Two of the all time greats…a Safari Grade Model 700 Remington, and the .375 Holland and Holland cartridge. Check out the walnut on this magnificent rifle!
I started playing with guns when I was a youngster and the disease progressed as I aged. I almost said “matured” instead of “aged,” but that would be stretching things, especially when it comes to shelling out good money for fancy guns. When I see a rifle I want, I haven’t matured at all. I sure have aged, though.
So anyway, when I was a young guy, I read everything I could about all kinds of guns, and I especially enjoyed reading about big game rifles. Really big game, as in Peter Hathaway Capstick chasing cape buffalo, Jim Corbett chasing man-eating tigers in India, and Colonel John Henry Patterson chasing the man-eating lions of Tsavo. It was all books and magazines back in those days. Al Gore was still a youngster and he had not invented the Internet yet, and if you wanted to read about cool things you went to a place called the library. One of the cool things to read about there, for me, was the .375 Holland and Holland cartridge, along with the rifles that chambered its Panatela of a cartridge. The descriptions were delicious…a magnum rifle firing a 300-grain bullet 3/8ths of an inch in diameter at 2700+ fps with the trajectory of a .30 06.
The .375 H&H goes all the way back to 1912, when it was developed by the great English firm of Holland and Holland. It’s still one of the best cartridges ever for hunting big beasts that snarl, roar, bite, stomp, and gore those who would do them harm. It was the first belted magnum cartridge. The idea is that cartridge headspaces on the belt (a stepped belt around the base), a feature that wasn’t really necessary for proper function, but from a marketing perspective it was a home run. Nearly all dangerous game cartridges that followed the mighty .375 H&H, especially those with “magnum” aspirations, were similarly belted. Like I said, it was a marketing home run.
As a young guy, I was convinced my life wouldn’t be complete without a .375 H&H rifle. You see, I had more money than brains back in those days. I spent my young working life on the F-16 development team, and my young non-working life playing with motorcycles and guns. I was either on a motorcycle tearing up Texas, or on the range, or hanging around various gun shops between El Paso and Dallas. In Texas, some of the shops had their own rifle range. People in Texas get things right, I think.
One of the shops I frequented was the Alpine Range in Fort Worth, Texas. The fellow behind the counter knew that I was a sucker for any rifle with fancy walnut, and when I stopped in one Saturday he told me I had to take a look at a rifle he had ordered for a customer going to Africa. He had my interest immediately, and when he opened that bright green Remington box, what I saw took my breath away. It was a Safari Grade Model 700 in .375 H&H. In those days, the Safari Grade designation meant the rifle had been assembled by the Remington Custom Shop, and that was about as good as it could possibly get.
The Model 700 was beautiful. Up to that point, I’d never even seen a .375 H&H rifle other than in books and magazines. This one was perfect. In addition to being in chambered in that most mystical of magnums (the .375 H&H), the wood was stunning. It had rosewood pistol grip and fore end accents, a low-sheen oil finish, the grain was straight from the front of the rifle through the pistol grip, and then the figure fanned, flared, flamed, and exploded as the walnut approached the recoil pad. I knew I had to own it, and I’m pretty sure the guy behind the counter knew it, too. Did I mention that the rifle was beautiful?
“How much?” I asked, trying to appear nonchalant.
“I can order you another one,” the counter guy countered, “but this one is sold. I ordered it for a guy going to Africa. I’ll order another one for you. They all come with wood this nice.”
“Has he seen this one yet?” I asked, not believing that any rifle could be as stunning. I knew that rifles varied considerably, and finding one with wood this nice would be a major score, Remington Custom Shop assembly or not.
“No,” the sales guy answered, “he hasn’t been in yet, but I can get another for you in a couple of days. Don’t worry; they’re all this nice.”
His advice to the contrary notwithstanding, I worried. This was the one I had to own. “How much?” I asked again.
“$342,” he answered.
Mind you, this was in 1978. That was a lot of money then. It seems an almost trivial amount now. The rifle you see in the photo above, especially with its fancy walnut, would sell for something more like $2,000 today. Maybe more.
“Get another one for Bwana,” I said. “This one is mine.”
“But this is the other guy’s.”
“Not anymore it’s not. Not if you ever want to see me in here again,” I said. Like to told you earlier, I was a young guy back then in 1978. I thought I knew how to negotiate. My only negotiating tool in those days was a hammer, and to me, every negotiation was a nail. You know how it is to be young and dumb, all the while believing you know everything.
“Let me see what I can do,” the sales guy said, with a knowing smile. When the phone range at 10:00 a.m. the following Monday, I knew it was the Alpine Range, and I knew the Model 700 was going to be mine. I told my boss I wasn’t feeling well.
“Another rifle?” he asked. He didn’t need to ask. He knew. We were in Texas. He had the disease, too.
In less than an hour, the rifle you see in that photograph above was mine. The guy behind the counter at the Alpine Range was good. He had already received a second Safari Grade Model 700, in .375 H&H, so the safari dude was covered. I asked to see the replacement rifle and the walnut on it was bland, straight grained, and dull…nothing at all like the exhibition grade walnut on mine. It made me feel even better.
I’ve owned my Model 700 .375 H&H Remington for more than four decades now. I’ve never been on safari with it and I have zero desire to shoot a cape buffalo, a lion, a tiger, or anything else, but I do love owning and shooting my .375 H&H. I’ve never seen another with wood anywhere near as nice as mine, and that makes owning it all the more special.
When I saw the first photographs of Royal Enfield’s new 650 twin the bike seemed perfect. 650 vertical twins have owned the sweet-spot of cool long before McQueen bashed them around the desert and they are still an ideal size and configuration for all around use. Unfortunately the latest vertical twin offerings from other motorcycle manufacturers have sprouted slow-moving tumorous pistons, lost their summer beach-bodies and become uselessly complex. The whole situation kind of put me on edge. I was actually a bit angry: “Royal Enfield better not screw this up,” I mumbled to my cat.
I liked the new Interceptor 650 so much I was going to get really pissed off at Royal Enfield if the bike was crude and uninspiring. Luckily for everyone involved, the Interceptor, or INT, or Cartridge, or Clip or whatever legal BS we are supposed to use, is a great bike. It’s hard to judge long-term quality without the requisite passage of time but from what I can see the 650 is well and truly the Nads.
In the video I rave about the frame, because it is noticeably well-finished. I couldn’t get over the thing. All the component parts of the RE 650 appear to be designed not only with function in mind but also with an eye toward aesthetics. This is a motorcycle that will look just as good dismantled as it does assembled, like how a Norton 750 looks good in pieces on your cycle bench. Thanks, whoever is responsible for this.
The 650 Royal Enfield engine feels peppy and it breathes well. The bike pulls hard right up until the rev limiter cuts in at 7500 RPM. It feels like a happy engine if you know what I mean. Sitting upright I saw an indicated 115 mph in 5th gear at redline and 6th gear dropped the top end to 110. I think if I didn’t have 75 pounds of touring garbage flapping in the breeze and made myself really small I could have gotten 120 mph in high gear.
The fuel injection on my 650 delivered its tiny spurts of fuel precisely and in a timely fashion. I could not imagine it working any better. On the highway the thing got an amazing 70 miles per gallon. Fuel injection is one of the few modern advances that I think are useful on a motorcycle. Handling was a non-issue: The bike tracked well and the suspension is good enough for me.
The shifting is slick and effortless and if I wasn’t running out of old Cycle magazine issues from the 1970’s to steal complimentary phrases from I’d go on about the transmission for hours. I’d really like to take this bike apart and see what makes it so good.
The brakes were not super powerful. I never felt like the bike wouldn’t stop but I’ve gotten used to incredibly powerful brakes on other bikes. It’s not a deal killer for me because this is a multi-purpose motorcycle, not a race bike. I didn’t care for the Royal Enfield’s anti-lock brake system but in their defense I don’t like anybody’s anti-lock brake system. I’ll have to yank the fuse or defeat the system somehow when I get mine.
Yes, I would actually buy one of these motorcycles if moto-journalism paid in something more fungible than “Likes.” I’m not sure what they will actually sell for yet but it will be less than the other guys. If they make a high-pipe scrambler version all bets are off.
Some motorcycles play much larger than their spec sheets would indicate. The Royal Enfield is one of them. It’s such a joy to travel on a simple, lightweight motorcycle and the pleasing burble exiting from the 650’s exhaust system is music to anyone who rode a Honda twin from the 1970s. The 650 is a bike built to ride and it’s nice to look at parked in the garage.
I’m afraid motorcycle riders have become trapped in the American Dream of bigger is better and more plastic is better. The road grows dimmer and further from their nerve endings in the cause of comfort and technology. Stop now. You can easily find a more powerful motorcycle or find a faster one but you’ll play hell finding a better looking motorcycle than the Royal Enfield 650. And you won’t find one that’s more fun to ride on the street.
If you’d like to read the rest of our recent Royal Enfield Baja adventure ride posts, here are the links…
Here’s Part II of our grand ride to the top of Volcan Nevado del Ruiz. Colombia was an awesome adventure, and my good buddies Juan and Carlos were great traveling companions. Here you go, folks….
As I mentioned earlier, our riding positions were Juan, me, and Carlos. Juan was just amazing. I was keeping up, but I was working hard to do it. And I knew Juan and Carlos had dialed it back for me.
Juan made it look so easy. He would sometimes ride through the curves standing on the pegs, almost as if he needed to give himself more of a challenge. At one point, we were taking a set of curves at speeds way above those at which I would normally ride, with the bikes leaned over at an unimaginable angle, when I looked ahead at Juan. He was standing on the pegs again, with his motorcycle leaned way over in a sweeping curve, and he was reaching back to check the latch on one of his panniers. He was doing this as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Both he and Carlos are incredible riders.
Colombian chicken-strip-reducing twisties on our climb to the top.
Juan knew another photo spot, and we stopped. He and Carlos took positions on the side of the road to take photos, but I zeroed in on my front tire. I wanted to check out my chicken strips.
Chicken strips are the edges of the tire tread that haven’t contacted the road surface. The harder you corner on a motorcycle, the more you lean the bike over, and the narrower your chicken strips become. Our ride during the last 30 miles or so had been aggressive, and my chicken strips showed it. They were about as narrow as any I have ever created on a motorcycle.
Juan and Carlos came over. They thought I had a problem with the motorcycle’s front tire until they saw me photographing it. Both guys laughed. They knew immediately what I was doing.
“I was watching you in the mirrors,” Juan said, “and you are riding more strongly. We will make you an honorary Colombian motorcyclist!”
The spot Juan had selected to stop was indeed a good one. The Nikon 18-55mm lens came off the camera I replaced it with the Tokina 12-24mm. I grabbed a shot that became one of my favorites (it’s the one you see above).
Chicken strips (the narrow unused tread area at the tire’s edge).
The climb continued, we turned left at an intersection, and then we made a right turn onto a dirt road. We were in the fog, but the fog had not descended to reach us. We had climbed into the clouds to reach it.
It was cold. I could barely see Juan through the fog and I thought it was because my visor had clouded over. I lifted the visor and I realized that it was indeed fogged over, but the visibility wasn’t any better with it up. We were in the soup, and it was thick.
I hit the toggle switch on the left handlebar to activate the RX3’s emergency flashers. I saw Carlos follow my example in my rear view mirrors, and then Juan did so, too. I fixated on Juan’s taillight and his flashers; it was really all I could see in that thick soup. I was glad I was wearing my contact lenses instead of glasses; I would not have been able to see anything if I had worn my glasses.
I could barely see the dirt road beneath my wheels (the fog was that thick). The road had not turned to mud (and for that I was grateful). I felt the moisture hitting my face. It was cold.
That dirt road and the fog we were riding through went on and on and on. I saw a sign that said we were at 3400 meters. Wow, I thought after doing a quick mental calculation. That’s over 11,000 feet! It was about as high as I’ve ever been on a motorcycle, but it was a record that would be broken just a few more miles up the road.
As we continued, the moisture continued to smack my face, but it was stinging more. I thought maybe it was freezing rain. It seemed to bother my eyes quite a bit more, too. I put my visor down and it fogged over immediately. I put it back up just as quickly as I had put it down. This was extreme riding.
13,000 feet and climbing!
Juan stopped at another sign. We were now at 3,950 meters! That’s 13,000 feet. I was cold, but I knew I had to get the camera out for a photo of the bikes next to this sign. I told Juan the elevation was amazing, and he told me we would be climbing even higher.
Then Juan noticed something on my jacket. He looked at my bike and he became very excited. My jacket and the bikes had little specks of dust on them. Those little specks were what I had felt hitting me in the face. They hadn’t been freezing rain droplets. They were volcanic dust! The volcano we were riding up to was belching its innards all over us!
Volcanic dust on my RX3 in Colombia.
Juan was excited. “I’ve been up here maybe 10 times,” he said, and I’ve never seen this. The volcano knows we are here, Joe, and it is talking to us.”
We rode another couple of miles and we arrived at the Colombian National Park headquarters for the volcano. The bikes were covered with volcanic dust. Our helmets were muddy because of it. My eyes itched, but I didn’t dare rub them. I now knew my eyes were irritated because they had cinders in them, and rubbing them would grind that dust into my eyeballs. Nope, it would be best to let the tears that were streaming down my face do what they were designed to do and wash this stuff out naturally.
The people manning the Colombian National Park told us they were sending people away, back down from the volcano because it was active. Imagine that!
A volcano!
And it was active!
Wowee!
The sign at the top told us we were at 4,138 meters. That’s 13,562 feet, folks. And we rode up here on our 250cc motorcycles!
That’s 13,562 feet above sea level, just below the rim of an active volcano!
Juan told us there was a trail that went all the way up to the volcano’s rim, and that was above 15,000 feet. The Colombian government no longer allowed any kind of motorized traffic on that trail, so we couldn’t take the motorcycles. Juan told me he had done that ride while it was still legal to do so, and he had done it on a 100cc two-stroke Yamaha while riding two up! This guy is one hardcore biker, I thought.
We stayed for a bit, we had a cup of tea, we took a few photos, and we left. That would be one more checkmark on my bucket list. I didn’t even know riding up to an active volcano had been one of the things I wanted to do in my life. Having now done it, though, I can tell you what we accomplished that day deserved a spot on the list. It felt good knowing I could say I had done it.
We rode another 10 miles or so on dirt roads, downhill all the way, to a hotel that was about as far off the beaten path as I have ever been.
It was still bitter cold as we rode down the side of the volcano, but I was feeling good. I’ve said it in every chapter, and I’ll say it again: Juan was showing me one hell of a good time. This Colombian adventure tour was the most exciting motorcycle ride of my life.
Our destination that evening was the Hotel Termales, and it was at the end of a long dirt road. The Hotel Termales was interesting. As we rode in, there were springs emerging along the side of the road. The springs were small, but they gave off a lot of steam in the cold air. I could smell the sulfur. It was obvious we were in a very geologically active region.
The dirt road leading from Volcan Nevado del Ruiz to the Hotel Termales.
As we were unloading the bikes I realized just how cold it was. The sulfur smell was heavy, but it wasn’t too objectionable. The aroma reminded me of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming or that stretch in Baja between Mexicali and San Felipe (two other geologically active regions I had ridden through on previous motorcycle adventures).
We checked in and a young guy carried my bags up to my room. It was a great room at the far end of the hotel. I had a huge window just above the bed with a commanding view of Manizales, the nearest town nestled in a valley perhaps 30 miles away. The lights of Manizales sparkled in the evening air. It would have made a good photograph, but truth be told, I was about photographed out that night. The ride up to the volcano had been demanding and I wanted to get in that hot pool.
The bellboy explained how to work the heater. To my surprise, it was an electrical heater that blew air through an electrically-heated grid. It was noisy and I thought it might keep me up, but I enjoyed the heat it threw as soon as the guy turned it on. I thought it was odd that with all the hot water coming out of the ground the hotel opted for electrical heating. That’s what happens when you’re an engineer, I guess. You look at things and wonder why.
I met Juan and Carlos in the lobby and we went outdoors to the hot springs pool. We were in our swimsuits and, wow, it was cold out there! Juan had warned us that he pool water was scalding hot and it was best to ease into it gradually, but it was so cold out there I wanted to get submerged as quickly as I could. It was a real shock going from the frigid air into that super-hot water, but I acclimated to it quickly. It was wonderful soaking up all that heat. I had been chilled to the bone, and now I was being boiled. The water had a strong sulfur odor, but I didn’t mind that at all. I was enjoying the heat.
I found that the water temperature, while hot throughout the pool, was much hotter where the water fed into the pool. I stayed close to the water inlets as very hot water cascaded over my shoulders and neck. These areas bothered me every night, no doubt due to the muscle tension associated with riding the Colombian twisties. Those hot springs helped enormously. It was better than being in a Jacuzzi.
That night we ate in the Hotel Termales restaurant. I strayed from my usual evening meal (nearly always chicken) and I tried the truche (that’s Spanish for trout). It was exquisite. Trout in the US is always a dicey proposition. Usually there’s only a small amount of meat on the fish (US trout all belong to Weight Watchers, I suppose). That was not the case here. Even though the truche was about the same length as a US trout, it easily had twice the meat on the bone. It was succulent, it had a pink hue to it, and it almost tasted like salmon. It so intrigued me that I looked up truche up on the Internet, and I learned that trout is actually in the salmon family. In Colombia, I guess the trout family relationship is much stronger than it is in the US.
I slept like a baby that night. The hot air heater didn’t keep me up at all. It was very cold outside, but my room was toasty.
So, back to what I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter…as I fell asleep that night, I thought about everything we did that day. Day 7, just like Days 1 through 6, had been a full day. Breakfast in Honda, exploring the town and the very first bridge to cross the Magdalena River, the river museum, Fresno, hard core cornering as we climbed into the clouds, bitter cold, fog more obscure than the US tax code, dirt roads, riding higher than I had ever ridden before (above 13,562 feet!), volcanic dust from a volcano that could have used some Pepto Bismol, a hot springs bath, and a delicious trout dinner. It had been another day in Paradise. I was loving it.
I thought about everything we had done during the day, and then I realized tomorrow was Day 8. I felt a strong twinge of regret when I realized it would be our last day on the road in Colombia.
And there you have it! If you want to read the entire story, get yourself a copy of Moto Colombia!
I’ve enjoyed fantastic adventure rides on fantastic motorcycles in fantastic places. One of the best adventure touring motorcycles available at any price is the Zongshen RX3 (brought to the US by CSC Motorcycles), and one of my rides on this fantastic machine was in Colombia. Colombia was one of the greatest rides ever. Want a taste of that adventure? Hey, here’s one of the chapters from Moto Colombia on a ride at extreme elevation…a visit to an active volcano. We’re presenting it here in two blogs…one today and another tomorrow. Enjoy, my friends…
Day 7: Volcan Nevado del Ruiz
Breakfast in a delightful hotel, more mountain twisties, sweltering heat, freezing cold, fog that cut visibility down to 30 feet, dirt roads, riding at 13,576 feet, hot sulfur baths, a burbling volcano that killed 23,000 people in 1985, and volcanic dust in our eyes…it would all be in a day’s ride for us on this, our 7th day on the road in Colombia.
The Casa Belle Epoque was a great little boutique hotel in Honda. It was one of the coolest places (in one of the hottest cities) I’ve ever parked a motorcycle in front of (uh oh, I just ended a sentence with a preposition, but you get the idea). As always, I was up early, but the hotel staff was up even earlier and I enjoyed a cup of dark Colombian coffee after sleeping soundly through the night. My laundry was done, it was wrapped up nicely, and it was dry. That nice lady the night before was right; my laundry had dried. I was surprised and pleased.
Carlos and Juan enjoying a magnificent morning meal in the Casa Belle Epoque.
I used the time before Juan and Carlos came down to breakfast to examine some of the antiques in the hotel’s dining room and lobby. Antiques are a big thing in Colombia, I guess. I remembered the restaurant from a few days ago similarly adorned with old things. I thought about writing to Mike and Frank…perhaps they could do a Colombian Pickers episode.
An antique record player in the Casa Belle Epoque.
After breakfast, Juan, Carlos, and I walked over to where the bikes had been secured for the evening. We rang the bell at another massive gate and waited for the groundskeeper to come unlock it. I half expected to see that fellow from Romancing the Stone stick his face through the window and say, “Joan? Joan Wilder?”
Juan had an exploration of Honda in mind, and as always, I followed him with Carlos riding behind me. That was our standard riding formation, and we would cover about 2600 kilometers riding Colombia in that formation. Those two guys took good care of me.
I thought the roads in Zipaquira were steep (and they were), but Honda’s cobblestone streets took things to the next level. I couldn’t believe the streets we were navigating. You might think I am exaggerating, but I am not. I didn’t quite have to slip the clutch to get up the hills, but I was pretty close to doing that. The hills in Honda were strictly first gear affairs. Someone once told me in situations like this, you just look where you want to go. That’s what I did. On these streets and on those cobblestones, I wondered if we would have had enough traction to get up the hills if the streets had been wet. The roads were that steep.
We rode up a mountainside and arrived at a most interesting bridge. It was painted bright yellow and it had wooden planks for the road surface (and they were a good 300 feet above the Magdalena). This was real Indiana Jones stuff. Juan and Carlos told me the bridge was built by the San Francisco Bridge Company in 1898 and it was the first bridge in Colombia to span the Magdalena River. The photo ops were incredible with the bright yellow bridge, the bright blue sky, the verdant green of the mountains, and the river below us.
The first bridge across the Magdalena River, built by the San Francisco Bridge Company in 1898.
An older woman emerged from a stone house on our side of the bridge and she smiled when I pointed to my camera. She somehow reminded me of my grandmother. She was full of smiles until I put the camera up, and then I couldn’t get her to smile (my grandmother had the same uneasiness around a camera).
The bridgekeeper in Honda. This charming Colombian lady graciously consented to a photograph.
There were folks way below us digging in the banks of the Magdalena (I don’t know for what…perhaps some form of freshwater clams, or maybe gold or emeralds). I looked at those guys below the bridges, I thought of the Internet trolls who love to criticize the RX3 (you know, trolls hanging out under bridges), and I laughed. Those Internet morons would never experience the kind of riding we were doing. All they could do was criticize. We were out here living the adventure. I felt a brief tinge of pity for the Internet trolls, but it passed quickly.
From that vantage point above the Magdalena River, we could see distant ridges in the Andes on the horizon. They were capped with snow and the clouds were just above the peaks. Juan pointed to one where the cloud seemed to emanate from the top of a mountain. It was a good 80 miles away.
Volcan Nevado del Ruiz, visible on the horizon. It erupted and killed 23,000 Colombians in 1985. It was our destination that evening.
“That is Volcan Nevado del Ruiz,” Juan said, pointing at the peak touching the clouds. I returned a blank look. “It is the volcano we are riding to today,” Juan explained.
“We’re riding to a volcano?” I asked.
“Yes,” Juan answered. “Volcan Nevado del Ruiz. It erupted in 1985 and killed many people.”
I checked out what Juan told me later that evening after I could get an Internet connection. “Many” was something north of 23,000 people. They were all killed deader than Julius Caesar, and it all happened just 30 years ago. And we were riding our motorcycles to it. I thought about the bikers I knew in California who thought they had something to brag about because they rode to the Laughlin River Run. Right.
I looked at the distant peak again and took a photo. I was really too far away to see anything, but with Juan’s explanation I knew that what had appeared to be a mountain reaching into the clouds was actually a volcano belching steam. I’ve been to a lot of places on a motorcycle, but I’ve never ridden a motorcycle (or anything else, for that matter) up to an active volcano!
We left the bridge, rode a less than a mile, and stopped at a museum dedicated to the Magdalena River’s history. As I mentioned earlier, the Magdalena River is Colombia’s version of the Mississippi. It’s huge, and Colombia developed around it. This museum in Honda was exclusively about the river.
The Magdalena River Museum in Honda.
We spent an hour at the museum. We could have spent a day there. The Magdalena River and its surrounding areas were more like the Mississippi River and the United States than I would have imagined. The Magdalena flows through cotton and coffee plantations. It was Colombia’s primary trade route as the country developed. The Colombians used large steamboats of similar design to those used on our Mississippi River in the 1800s. It was another example of how Colombia’s history paralleled the history of the United States.
The Museo del Rio Magdalena had interesting displays about the river, the crops it transported, the steamboats, the indigenous populations along the river, the early explorers, and more. The museum also had an interesting photo exhibit consisting entirely of photos shot by students using pinhole cameras of their own construction. The photos were good and I enjoyed seeing them.
I especially liked a long painting along one wall depicting the Magdalena’s 1000-mile length, and notable things along the river. It gave me a much better feel for and appreciation of the magnificent country we had been riding through. Our museum visit was a very successful one. I enjoyed it. It was one of the high points of the trip for me.
One of the halls inside the Magdalena River Museum (note the mural on the left wall showing key points along the Magdalena’s 1000-mile length).
As I mentioned, we spent an hour at the museum, and when we left Honda was sweltering again. Juan looked at my clothes and laughed. I had been worried the previous night about my laundry having enough time to dry at the hotel. It was only 10:00 a.m. and I was already drenched in sweat. My clothes were soaked.
A pretty young lady, the museum curator, gave us a tour of the museum during our visit. She seemed cool and totally at ease with the heat and the humidity. I realized as I listened to her discuss the exhibits that she was used to living in the tropics, but I still wondered how she was able to get through the day without perspiring like me.
An old riverboat photo in the Magdalena River Museum.
I like history. I think I’m too old to go back to school now, but if ever went back to college for another degree, it would be for a degree in history. I like learning about how things developed, including countries, companies, and cultures. I thought that hour in the Museo del Rio Magdalena was one of the best hours I spent during my entire stay in Colombia.
The museum visit further reinforced a thought I had earlier when we visited Boyacá about the similarities between our US culture and the Colombian culture. Our American Revolution was for independence from the British. Colombia’s war of independence did the same with the Spanish. The British took our natural resources and taxed us without representation. The Spanish looted Colombia’s gold and emeralds. We in the US have a lot of things in common with the people of Colombia.
I don’t know if Juan planned our visit to the Museo del Rio Magdalena. He did a magnificent job planning our adventure tour, but I had the impression when we spotted this museum that he made an impromptu decision to visit it. Whether our stop was planned or accidental, if you ever get to Honda, you don’t want to miss this spot.
Colombian artwork in the Magdalena River Museum.
As we left the museum and pulled our gear on, the sweat was pouring off me and I was showing the effects of the heat. Carlos told me not to worry. We would be cool soon enough as we climbed back into the Andes’ higher altitudes.
I sure was more comfortable when we were on the bikes again. Let’s generate a breeze, I thought, and we did. Juan wanted to try a new way out of Honda, and it worked. Nobody needs a GPS as long as Juan is leading the pack.
Our next destination was to be Fresno (yep, Colombia has a Fresno, too). The road between Honda and Fresno was great. You must be thinking by now that I’ve said that about every road we had ridden in Colombia. Yep, I did. And they were.
My motorcycle in Fresno. As Juan said, the traffic rules “are like suggestions to us.”
We arrived in Fresno and stopped for a break. The town followed the standard Colombian Andes Mountains formula: Steep up and down streets and a magnificent square in front of a majestic church. And Carlos had been right about the temperature. Even though it was midday and sunny, it had cooled considerably as we climbed into the mountains. Fresno was comfortable.
Fresno’s town square had an interesting exhibit with a statue of Juan Valdez and his mule, carrying only the finest Colombian coffee beans (as the commercials used to proclaim). Carlos took a photo of Mr. Valdez and me.
Juan Valdez and two jackasses in Fresno.Two young ladies in a Fresno corner store.
There were chairs and a table in front of a small store next to Fresno’s church. We bought soft drinks from two nice young ladies working there and we took seats at the table. It was relaxing sitting there, watching the good folks of Fresno go about their lives. A pretty girl pulled up on a motorcycle and parked on the sidewalk. I could get used to Fresno, I thought.
We left Fresno and stopped to refuel on the way out. The road continued to climb, the temperatures continued to drop, and the sun disappeared behind the clouds we were climbing into. It rained and little bit and then stopped. The roads dried, the sun remained hidden, and the twisties became even more glorious. I knew we were high up in the mountains. I didn’t know how high, but I knew we were way up there. I was surprised at how well the bikes were performing. Although the AKT version of the RX3 is carbureted, I couldn’t feel a drop in performance as the altitude increased (and our ride had taken us literally from sea level to over 13,000 feet).
There wasn’t any traffic (we had the road to ourselves) and Juan stepped up the pace. It was just a modest increase at first, and then he ratcheted it up. By this time I was comfortable on these twisting roads and comfortable with my heavily-laden RX3. I hung in there with Juan, with Carlos right on my tail. It just felt like the right thing to do, and it felt entirely natural.
To be continued…watch for tomorrow’s ExNotes blog. And if you want to read the entire story, get yourself a copy of Moto Colombia!
At one time I owned a 1973 BMW R75/5 motorcycle. I traded 1300 dollars and a 1957 small-window VW van for the BMW. The good points about the bike were the suspension and the weight. For a 750cc the bike was lightweight and the thing had plenty of fork travel so it worked pretty good off road. The bad part was the charging system. I never could get the damn thing to electric start due to the battery being low. At the time I tried everything I knew to fix it but the little red discharge light was on constantly.
But this story isn’t about the BMW because I soon lost my driver’s license by wheeling and speeding around Florida on the German motorcycle. (It would do 110 MPH!) Maybe that’s the root of my animosity towards the brand. It had a bizarre ignition key to boot.
A year or two earlier Florida had changed the description of a moped and you no longer needed a driver’s license to operate one. I still had to travel 10 miles to my job at the JC Penny auto store so my mom drove me to the Garelli dealer on 49th street and I picked up their loss leader, Plain Jane Garelli moped for 399 dollars.
With no speedo and painted fenders the red Garelli was a study in thrift. It got 80 miles to a pre-mix gallon flat out at 30 miles per hour. Helmets weren’t required on a moped so I didn’t wear one. I wore a ball cap turned backwards.
My route to work changed to avoid busy roads. I crossed railroad trestles and scrambled behind Hialeah Speedway cutting across parking lots and running down alleys being chased by the exact same dog each day. The ride to work became an adventure and I learned to wheelie the Garelli for long distances. The moped’s lights were not exactly powerful but they always worked and the ride home at night kept the thrill going.
In the rearmost section of the luggage rack was a tin box containing the Garelli’s tool kit. The tool set was a spark plug socket and a couple wrenches of the cheapest thin steel so I used a letter punch to stamp ‘Snap-On” into the factory tools. This got huge laughs whenever I dragged the kit out to do what little maintenance the Garelli needed.
I rode the Garelli for three months and even after my license was reinstated I kept riding the moped for a while to save my driver’s license for a big cross-country trip my buddies and me had planned. I finally sold the bike for 300 dollars to an old man who could barely pedal the thing fast enough to get it started.
Daily destinations for a 7-day, relaxed whale watching Baja itinerary.
Good buddy Peter asked me to post a map of our recent Royal Enfield adventure ride to see the whales in Baja. That was a great suggestion, and it also provides an opportunity to suggest a great 7-day itinerary to see the whales in Baja. This was a relaxed ride of approximately 200 miles per day, and a full day off the bikes in Guerrero Negro on the day we saw the whales. One thing I want to mention up front: If you’re taking a motor vehicle into Mexico, you must insure the vehicle with a Mexican insurance policy. We insure with BajaBound, and that’s who we always recommend.
Day 1: The Los Angeles Basin to Tecate (170 miles)
The 170-mile distance I reference here is taking the 15 or the 5 south from the Los Angeles area. When you get down to the San Diego area, just find California 94 off the freeway, stay on it for about 25 miles heading east, and make a right on 188 for the 2-mile hop to Tecate.
Rolling into Tecate, Mexico!
You can make Tecate in about three hours if there’s no traffic. It’s an easy run and it gives you time to process into Mexico by picking up a visitor’s card, you can change U.S. currency into pesos, and you have time to explore Tecate a bit. An alternative route is to head south by riding over Mt. San Jacinto into Idyllwild and then take country roads through California down to Tecate, but you’ll need a full day if you do this and you would get into Tecate much later.
Jonathan and Pablo at Amores. It’s world class dining in downtown Tecate, and it is amazing.
My advice for a Tecate hotel is either the El Dorado or the Hacienda (you get to either by running straight into Tecate and turning right on Boulevard Benito Juarez. If you are with your significant other, you might consider the Amores Restaurante for dinner (it’s world class fine dining and it is superb). If you want something simpler, go for Tacos Dumas, a short walk from the Hacienda Hotel. There’s also a great Chinese restaurant across the street from the Hacienda (there are a lot of great Chinese restaurants in Mexico).
Day 2: Tecate to San Quintin (180 miles)
Day 2 starts with breakfast at 8:00 a.m. at the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant. It’s in the same building as the Hacienda Hotel, and as explained to us by Jonathan (the head chef at the Amores restaurant) it’s the best breakfast in Tecate. I think it’s the best breakfast anywhere, and with their exotic buffet featuring different Mexican regional cuisines, it will start your day right.
Maria, one of the friendly folks who took care of us in the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant.
After breakfast, head east on Boulevard Benito Juarez, turn right when you see the sign for the wine country, and stay on that road (it becomes Mexico Highway 3) to Ensenada. It’s Mexico’s Ruta del Vino, and the scenery and the vineyards are grand.
On Mexico’s Ruta del Vino headed for Ensenada!
After 70 miles of glorious wine country, you’ll hit Mexico Highway 1 just north of Ensenada. Turn left, hug the Pacific, and skirt through Ensenada (one of Baja’s larger cities). After Ensenada, you’ll pass through several small towns and then the road becomes the Antiqua Ruta del Vino, or Baja’s old wine country. The scenery is impressive. Stay on that road; you’ll pass through many small agricultural towns as you continue south through Baja. San Quintin is the destination on this second day of our Baja journey. There are lots of hotel options in San Quintin; my favorite is the Old Mill Hotel. Watch for the Old Mill Hotel sign, and make a right when you see it to reach San Quintin Bay and the hotel 4 miles to the west. Staying here is a tradition for Baja travelers.
When heading south in San Quintin, watch for the sign pointing to the Old Mill Hotel.Lucy, the lovely young lady who brought us beer and dinner at the Eucalipto restaurant.
There are two great restaurants on either side of the Old Mill, and the Old Mill now has its own restaurant, the Eucalipto. Good buddy Javier is the owner and head chef, and the cuisine is fabulous. You’ll get a free beer when you check into the hotel. Ask for a Modelo Negra; it’s superb.
Day 3: San Quintin to Guerrero Negro (264 miles)
This is the long stretch, and it starts with a run south from San Quintin through Los Pinos, and then roughly 20 miles along a roller coaster road skirting the Pacific. Then it’s a climb into the hills, a Mexican military checkpoint, and you’ll arrive in El Rosario. Top off at the Pemex in El Rosario, and if you’re hungry, you might have a late breakfast or an early lunch at Mama Espinoza’s (try the chicken burritos; they’re awesome). After that the Transpeninsular Highway climbs into the Valle de los Cirios and the desolation that is Baja. You’ll see several varieties of plant life that grow in Baja and no place else on Earth (including the Dr.-Suess-like cirio and the mighty Cardon cactus).
A Royal Enfield Interceptor 650, the first one to enter Mexico, parked near a giant Cardon cactus in Baja’s Valle de Los Cirios.
It gets even better when you enter the Catavina boulder fields. The area around Catavina is a magnificent region with stunning scenes. There’s a hotel on the right side of the road that seems to change ownership every time I’m down that way. The food is good (but a little on the pricey side); the trick is to get there before any tour buses arrive. A new Los Pinos 7-11 type store recently opened across the street from the hotel and it looks like they’re putting gas pumps in, which is a good thing. For now, though, if you’re on a bike we advise filling up from the guys selling gasolina out of cans. It’s 110 miles to the next gas station, and most bikes don’t hold enough fuel to make the entire 231-mile run from the Pemex in El Rosario all the way to Guerrero Negro.
You’ll want to fill up in Catavina if you’re on a motorcycle. Photo by Baja John.
After the Catavina boulder fields, it’s a run through Baja’s Pacific coastal plains to Parallelo 28, the border between Baja and Baja Sur (the two states comprising the Baja peninsula). There’s an immigration checkpoint there where you might have to produce your visitor’s form, but usually the Mexican immigration folks just wave you through. Make a right turn off the Transpeninsular Highway, and head on in to Guerrero Negro.
Joe Gresh riding through the Catavina boulder fields on a Royal Enfield Bullet.A gray whale skeleton as you make the right turn heading into Guerrero Negro. Good times ahead!
There are plenty of hotels in Guerrero Negro. I’ve stayed at the Hotel San Ignacio (no restaurant), Malarrimo’s (one of the best restaurants in Guerrero Negro), the Hotel Don Gus (they have a good restaurant), and the Hotel Los Corrales. They’re all good. The real attraction here, though, is whale watching, and that’s the topic for Day 4 of our 7-day Baja adventure.
My KLR 650 parked in front of Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro. It’s a decent hotel and they have a great restaurant. It’s on the right as you enter Guerrero Negro.
Day 4: Whale Watching in Guerrero Negro (0 miles).
Day 4 is a day off the bikes and a day devoted to whale watching. I always have breakfast at Malarimmo’s when I’m in Guerrero Negro. For whale watching, we’ve used Malarimmo’s and Laguna Baja’s tour service; both are great. They have morning and afternoon tours. Folks ask if the whale watching is better in the morning or the afternoon. I’ve found both are awesome (and both are just under $50 per person). The whale watching tours are only available January through March because that’s when the California gray whale herd is in Scammon’s Lagoon. You’ll be out on the boat for roughly three hours, so you’ll want to use the bathroom before you go. You can expect a genuine life-altering experience when you visit with the whales. You might think I’m exaggerating, but I am not. Bring a camera. No one will believe what you tell them about this experience unless you have pictures.
Up close and personal with a California gray whale in Scammon’s Lagoon. It is an experience like no other.
After seeing the whales, look for a fish taco van parked on northern side of the road. That’s my good buddy Tony’s Tacos El Muelle truck. Tony makes the best fish tacos on the planet. Yeah, I know, that’s another strong statement, but I know what I’m talking about here.
Tony, fish taco chef extraordinaire. Tell Tony Joe sent you.
For dinner in Guerrero Negro, there are lots of options. The Hotel Don Gus has a great restaurant, Malarimmo’s is great, and we most recently tried the San Remedio (off the main drag on a dirt road in Guerrero Negro) and it, too, was awesome.
Restaurante San Remedio in Guerrero Negro. It was authentic,and you will very likely be the only non-local guest.Brianda, who served us dinner at the San Remedio.Corvina grilled with olive oil and garlic at the San Remedio. It was 135 pesos, or about $7 US, including soup.
Day 5: Guerrero Negro to San Quintin (264 miles)
You might wonder: Are there other ways to head back north in addition to the way we came down? The short answer is yes, but the roads are sketchy and I’ve seldom felt a need to take a different route. My advice is to just go back the way you came down, and stop and smell the roses along the way. There’s plenty to see. Take photos of the things you missed. Enjoy the ride.
Joe Gresh feeling his oats on the ride north out of Guerrero Negro.Photographing a cirio plant in the Valle de los Cirios.Gresh spotted an unusual (and abandoned) geodesic dome in the desert north of Catavina on the way south and he said he wanted to stop there on the return leg north. So we did!More artwork framed our test Enfield from the geodesic dome’s interior. Gresh had the idea to grab this photo. He’s better at this than I am.
On the return leg of this adventure, you can stay at the Old Mill Hotel again. Yeah, it’s my favorite. There are other hotels in the San Quintin area, including the much larger and more modern Misione Santa Ines (which also has a great restaurant). There’s also Jardin’s, which Baja John told us about but I haven’t visited yet. One of these days I’m going to spend two or three days in and around San Quintin. It’s a cool area.
A bleu cheese salad at the Eucalipto. It was exquisite.
The Old Mill’s Eucalipto isn’t open every morning for breakfast, but that’s okay because there are lots of good places to eat once you get back on the Transpeninsular Highway heading north. If you want to pick one of the great breakfast spots, just look for any restaurante with a whole bunch of cars parked in front (the locals know what they are doing). If you’ve never had chilequiles, give this Mexican breakfast specialty a try.
Day 6: San Quintin to Tecate (180 miles)
This is the same ride we took on the way south, and my guidance is the same: Stop, smell the poppies, and grab a few photos along the way. If you can hold out for a great lunch, I have two suggestions. One is the Los Veleros in Ensenada, which is in the Hotel Coronado building as you ride along the coast. The other is Naranjo’s along the Ruta del Vino (Highway 3) back into Tecate.
The Naranjo’s dining room along the Ruta del Vino. It’s on the left as you head north to Tecate, and you’ll have to watch for it or you’ll miss one of the best restaurants in all of Mexico.Yours truly in the LA Cetto tasting room. I’m wearing my R Heroes USA workshirt, a top-quality item I’ve been wearing on every adventure ride for 10 years!
I always like to stop at the L.A. Cetto vineyard on the way home (rather than on the first part of the ride). I’ll pick up one bottle of wine (and for me, that’s either a Malbec or a Cabernet). I’d like to be able to take more home, but it’s tough to do that on a motorcycle, and you’re only allowed to bring one bottle back into the United States. Rules is rules, you know.
If you had dinner at Tecate’s Amores on the way down, you might want to try a street taco restaurante on this, your second night in Tecate. We like Tacos Dumas, just up the street from the Hacienda Hotel. It’s awesome.
For an authentic experience, try Tecate’s Tacos Dumas restaurante. Life doesn’t get any better than this.
Day 7: The Ride Home (168 miles)
This is an easy run, and for me, it starts with a breakfast at Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos in Tecate (yeah, I love that place). After that, it’s a quick stop at the Mexican immigration office to return your tourist visa (don’t skip this step; you need to check out of Mexico and simply crossing back into the US won’t do that). If you’re in a car, you’ve got to get into the long line waiting to get back across the US border. If you’re on a bike, go a block or two east of the street you took into Mexico, turn left, and look for the US border crossing. There’s a break in the K-barriers guiding the automobile line, and you can go right to the head of the line. I’ve never had a problem doing this, even though it feels like I’m doing something wrong.
And folks, there you have it: Seven glorious days of the best riding on the planet. I’m ready to go again.
If you’d like to read the rest of our recent Royal Enfield Baja adventure ride posts, here are the links…
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So…I’ve been back from Baja for a few days now and I’m just starting to get back into the groove of life in So Cal again. I had one more short video of our whale watching day I thought I’d share…
Good buddy Greg and I thought we’d head out to the range yesterday. The creek was still flowing pretty well from all of our So Cal rains and we made it across, only to find out that the range was still closed. We could have shot as full members, but we didn’t bring target stands with us thinking that the range would be open and they’d be available. Greg commented that he should have video recorded our turning the Subaru into an amphibious vehicle, and then we realized we’d soon have another opportunity…we had to get back across that creek…
That’s it for now. We have two or three more posts from the Baja trip we’ll be adding in the next few days…one focused on the dining, one on not panicking when bikes break down, and one on our itinerary (as good buddy Peter requested). This trip was a bit more relaxed than usual, in that we did about 200 miles per day and we took a full day in Guerrero Negro, and that worked out well.
The Interceptor in Baja’s wine country along the Antigua Ruta del Vino south of Ensenada. I think the Enfield is a perfect motorcycle. I thoroughly enjoyed our Baja ride on it, and I’m planning to buy one for myself. The spirit of the British vertical twin is alive and well in this fine machine. I’ll point out a few nits in this article, but folks, trust me on this: This is an amazing motorcycle.
When I was a teenager and LBJ was in the White House, my standard against which all motorcycles were judged was the 1965 Triumph Bonneville. To me, that represented the ultimate motorcycle, and to this day, it’s what I think of when people start talking about the perfect motorcycle. It’s what came to mind when Royal Enfield announced the 650 Interceptor. I think 650 cubic centimeters is a good size for a motorcycle. I think a British vertical twin is the perfect vehicle (to borrow a phrase from good buddy Melissa Pierson). And I know that Baja is the best place on the planet for a motorcycle trip. That’s why I wanted to get the new Enfield and ride it through Baja. The perfect bike on the perfect ride. I predicted it would be a great trip. I was right.
Originally, we wanted to get two Interceptors, but they weren’t available. Enfield countered with an offer of two 500cc singles. Okay, we thought, that would do, and we realized it was a gutsy move on Enfield’s part to lend the bikes to us. Then that same dealer we’ve been so disappointed in couldn’t seem to get around to getting the bikes ready for us, and the plan shifted to an Interceptor and a Bullet. Even better, thought Gresh and I, and we were off, headed south into Baja. The two different bikes would make for an interesting contrast.
It’s a funny thing; we thought the story would focus primarily on the newer bike (the Interceptor), but the Bullet proved to be a fun and interesting motorcycle (like Gresh mentioned in his blog below). Don’t get me wrong; the Interceptor is an amazing machine. In fact, I’d say it was perfect. But it was almost too good (and I’ll get to that further along in this post).
Back in the day when I was a youngster dreaming about owning a Triumph Bonneville, I only knew one guy who rode an original Royal Enfield twin. That was Ricky Stang, a guy I knew in high school (go Vikings). Everyone else who rode was either on a Triumph or a Honda. Ricky had this amazing Enfield 750 with an all-chrome gas tank. He was (and still is) a cool guy. How cool, you might wonder? Well, he bought a Mustang car and modified the emblems by chopping off the M and the U, so his car said STANG (Ricky’s last name). That’s how we rolled back in the ‘60s.
Okay, back to the main attraction: The 2019 Royal Enfield Interceptor. Let’s start with the basics. It’s a 650cc vertical twin, just like my dream bike, the ’65 Triumph Bonneville. The Enfield brochure (downloadable on the Internet) puts the “kerb” weight at 202 kg (that’s 445 lbs; the ’65 Bonneville was 363 lbs), the wheelbase at 1400mm (that’s 55 inches, just like the ’65 Bonneville), and the horsepower at 47 (the ’65 Bonneville had 50). The new Enfield has a 6-speed transmission (the ’65 Bonneville had a 4-speed). Hmm, the right displacement and the right dimensions. The Enfield weighed a bit more, but the ’65 Bonneville didn’t have disk brakes front and rear, ABS, electric start, turn signals, an oil cooler, or catalytic converters.
The Enfield engine is magnificent. It is very torquey, and on our Baja foray I never felt like I was undergunned. The exhaust note is perfect (it sounds like a real motorcycle). The engine is extremely smooth. It didn’t seem to care what gear I was in; I could just roll on the throttle and the bike responded. In fact, a lot of times I’d be riding along thinking I was in 6th gear only to discover that the bike was in 5th or even 4th. It is that smooth. And a lot of times while climbing mountains in Baja’s Valle de los Cirios, I didn’t have to bother downshifting. Twist and go. Cool. We had the bike weighed down with lots of gear on our Baja trip; the Enfield didn’t seem to care. The engine is a 4-valve per cylinder, single overhead cam design, but the Enfield folks somehow managed to pull off the styling such that it looks a lot like the original overhead valve Enfield design of the 1960s (kudos for that). It is a good-looking and brilliantly-performing motor.
Perhaps the best-looking engine in the business, this SOHC, 4-valves-per-cylinder motor strongly resembles the 1960s Enfield OHV motor. The left side engine cases make it look like a non-unit-construction engine. Well done, Enfield!
The bike never felt heavy to me. The Enfield carries its weight low and it felt light and quick everywhere. Yeah, on paper it’s 80 lbs heavier than the ’65 Bonneville. It didn’t feel like it, though. It feels good.
Enfield’s spec sheet says the bike is air-and-oil cooled, and there’s a non-obtrusive oil cooler mounted on the frame downtubes. The engine looks perfect. It’s nicely finned and you can see the thing. The exhaust system is a work of art. The mufflers are nicely shaped megaphones and brilliantly plated, and the exhaust header curvature is perfect. (Why is the word “perfect” emerging so frequently in this report?) I’m guessing the headers are a “pipe in a pipe” arrangement, as the pipes exhibited no heat discoloration. The clamps securing the exhaust headers to the cylinder head are neatly finned gizmos, just like Triumph had in the ’60s. Both sides of the engine have beautiful cases. Gresh commented that the engine’s left side cases were fashioned to make it look like the bike had separate engine and transmission cases, as Enfield had in days of yore. The Enfield guys got it right. I am impressed.
A magnificent exhaust system. The curvature of the pipes and the upswept cans are perfect.If we had any, Gresh and I could comb our hair in those engine cases.
Gresh mentioned in an earlier blog that he reached 115 mph in 5th gear and 110 mph in 6th, confirming that 6th is really an overdrive. I never took the bike over 80; it would do it, I just didn’t want to. I found the bike stable at any speed. Fuel economy is outstanding. When we took delivery of the bike, it had 847 miles on the odometer and Joe measured 60 mpg on the first tank. On our last tank, with another 1300 miles on the bike, it returned 70 mpg. It never used any oil on our trip.
The headlight is a big chrome affair, just like Triumph (and basically all the British manufacturers) used to do. The beam was good, too. It lit up the street nicely.
The bike has a single disk in front and another in the rear. Both are ABS equipped. There’s no provision that we could see to turn the ABS off. Joe slammed the rear brake on a dirt road, and you could see where the ABS activated on and off in the bike’s track. The brakes are good. I never used them hard enough to activate the ABS feature, and that was okay by me.
The fuel tank is nicely contoured with a teardrop shape (it looks like a motorcycle gas tank should). Fuel capacity is 13.7 liters (that converts to 3.6 gallons). The tank emblems are gorgeous, although there was a very slight curvature mismatch where the leading edge of the emblem interfaced with the tank. That’s my inner motojournalist kicking in. I had to find something negative to say about the bike, and folks, this is one of very few nits I had with the bike. Yeah, I’m being picky. The gas cap is of the locking variety (it unlocks with the ignition key), and the cap is not hinged on the tank. You take it completely off when refilling. The bike ran equally well on regular or premium, and we mostly ran on regular because that’s all we could get once we went further into Baja.
The badging is magnificent. No funky cheap decals here.Picky, picky, picky…there’s a slight curvature mismatch at the front of the tank emblems. It was consistent on both sides of the tank.
Here’s another nit: Joe and I both felt the left side of the bike is crowded around the footpeg. The gearshift is a little too close (I guess it could be adjusted upward, and I’d like the lever to be a little longer). The extensions for the kickstand and the centerstand extend far enough outside the bike and they are close enough to the footpeg that putting your foot down is a bit challenging. I didn’t like that all of that stuff (the gearshift, the footpeg, the kickstand extension, and the centerstand extension) stuck as far out as they did, and I had to think about where I put my foot down more than I do on other motorcycles. On the plus side, shifting was slick and effortless, there was no clunking, and the bike almost changed gears telepathically (it was that smooth). Getting the kickstand down was easy with the long extension, and pulling the bike up on the centerstand was also easy. Enfield provides a nice handhold on the left side of the bike for that purpose.
Things are crowded on the left side of the bike, and I had to be careful putting my left foot down.The shift lever was a little too low and a little too close to the left footpeg.
I’d call the instrumentation perfect (ah, there’s that word again). As I mentioned in one of the first blogs we did on the Interceptor, Enfield captured the essence of the big old Smiths instruments that used to adorn British bikes back in the ’60s. The bike has a digital, bar-based fuel gage in the left pod, an analog speedo and tach, high beam and turn signal indicators, an ABS light, and an odometer and two tripmeters. Stated differently, it has all the good stuff you need and none of the stuff you don’t. The tripmeter reset was a pushbutton between the speedo and tach. I found the tripmeter reset a little hard to actuate, but I haven’t been hitting the gym lately.
Perfect instrumentation, in my opinion. The chrome crossbar is a little cheesy.
The horn on this bike is loud. It sounds like a European automobile horn. I liked that.
On the bodywork, everything looks great. The tank, as mentioned above, is is nicely shaped and the metalflake tangerine color is stunning. The Interceptor’s fenders are nicely shaped, a bit abbreviated (which I like), silver in color, and plastic, all of which is fine by me. The bike has a deep gloss black tubular double downtube frame, and that answers the mail nicely for a refined and classic Britbike look. The seat is long, not overly cushy, flat, and comfortable (it has a cable-actuated release accessible under the right body panel). The side covers work, too. I like that they are black. It fits the overall look nicely.
The handlebar switchgear is the same as the Bullet, which is the same as the CSC motorcycles, which is the same as 90% of the motorcycles sold today. Somewhere, there’s a single factory making handlebar switchgear for everyone. My guess is that factory has a Chongqing zip code. It all works nicely. The turn signals are not self-cancelling. The clutch and front brake levers (forgive me, Joe Gresh) fell easily to hand and were light to operate. One more minor nit: Joe noticed that the front brake left was shaped such that it had a minor drag against the right handlebar switchgear housing, and that this slight drag prevented the brake lever from returning all the way to the forward position (you could touch the front brake lever with your fingers to make it go all the forward). We probably could have adjusted that interference out by repositioning the front brake lever on the handlebar, but we did not. It’s a nit that will almost certainly be gone when the bikes go into production for the US market. Joe liked the handlebar crossbar; I thought it was the only thing on the bike that looked cheap. I think it would have been better if it was an integral part of the handlebar, as Janus does on their Gryffin model and CSC does on the TT250.
Standard switchgear on the left handlebar.Standard switchgear on the right handlebar, too.There was a slight bit of interference between the switchgear housing and the front brake lever in the area denoted by the yellow arrow.
The front suspension is not adjustable, and if you have been following the ExNotes Enfield Baja blog, you know that’s okay by me. The rear suspension is adjustable for preload. As delivered to us, the rear shocks were set to a medium position. Our bike, being a preproduction prototype, did not have a tool kit, so there was no spanner to make any rear shock adjustments. You can see from some of our photos that we had the Interceptor loaded heavily with our gear and soft luggage, and I managed to bottom out the rear suspension a couple of times. No big deal. Suspension travel is about what’s needed on a street bike. The wheels are 18-inchers front and rear.
Silver fenders, unpainted wire wheels, and Pirelli tires. It all came together for a crisp, responsive, good-looking motorcycle.The rear carries 130/70-18 tires. The bike rides and handles well.
Our Enfield benefactor told us that officially the bike is to be known as the 650 INT, as the Interceptor name had some issues. I’m guessing that’s because a certain other motorcycle uses that name today (hint: that motorcycle is usually red). Ah, whatever. It seems to me that Enfield of yore (in the UK Enfield days) used the Interceptor name long before you met those nicest people on a…well, you know. And then, of course, there was the Ford Interceptor, the name the Blue Oval guys stuck on their police cruisers. So I thought I might help Enfield by suggesting a few other names. My first idea was that maybe they could call this bike the Kool Long Range 650 to honor our 1300-mile Baja adventure and the bike’s displacement, but that would abbreviate to KLR 650, and…well, you know. Another idea was that because the bike has electric starting and it is such a smooth ride, we could call it the Electra-Glide, but…well, you know. And then, because it is so well balanced and tractable with its torquey motor, we might call it the Go Slow, but that becomes GS, and I think someone is already using those initials. The tank badges are kind of gold in color and shaped like a wing, so maybe Gold Wing would work (is that already taken?). Maybe, because of where the bike is manufactured, we could just call it the Indian. What’s that? That name is already taken, too? It’s tough, I guess, naming a new bike.
Overall, I am extremely impressed with the new Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor. So much so, that I’m going to buy one if (as I mentioned in an earlier blog) I can convince the dealer that I’m not stupid and I’m not subsidizing their freight and setup fantasies. At first blush, one of the dealers told me freight and setup on this bike would be $1200. Uh huh. Look, I know that you can ship a bike anywhere in the lower 48 states for something around $350 (and that’s a max number; if you’re shipping it to a closer state it’s a lot less, and if you’re shipping several, the rates drop even more). Setup on this bike probably involves installing the mirrors, maybe the handlebars, and the front wheel, and all that should take under an hour. I don’t know why the dealers persist in this gouge-the-customer-for-freight-and-setup larceny. Well, I take that back. I do know. I just don’t like it, and I won’t pay it. A realistic freight and setup cost (to the dealer) is most likely below $350, and with a reasonable profit that number would go a little higher. But not $1200. No way, no how.
Okay, off the soapbox and back to the bike. I think the Enfield 650 is one of the best motorcycles I’ve ever ridden. It’s light, it’s smooth, it’s fast, it handles well, it gets good fuel economy, and the fit and finish are world class. It’s almost too good, in that maybe it doesn’t have the character or personality of the Bullet, or a 1965 Triumph Bonneville. But that’s a trade I’d make. Enfield hit a home run with the Interceptor. I think it’s perfect.
Everything Joe Berk has written about the Bullet’s shaky performance on our Baja tour is true, but like our President’s spokeswoman has said, there are alternative facts in addition to real facts.
The first alternative fact is that motorcycle reliability is highly over-rated. For me, being broken down on the side of the road with the Bullet is much more preferable to gliding by silently on a plastic-encased, soulless appliance. Some of the funniest, most enjoyable times on our ride were when the Bullet did something strange requiring me and Berk to use our brains and not just our wallets. Besides, most of the Bullet’s issues were easily resolved with a hammer or by burning some sage (except for the chain and sprocket wearing out), and we were back on the road in a matter of minutes.
Another fact I dispute is the 70 miles-per-hour top speed of the Bullet. I swear I saw 80 miles per hour plus on the run down California’s busy Highway 15 and we were staying with traffic just fine. The Bullet may have gone even faster but I was in no mood to tuck in. Anyway, if you want speed a used Suzuki ‘Busa will set you back 3 to 5 thousand dollars and you’ll have all the speed you can stand.
The bike was a bit bent up in the rear. Not knowing the history we didn’t know if it had been dropped at some point or if the factory jigs put a twist into the operation from Day One. The Bullet’s steel kickstand was easy to bend so I offered to straighten out the rear frame but Berk felt we might just cause other problems in the process. I’m guessing other Bullets are not so crooked.
Even though the exciting new Royal Enfield 650 was supposed to be our focus on this Baja trip, the Bullet dominated the conversation and our thoughts. Good or bad, that’s a sign of an interesting motorcycle. Do I like the Bullet better than the new 650? Oh, hell no! I love the 650 and would buy one, but if you prefer the Bullet with all its faults you’re my kind of motorcyclist.
You might wonder why the first photo in a blog about the Royal Enfield Bullet is a CSC TT250. Let me explain. That guy in the photo above is good buddy Dan, with whom I’ve ridden in Baja a couple of times on the CSC trips (once on TT250s, and the other time on the RX3s). Dan is the only guy I know who owns an Enfield Bullet, and before I go into the good, the bad, and the ugly regarding my Bullet experience, I called him to get his take on the bike. Dan has owned his Bullet since 2013, it’s the fuel injected model (like the one I rode), and he has 7500 miles on it. Lest you think Dan doesn’t ride much, he owns several motorcycles, and that’s why he only has 7500 miles on his Enfield.
Dan told me his Bullet has been trouble free, but he also told me he is fastidious in maintaining it and he is a conservative rider. Dan said things vibrate loose and you have to keep an eye on that, but his bike has never broken down, it’s never had any electrical issues (like the missing and stumbling Joe Gresh and I experienced on the entire Baja trip), and he likes the bike. That’s good input, and it’s what I hoped I would hear.
For reasons I’ll explain later, I asked Dan about the rear sprocket and chain maintenance, and he laughed. “It’s the only thing I was going to mention,” Dan said. He replaced his rear sprocket at 7500 miles, and he is a fanatic about chain maintenance and lubrication. More on that in a bit, folks.
Another bit of background up front. Royal Enfield North America was kind enough to lend Joe and I a Bullet. Our particular bike was a 2016 press bike that had been stored at a dealer for some time (not Southern California Motorcycles, but another Enfield dealer), and when we received it, it was in a state of extreme neglect. I won’t go into that in detail (you can read about it in a prior blog); I’ll just mention it again and touch on it a few times through this post. The Enfield Bullet is an old school bike and it requires maintenance; this one had essentially none and it put a damper on our trip. I wanted to love the bike and write great things about it; the condition of the bike made that difficult.
This is what a motorcycle is supposed to look like.Joe Gresh on a Royal Enfield Bullet in Baja. Life is good.
With that as a backdrop, let’s get into a detailed review.
I think the Bullet is a beautiful motorcycle. It has a look I just love. It screams 1950s, it screams British, and I love the feel and sound of a big single. The black paint and chrome work for me. The pinstriping is superb, and I found a video that shows how Royal Enfield does it…
The centerpiece of any motorcycle has to be the engine, and on this count, the Bullet excels. That beautiful, tall, exquisitely-finned single and its polished cases can only be described as stunning. It’s what a motorcycle is all about. No water-cooled, take-the-fairings-off-and-I-look-like-a-washing-machine silliness here. Nope. This is a motorcycle, with the accent on motor. I love the look.
A motorcycle with a motor you can see!
The Bullet’s fenders are enormous, deeply-valanced metal structures. They have a very 1950s look, which I like. No plastic here, folks. Curiously, the rear fender was not centered on the rear tire when viewed from behind. The wheels were aligned and the bike tracked true. My take is that the tolerance build up and assembly technique allowed the mismatch. My old 1978 Triumph Bonneville suffered from the same cosmetic issue.
Deeply valanced and all metal…no mud is going to splash up on this puppy!The rear fender is similarly deep and serious. Check out the support bars running from the fender to the frame. It’s a good place to attach bungee cords. Note also the stepped seat. It was hard, but comfortable. Check out the rear drum brake (the newer ones have disk brakes front and rear, and ABS).See the rear fender and seat bias to the left? The tires were aligned and the bike tracked true. This bike started life at Southern California Motorcycles and I wished it had been delivered by them (it would have been in much better shape). Our bike had been kept at another California Enfield dealer.
The front brake is good. It’s a disk brake and it stops well. The rear brake on the 2016 model I rode was a drum brake, which was adequate but not great. The newer Enfield 500s have ABS and a disk brake in back. I didn’t attempt to get the brakes to fade. That sort of whackadoodle stuff is best left to the mainstream moto media journalists as they flog bikes and overuse catchy phrases like “the controls fell easily to hand…” (that’s Gresh’s line; I wished I had thought of it). The brakes worked fine for us.
The Bullet comes with a decent tool kit (that’s the good news), which we actually had to use several times in Baja (that’s the bad news). It’s stored in a key-locked metal container on the left side of the bike. There’s a similar key-locked metal container on the right, and it provides access to the air cleaner.
The tool kit and the fuse box are inside the ignition-key-opened box on the left side of the bike.The air cleaner is in in the locked container on the right side of the bike.
There’s another key-locked metal cover on the left side of the bike covering the battery, and that’s another good news story. The battery is big, and the terminals are accessible even with the cover on. That makes good sense. On our press bike, the battery was shot when we received the bike (we didn’t know that before we left for Mexico, though) and we had to buy a new battery in Guerrero Negro. We bought it at a tiny shop tucked away on a dirt road, and as you can imagine they didn’t stock Royal Enfield parts. We bought one that was close enough in size to go into the bike (but we couldn’t put the battery cover back on after installation). It worked just fine. Like they say, halitosis is better than no breath at all.
The Bullet has a kick starter. It looks cool, but the big single is tough to kick over. Both Gresh and I failed to start the bike with the kick start. I view the kick starter as more ornamental than functional. The electric starter works well, although our bike would go through several crankshaft rotations before it fired up. It was kind of like starting an old radial-engine airplane. It would get the engine turning, somewhere in there a little British chap yelled CONTACT, and then the engine would run on its own.
The wheels and tires on the Enfield are another old school touch. They’re both 19 inchers, with a 3.25×19 in front and 3.50×19 in the rear. Both have old-school tread designs. Both felt secure on the road and in the dirt, their narrow treads notwithstanding.
The Bullet’s 3.25×19 front tire.The Bullet’s 3.50×19 rear tire.
The fuel cap was not attached to the fuel tank, and it was the kind you completely unscrew. The Enfield website says the Bullet’s fuel tank holds 3.5 gallons. On the long stretch from Catavina to the Pemex station 20 miles north of Guerrero Negro (a distance of exactly 110 miles) the low fuel light indicator was just starting to flicker about 100 yards shy of the gas station. I don’t know for sure how many miles are left when that happens, but with a published capacity of 3.5 gallons, I suspect that like most fuel injected bikes, the low fuel light comes on early. Motorcycle manufacturers do that to keep the fuel pump immersed in fuel (it’s how the fuel pump is cooled). The Bullet’s fuel economy was superior. Gresh got just over 75 mpg riding it down to the border, and I got 72.something riding it north from the border. With that kind of fuel economy, I’m guessing that when the low fuel light comes on there’s still a good two gallons left in the tank.
At first, I thought the Bullet’s horn was tragic. It bleated like a baby lamb (sitting on the motorcycle, I could hear it, but no one else could). Then the battery died, and like I explained above, by the grace of God we found a useable replacement in Guerrero Negro. With the new battery the horn flat out honked. It’s a good horn, one that speaks with the authority a proper 500cc thumper should have.
The Bullet’s horn works well with a good battery.
Instrumentation can only be described as primitive. Adequate would be stretching the word. There’s a speedometer and an odometer, but no tripmeter. There’s no tach, but the engine speeds were low enough that you could almost calculate rpm by counting thumps and using a wristwatch. There’s a fuel warning light but no fuel gage. That makes for dicey riding. You either have to hope the fuel warning light leaves enough range to make the next gas station (very dicey in parts of Baja), or you need to remember the odometer reading when you last filled up (very dicey at my age), or you need to ride with someone who has a trip meter on their bike (very dicey unless you know people in high places in Royal Enfield North America, like I do). There’s a check engine light (which is kind of funny, because like I explained at the beginning, this motorcycle is all motor…yep, the engine’s there alright!), there’s a turn signal indicator (which I never could see in the daytime), there’s a high beam indicator (can’t see it in the daytime), and there’s a neutral light (same story, you just can’t see it during the day). One other mild concern for me was that when I cruised between 55 and 65 mph (the Enfield’s sweet spot), the speedo needle obscures the odometer and I could not tell how far I’d ridden when I tried to use the odometer as a fuel gage.
The ignition switch has two positions (on and off). It’s labeled “IGNITION” just in case you don’t get it. Speedo, odo, neutral, high beam, turn signals, check engine, low fuel, and that’s it. The neutral light is actually on in this photo.
The Bullet has both a centerstand and a kickstand, and it was easy to deploy both. On our ride, after the third day I was sure the bike was leaning more to the left than it had been on the kickstand. Gresh looked at it and he started laughing. It sure was. The thing leaned further left than Bernie Sanders. The sidestand and the left footpeg are bolted to a metal plate, which is in turn bolted to the frame. That plate was bending. Gresh deployed the sidestand and stood on it, which bent the mounting plate back to a more reasonable position. We thought we were good until the bike died on the road a short while later. It didn’t start missing or stumbling this time; it just died as if someone had turned the ignition off. Here’s why: The kickstand actuates a “kickstand down” switch, which prohibits engine operation if the kickstand is extended (sort of; bear with me on this part of the story).
We had another failure the morning we left Guerrero Negro, and it was one of those sudden “ignition off” failures. Joe unbolted the kickstand interlock switch by the side of the road out there in the Baja desert and we did a quick test to find out if the switch needs to be open or closed to allow engine operation. We quickly concluded it is a normally-closed switch, and then we simply ziptied the switch to the frame after removing it from the kickstand mounting plate. From that point on, our easy-to-fool Bullet thought the kickstand was always up. Problem solved; no more engine sudden death syndrome. Yeah, things were going south, but in its defense, problems on the Bullet are easy to diagnose and fix.
Joe Gresh, inflight missile mechanic.The plate holding the kickstand and the right footpeg. The bad news it bends easily. The good news is it bends easily back. More bad news is that bending it back into position disrupted the relationship between the kickstand interlock switch and the kickstand. More good news is that it was easy to bypass.The kickstand interlock switch, ziptied to the frame after removal. No more engine shutting off.
The plate securing the kickstand is either underdesigned (i.e., it’s too weak), or the metal was improperly heat treated and it’s too soft. In the bike’s defense, I was carrying about 50-60 lbs of stuff in my Wolfman bags and Nelson-Rigg tailpack, and I have a habit of standing on the left footpeg and throwing my right leg over the luggage when I get on a bike. That puts a strain on the kickstand and its mount. But that’s a likely scenario for any rider, and the bike should have been able to take it without the kickstand mounting plate bending.
One more thing on the kickstand switch…the logic is weird. With the bike on the sidestand, you can crank the engine all you want. It just won’t fire. Consequently, you can’t idle the bike to let it warm up on the kickstand (if the bike is running, as soon as you extend the kickstand, the engine dies). But you can crank the starter with the bike on the kickstand. I think that’s dumb, because it will allow you to propel the bike forward on the kickstand if the bike is in gear. On most bikes, with the kickstand down you can’t crank or run the motorcycle. That’s how I would do it, but then, I don’t sell a zillion bikes a year like Royal Enfield does, so what do I know?
I found the Bullet to be surprisingly comfortable, more so even than the Interceptor and most other motorcycles. The seat was hard and the step in it prevents moving around during long hours in the saddle, but the ergonomics worked for me. Gresh said the same thing. The bike doesn’t have a fairing or a windshield, but it was supremely comfortable at any speed.
Suspension, front and rear, is non-adjustable on the Bullet. It’s not an issue for me. Stack 20 mattresses, put a pea underneath the mess, and I can’t tell you if that pea is there or not. For me, adjustable suspension is the same sort of thing. I think the entire concept of adjustable suspension for most folks is a joke (particularly suspension dampening), little more than a marketing gimmick. I’ve had bikes with adjustable suspension that I rode for years and I never changed the factory suspension settings. Your mileage may vary. I don’t know the suspension travel, but whatever it is, I found it to be sufficient. I carried a lot of freight on the Bullet over roughly 1300 Baja miles and I never bottomed out.
The Bullet’s top speed was somewhere in the indicated 72-73 mph range. The bike had enough power for passing, but just barely. Again, for the kind of riding I do, it was adequate. On the US freeways down to Mexico, we ran at about 60-65 mph, we stuck to the right lane, and we were fine. Enfield advertises 27 horsepower for this motorcycle, and that figure sounds about right. My 250cc Zongshen RX3 has 25 horsepower, it’s a little lighter, and it’s a little faster. But I recognize that nobody buys the 500cc Enfield to race other motorcycles. I suspect the people who buy this bike don’t care about 0-60 times or top speeds. It’s all about the vintage riding experience, and in that regard, the Enfield excels.
The Bullet frame is a massive tubular steel affair, like they made them when men were men and well, you get the idea. On some of the rear portions of the frame, the tube diameter was so large my bungee cord hooks wouldn’t fit. The Bullet has these sort of frame runners that go outside the bike on either side in the rear; those were very handy for bungee cord hookups.
On the ride home, with 20 miles to go at the end of our trip, the Bullet started misbehaving big time. It was clanking and banging, so much so that I initially thought I had thrown a rod or toasted a main bearing. Nope, it wasn’t that at all. We hit a bit of rain, and even though we had lubed the chain that morning and found it to be sufficiently tight, it was bone dry from the rain and it was hopping over the rear sprocket. The chain was already rusty, and the rear sprocket teeth were rounded and hooked. In under 3500 miles. Amazing. That’s what my good buddy Dan laughed about when I called him earlier. His take on it is that Enfield uses a very cheap and soft rear sprocket. That and the neglectful dealer’s lack of maintenance on our Bullet combined to toast the chain, the rear sprocket, and probably the front sprocket. In defense of the Bullet, it got me home, but the last few miles of our trip were at 10 mph or less.
As I stated at the beginning of this blog, and as Joe and I talked about in previous blogs, the dealer who had this bike did nothing we could see to maintain it, and they certainly did nothing to prep the bike for our Baja trip. When the Bullet was delivered, the oil was a quart down, the chain was rusty, the spark plug wire and lead were corroded, and the battery was on its last legs. Before the bike was delivered, I called the dealer to ask if the Bullet had a tool kit, and the salesperson I spoke with became defensive. Like Steve Martin used to say, well, excuuuuse me. The bike was a press bike, and it probably was abused by others writing about, you know, the controls falling easily to hand and such (and maybe doing burnouts and wheelies), but there was just no excuse for the bike to be delivered in the condition it was in. It only had 2264 miles on the odometer when we got it. Royal Enfield was apologetic and embarrassed by all of it; the dealer should be ashamed. I think that was a major screwup on their part. Maybe they just don’t care, or perhaps they’re too busy finding new ways to inflate ADM fees and overcharge for desmodromic valve adjustments. Whatever. I’ll never buy a motorcycle from them. On the other hand, the dealer who provided the Interceptor (Southern California Motorcycles) delivered that bike in perfect condition. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
The Bullet dealer’s failure to prep the 500 was unfortunate. I really wanted to love the thing and maybe buy one, but I can’t after what we experienced. That’s a shame. The Bullet reminded me of my ’92 Harley Softail in many ways. It was a paint-shaker at speed, it was okay on the freeway, it excelled on country roads, and it looked, felt, and sounded like a motorcycle should.
The last topic I’ll touch on is the Bullet’s pricing. For whatever reason, I thought the Bullet’s MSRP was around $4795, but I was off by nearly a thousand bucks. A new Enfield 500 is $5599, and that’s before the fiction dealers call freight and setup. A new 650 Interceptor is $5799. To me, that’s nuts. For an extra two hundred bucks, the Interceptor is just too much motorcycle to pass up. Maybe Enfield is going to phase out the 500. Or maybe the Bullet just costs that much to make (which I think is very, very unlikely, as any Bullet tooling or other fixed costs were probably amortized before most of the folks reading this were born). I like the Bullet enough to consider going the Joe Gresh route (you know, buy a used one for cheap). But a nationwide search on CycleTrader showed almost no used Bullets for sale, and the few that were listed were close enough to a new bike’s price that their owners (in my opinion) were dreaming. Go figure. I guess folks who own these bikes just don’t sell them, and I think that speaks well for the bike.
You might be wondering…why did we take a 2016 Bullet instead of a 2019 new Enfield 500? Hey, you go to war with the Army you have, and the 2016 Bullet is what the good folks at Royal Enfield North America gave to us. I don’t know if some of the things I’m writing about have been addressed in newer versions. Maybe it’s not fair to do a road test on a bike that’s already 3 years old, but if there’s any unfairness here, it’s in the fact that the bike was just flat neglected, and that’s something we had no control over.
So there you have it. Neglected or not, the Bullet got us down to Guerrero Negro and back, and it took us to see our friends in Scammon’s Lagoon. The whale watching this year was awesome…some of the best I’ve ever experienced.
Next up? Our take on the new Interceptor. That’s really exciting, both because it’s a new model and to my knowledge we are the first folks in the US to take the new 650 Enfield on a real adventure ride.
When I saw the first photographs of Royal Enfield’s new 650 twin the bike seemed perfect. 650 vertical twins have owned the sweet-spot of cool long before McQueen bashed them around the desert and they are still an ideal size and configuration for all around use. Unfortunately the latest vertical twin offerings from other motorcycle manufacturers have sprouted slow-moving tumorous pistons, lost their summer beach-bodies and become uselessly complex. The whole situation kind of put me on edge. I was actually a bit angry: “Royal Enfield better not screw this up,” I mumbled to my cat.
At one time I owned a 1973 BMW R75/5 motorcycle. I traded 1300 dollars and a 1957 small-window VW van for the BMW. The good points about the bike were the suspension and the weight. For a 750cc the bike was lightweight and the thing had plenty of fork travel so it worked pretty good off road. The bad part was the charging system. I never could get the damn thing to electric start due to the battery being low. At the time I tried everything I knew to fix it but the little red discharge light was on constantly.
Everything Joe Berk has written about the Bullet’s shaky performance on our Baja tour is true, but like our President’s spokeswoman has said, there are alternative facts in addition to real facts.
