Royal Enfield 650cc Twin: First Real Ride

I finally spent some quality time on the Royal Enfield 650 today. We rode from Tecate to San Quintin, Mexico through the Ruta del Vin0 and Ensenada. My initial impressions have been reinforced. Royal Enfield nailed it with the 650 twin.

The bike scoots along feeling fresh and light all day. In top gear 4000-ish RPM moved the bike along at 60 miles per hour, 4600-ish was 70 miles per hour and 80 miles per hour saw the steady tach needle planted at 5000 RPM give or take a few.

I don’t know what RE claims for horse power but sitting bolt upright and letting the thing rip led to a 7500 rev-limited RPM @ 115 miles per hour (indicated) in 5th gear while 6th gear topped out around 110 MPH at lower revs (7000? I was too busy to get the exact number).

Unlike an old, torsion-bar Honda 450 twin that would rev high but never seemed to enjoy it, the Royal Enfield 650 twin loves to rev and it feels like the 7500 RPM rev limit could easily be exceeded by another 1500-2000 rpm before any self induced porting restrictions came into play. There must be a wire that needs cutting somewhere.

All in, this bike is plenty fast for me as I don’t plan to do street racing anymore. I’m too mature for that crap.

The Meteor (I’m trying to get RE to rename the bike) ) 650’s transmission shifted crisply all day long and in heavy stop and go traffic it didn’t get crotchety. 5th and 6th gear are close enough that I found myself sometimes running a gear down at cruising speed. The engine is so smooth and quiet it’s best to give the lever an additional tug, you may have another gear to go.

Pulling in the clutch started to feel a little sticky, kind of segmented, so I gave the pivot to cable connection a squirt of lube and the lever was smooth again.

The bike has ABS brakes and the front lever needs a strong pull to get maximum stoppage. There’s only one disc but for me it stopped well enough. If you’re the kind of rider that enjoys standing a bike in its nose you may want a bit more front brake. The rear brake must be ok because I never noticed it.

After a full day of riding the Royal Enfield 650 twin has done nothing to diminish my initial enthusiasm. It looks so good and really runs great. It’s shocking that the same company that builds the retro Bullet made such a sweet machine. This is a cool bike, make no mistake.