission regulations that price advantage has been substantially eroded..These are no longer a cheap buy and there are bikes such as the Harley Sportster and some Jap bikes that don't cost much more.
Resale values are also very poor.
Nevertheless, it does look the part and still has the feel of an old 'thumper' if that is what you are after..and 100% spares availability...Ian
This is a standard model available from any R/E dealer here in the U.S. I think there are four or five standard color schemes, this being one of them. (I tried to get my wife interested in one, because it has a low seat height, but I think she's waiting for me to put another M20 on the road.)
I tried to get my local R/E dealer to get me some of this military-type paint (for my M20s) but his response was that the paint is not available separately. When ordering sheet metal parts, like fenders, etc., they come already painted.
I'd be interested to know how reliable these new Enfields are..With the older ones you tended to put up with some of the defects in material spec and build quality because they were cheap.
We have a 2004 Enfield "army" that we bought at a year old with 120km on it. So, that's nearly 7 years now ...
The later ones are made from better bits and have incrementally little improvements. The parts situation is brilliant and cheap, although there are alot of indian parts out there.
My mate, who used to work for watsonian reckoned the '65 model was about as good as it got
Our "classic" engined bike is pretty much the 50's redditch model and has probably been as good as a new 50's brit bike was ....
I know the snobbery goes that they are not a "real" british bike, but that is exactly what they are; just happens to be made abroad. It would probably be what enfield would still be making if the mini and Jap bikes hadn't have come along ...
Of course the new unit EFI enfields are a completely different animal and should be compared with the hinckley bonneville (and seem to be priced towards them as well). Seems a shame that there isn't a place in the world for something like a "new" 350/500 enfield (or BSA for that matter)