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“I say, that’s a nice-looking bike,” ex-claimed the im-

maculately dressed 60-something as he emerged from the post office in the heart of the Warwickshire countryside and approached me just as I was straddling the Royal Enfield Continental GT. “It looks very much like the Royal Enfield I used to ride back in my own motorbiking days, long ago. But that’s a new registration mark you’ve got on the number plate, isn’t it? Do they still make these over in Redditch, like they used to do back when I bought mine?”

Well… yes, sir - and no, sir. For while this particu-lar bike is indeed a direct descendant of the Royal Enfields of yesteryear, its

journey to here, a dozen miles from Enfield’s old Redditch factory south-west of Birmingham where the company was founded back in 1898, started out in Chennai (aka Madras), India.

For that’s where all Royal Enfields have been made since the par-ent company closed its doors in 1967, after mak-ing a brave, but ultimately futile attempt to stave off insolvency with the intro-duction two years earlier of the 250cc Continental GT café racer - a sporty little single complete with flyscreen that looked like it was doing 100 mph just standing still. And that’s the bike that this new much larger-capacity 535cc model is ultimately based on, at

RIDING THE NEWEST RETRO BIKE FROM ROYAL ENFIELD

BY ALAN CATHCARTPHOTOGRAPHY BY KYOICHI NAKAMURA

O N W H E E L SHistory

least visually, as the first step in the plans of Royal Enfield’s parent company Eicher Motors (the large Indian commercial vehicle manufacturer which has owned RE since 1996) to transform the world’s old-est motorcycle company in continuous existence into a global player by invest-ing in a raft of new models. And this one was the first – straight out of the new factory outside Chennai at Oragadam.

The 49.3-acre new state-of-the-art facility has

the capacity to allow Eich-er to eventually produce 500,000 motorcycles a year between this and its venerable old Chennai plant, and indeed Royal Enfield is on schedule to build 175,000 motorcycles in 2013, says Eicher’s MD/CEO Siddhartha Lal. That’s a big step up from the 50,000 RE units built in 2010, but the company has already begun work on the second phase of ex-pansion at the new plant, which will further increase production capacity to

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The retro Royal Enfield Continental

GT: a modern tribute to the

historic British brand’s 1965

Continental GT café racer.

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250,000 motorcycles in 2014. “We’re already the leader of

the 250-750cc midsize motorcy-cle market in India, where there’s a seven-month waiting list for our models,” says Lal. “Despite expe-riencing a difficult period 15 years ago, we stuck to our guns, and whatever it takes to be a global leader in this midsize sector, we’ll do it. The Continental GT is the first fruit of the major $22 mil-lion investment in our new plant that’s resulting in a better than 50 percent growth in deliveries year-on-year, and is allowing us to put a dent in that waiting list in our home market, as well as to sub-stantially increase export sales.”

Royal Enfields are currently exported to 54 countries around

the globe, with the U.S. present-ly the largest customer for these evocative examples of history on wheels, with 3500 bikes sold there in 2012.

So the debut of the Continen-tal GT marks a key step in the evolution of what has for many years been the prestige brand in the world’s second largest mo-torcycle market, via the range of 350/500cc OHV pushrod sin-gles in the Bullet family. But Eich-er is now set on growing Royal Enfield into a true world brand and the Continental GT repre-sents a considerable step up from anything RE has previously offered in terms of quality, engi-neering, styling, and finish – the latter facilitated by the brand-new

machinery at Oragadam (includ-ing robot welders and an auto-mated paint shop) that the bikes are now built with.

As such, it also kickstarts a campaign to position Royal En-field ownership as a lifestyle choice, just like Harley-Davidson or Triumph, but via a single-cyl-inder motorcycle as a platform, rather than a twin. Hence the array of Rocker gear and ‘60s apparel in the accessories cata-log that Royal Enfield has also launched (http://royalenfield.com/pdfs/accessories/ACCES-SORIES-CATALOGUE.pdf).

The Royal Enfield is made in India in the new Eicher Motors factory near Chennai.

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To create the new Continental GT selling for an attractive $7200 (complete with two-year unlimited mileage warranty), Eicher enlisted the services of two key compa-nies in today’s British motorcycle industry. To get the styling right they firstly talked to brand experts and then enlisted the services of Xenophya Design, the company lately best known for creating the Triumph 1200 Explorer.

To engineer the result, Eicher commissioned top U.K. frame specialists Harris Performance to create a good-handling package

in the café racing context. “It helped that me and my

brother Lester were both café racers ourselves back in the 1960s, before we started build-ing bikes to go road racing on proper circuits,” says Harris boss Steve Harris. “We used to go to the Busy Bee café on the Wat-ford By-Pass, which was the Ace Café’s big rival. So when Royal Enfield came calling for us to cre-ate the cycle parts for the Conti-nental GT, it was mainly a ques-tion of going back to our roots.”

The result is an all-new dedi-cated tubular steel frame for the Continental GT that isn’t shared with any other Royal Enfield mod-el – yet – and whose twin-loop double-cradle format has a clear visual association with the leg-endary ‘60s Manx Norton Feath-erbed frame. But the new bike’s geometry is much sharper than the Norton’s, with the 41mm En-field-made fork offering 110mm of wheel travel set at a 25.5-degree

head angle with 98mm of trail. So the result delivers what Steve Harris terms “modern handling, but in a period context,” with twin Paioli gas shocks giving just 3.1-inches of travel at the rear.

The 53.5-inch wheelbase is quite short, delivering light han-dling coupled with deft steering thanks to much tighter steering geometry than old Enfields ever had. The 18-inch wire wheels’ al-loy rims are shod with authentic-looking Pirelli Sport Demon tires that are a continuation of the batch especially created by the Italian tire manufacturer to equip the Ducati Sport Classic range launched in 2005.

The Brembo front brake pack-age sees a single 300mm fixed front disc mounted on the left, gripped by a floating two-piston caliper from Italy, with the 240mm rear disc and single-pot rear cali-per locally sourced in India. To-gether, these slow a bike with a dry weight of 379 pounds (and a

1. The 535cc pushrod single produces 29.1 horsepower at 5100 rpm.2. The bike gets bar-end mirrors that work well.3. The Royal Enfield gets Paioli rear shocks that give just 3.1 inches of travel.4. The dash is clean and mostly analog. As it should be.5. The author liked the seat for both comfort and looks.

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claimed curb weight of 405 once the shapely 3.5-gallon fuel tank is 90 percent full), split 53/47 percent thanks to the engine be-ing mounted well forward to load up the front wheel for extra grip, according to Harris.

The flat 31.4-inch high solo seat with contrast stitching is a beautiful piece likely to become a favorite of classic special build-ers, and it’s also surprisingly comfy. Royal Enfield is eager to market this as a café racer, but thanks to the quite tall clip-ons, which are actually positioned above the triple clamps, the rid-ing position is really too upright to qualify for this.

Authenticity must be delivered in

tandem with rideability, and com-fort, for success in today’s market. In keeping with that, the flip-up footpegs aren’t set too far back on the Continental GT, and you can easily kick out the sidestand - plus there’s a well thought out handle as part of the left shock’s upper mounting to help you lug it on to the centerstand easily.

Little things mean a lot, and there are plenty of nice touches on the new Enfield, including the Monza-style filler cap, the swept-back exhaust header ending in a chromed megaphone (with its graceful taper belying the fact it carries a three-way catalyst mak-ing the Continental GT Euro4-legal), the bar-end mirrors that

give an excellent view behind, the chrome-shelled headlamp and retro rear light, and the twin round analog instruments with chrome bezels. And the speedo on the left has a digital panel with mile-age, twin trips and a fuel gauge.

You can’t help but feel that Xen-ophya has got the styling dead right – this is an authentic update of a period classic, just like a Tri-umph Bonneville or today’s Fiat 500, rather than a bad taste pas-tiche like the current VW Beetle.

However, none of this would be any use if the engine package wasn’t any good, and after grap-pling with the hit-or-miss gear selection properties of the four-speed transmission in the last

You’re not going to leave many others in the dust on the Royal Enfield, but you look good at whatever speed you’re going.

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Royal Enfield model I rode seven years earlier, I needed to be con-vinced that Eicher’s investment had been well spent.

But my last taste of the Enfield experience was back in the days before the 2007 introduction of the current all-aluminum UCE motor (as in, Unit Construction Engine) developed in-house and complete with integrated five-speed gearbox.

By 2011 this had completely re-placed the old engine with a cast-iron cylinder and separate four-speed transmission with chain primary drive, latterly with Keihin fuel injection. So the Continental GT’s 87 x 90 mm air-cooled OHV wet sump engine is an uprated version of the 499cc version of the UCE design, running the same lowly 8.5:1 compression, but with a little extra capacity via a 3mm bigger bore.

Together with hotter cams, this results in raising power 2 hp to 29.1 hp at 5100 rpm, with 32.5ft-lb of torque now produced at 4000 rpm, against 40.9Nm be-fore. In addition, the 535cc motor has a lighter flywheel as well as a remapped ECU, coupled with re-vised gear ratios in the five-speed gearbox, all for a crisper pickup and enhanced acceleration.

Of course, everything is rela-tive, and after thumbing the kick-starter (there’s a kickstarter as well, for genuine street cred, plus a choke lever that didn’t seem to be needed when starting from cold on a 68-degree day), you shouldn’t expect to attain speeds

that’ll allow you to keep up with even a modern middleweight twin like a Kawasaki Versys, which has double the Enfield’s power and torque.

But it’s the way that perfor-mance is delivered that really mat-ters, not how much there is, and you soon come to appreciate the relaxed, timeless qualities of the Indian-built motor. You can prac-tically count the firing strokes at its lazy 1000-rpm idle speed - al-though it’s rather strange that you can’t leave the engine to warm up with the bike parked on the pretty substantial kickstand, but must stick it on the centerstand to do so without activating the cutout.

Once under way, you realize that the new Enfield’s café racer riding stance is actually quite comfortable, while allowing you to tuck in quite tidily without ex-cessive weight on your arms and shoulders. Far from giving you a stretched out feeling as you reach forward to grip the handle-bars, the Royal Enfield’s riding position is surprisingly close-coupled without being cramped – a spinoff from the short wheel-base, presumably. It gives a nice sense of control, as well as good leverage in tighter turns.

The seat’s also really comfy and although the flip-up footpegs are rather low, there’s no chance of decking them at normal angles of lean, even with the skinny Pirelli rubber fitted to those alloy. There’s an uncluttered view of the road ahead, with no windscreen or bodywork to get in the way, re-

sulting in a back-to-basics sport-ing sensation that makes you feel at one with your surroundings.

There’s no real vibration below 3500 rpm, but as revs mount higher towards the Keihin ECU’s 5750-rpm cutout, increasing vibes come at you especially through the footpegs, making the 2500-3500 rpm window the En-field engine’s sweet spot.

That ECU is perfectly mapped, with its light, precise throttle re-sponse making the Continental GT a peach to ride, especially in town where the light-action oil-bath clutch and relatively upright riding stance make this an ideal traffic tool.

Best of all, the shift action of the five-speed gearbox is abso-lutely flawless, though it’s best to use the clutch for the bottom three upward shifts for optimum smoothness. The lazy, torquey single motor will pull away from little more than walking pace in fourth gear, with no transmission snatch from 2000 rpm upwards.

This is an ultra-flexible, forgiv-ing engine that makes the Con-tinental GT easy to ride even for less experienced riders. As such, it’ll surely appeal to occa-sional bikers as well as the more dedicated.

Those bar-end mirrors give a good view of the road behind you when it really matters - like pull-ing out to pass a truck, or watch-ing for blue flashing lights on the prowl. It’s unlikely to be you on the Royal Enfield the cops will be chasing, though, because the

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Continental GT’s top speed (even with the freer flowing aftermar-ket exhaust fitted to the test bike - surely not ‘for track use only’?) is an indicated 75 mph on level ground, with the tach needle parked at 4200 rpm.

Even crouching down flat on the tank delivers no added ben-efit, because the pushrod motor long ago ran out of breath, but the main thing is that the bike will go fast enough to keep up with traffic on a four-lane highway. Just.

But it’s the way in which the Royal Enfield delivers the some-what restricted performance it comes with, which is its real charm. Swinging through War-wickshire country lanes aboard it on a British summer day, is the key to a memorable but relaxing ride providing a heady dose of nostalgia - as well as proving that taking turns at 50 mph on a bike like this is just as much fun as do-ing so half as fast again on some-

thing five times more powerful. It’s not what the Royal Enfield

does, so much as the way that it does it. At 50 mph, it’s a relaxing mileater with added style.

There’s quite capable handling within the limits of the bike’s per-formance, although the restrict-ed wheel travel and ensuing poor ride quality of the Paioli shocks is a disappointment, especially in town. Even out in the countryside a series of undulations – let alone successive harsh bumps – will result in a jiggling ride that makes you question the Italian shocks’ level of compliance.

No such criticism of the Indian-made fork, however, which rides well over road rash and plays its part in the bike’s pinpoint steer-ing at low speeds. There’s a hint of understeer on faster turns, but the wide handlebars make this easy to correct.

The Brembo front brake was also a little disappointing; with a rather wooden feel that might be

down to pad choice. The smaller, cheaper Indian-made rear stop-per is much better, so at least the Continental GT stops okay, which wasn’t always the case with previ-ous drum-braked Bullet models.

The Continental GT is that rare thing. It’s an authentic modern classic with an unbroken heri-tage dating back to the debut of the Royal Enfield Bullet in 500cc guise in 1953. The Royal Enfield Continental GT is the product of a continuous manufacturing tradi-tion, complete with retro design cues delivered at a price that’s hard to argue against.

“We believe there’s room for a different kind of motorcycle in today’s global markets,” says Lal. “Something that doesn’t cost the earth and is fun and engaging to ride at real world speeds.”

Although it’s possible to nitpick a few areas that need attention – the frame welding is occasion-ally rough and there was weld splatter on some A-surfaces that should have been cleaned off before painting – the new Royal Enfield still represents fine value for money in delivering pe-riod functionality, but with added style. The Continental GT does represent an affordable entry into the nostalgia stakes, but with the added cachet of period authen-ticity.

The chap I met outside the post office got it right: this is just like the Royal Enfield he used to own – just a little bit more sporty, but no less authentic. It’s history on wheels. CN