Category: Royal Enfield

The Enfield Baja Adventure

Shortly before the pandemic began, Uncle Joe and yours truly borrowed two Royal Enfields from Royal Enfield North America and toured Baja.  One was the new 650 Interceptor, and I liked it so much I bought one when I came home.  The other was a 500cc Bullet, and, well, you might want to read the blogs to understand how we felt about it.  Truth be told, the Bullet was probably better than we perceived it to be (that was because the dealer did a half-assed job prepping it for us).  Nah, that’s not fair (it implies the dealer did half of what he should have).  But there’s no expression for 10%-assed, and even that might be giving the dealer too much credit.  But I don’t want to spoil the story for you.  You can get to the Enfield adventures here.

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Enfield 650 Valve Adjustment

This blog explains how to adjust the valves on a Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor.   This was the first valve adjustment my motorcycle has had, and it occurred at the 500-mile mark.  The first valve adjustment is an important one, as decreases in the valve gap will typically be more severe as the engine is breaking in.  For the record, though, on my bike’s eight valves only one was slightly tight (and that was one of the intake valves).  The other seven were pretty much where they were supposed to be, but I loosened the adjusters and readjusted them just to see if any were difficult to access or if they would give me any problems.  Accessibility was superb and the adjustments were all easy to make.

Like most threaded adjuster valve adjustments, 90% of the job is just taking away or loosening the stuff you need to get at the valves (and then putting it all back on the bike).  On the Enfield, that’s the right side body panel, the seat, the fuel tank and its connections, an electrical subassembly between the upper frame rails, and the valve cover.  The actual valve adjustment only takes a few minutes.

You’ll need several tools for this job.  Here’s the list:

      • Feeler gage.
      • 17mm socket.
      • 8mm socket.
      • 10mm socket.
      • Sparkplug socket.
      • 14mm Allen drive.
      • 4mm Allen drive.
      • Ratchet with extensions.
      • 10mm wrench.
      • Flat blade screwdriver.

Because I’m an old fart and a pack rat, I had everything I needed except for the 14mm Allen drive (that was one I had to order on Amazon).  Odds are you already have most or all of this stuff already, too.  We tend to pick up oddball stuff over the years.  If you live on the Tinfiny Ranch, that includes stuff like lathes, concrete mixers, tillers, old MGs, and more.  But the only tools you’ll need for adjusting the Enfield 650’s valves are what I listed above.

The other thing we need to do is make sure the engine is completely cool.  You can’t ride the motorcycle, shut it off, and then adjust the valves.  The engine needs to be cold.

Adjusting the valves sounds way more intimidating than it is.  I took a couple of hours to adjust the valves on my Enfield and this was the first time I did it.  On subsequent valve adjustments I’m guessing I’ll need less than an hour now that I know my way around the bike.  Dealers charge up to $581 for this job, which is kind of a joke when you consider the amount of time it takes (that is, if you think getting ripped off by a dealer is funny).  The dealers are counting on you being intimidated.  You shouldn’t be.  This is not a hard thing to do.

Start by putting your motorcycle on the center stand, as you see in the big photo at the top of this blog.   That makes getting to both the left side and the right side of the bike easier.

Use your ignition key to unlock the right side body panel.  It pivots out from the bottom and then pulls down, and that will take it off the bike.

Once the right side body panel has been removed, you’ll have access to the seat release (shown by the red arrow).  Pull it out and remove the motorcycle seat by sliding the seat to the rear.

The next step is to remove the two 10mm bolts securing the fuel tank to the frame.  This job is a lot easier if you run the fuel level down (it makes the tank lighter and easier to handle when you disconnect the two electrical connections and the three hoses underneath the tank).  I had mine on E, but there was still a fair amount of fuel in the tank.

Once the two bolts are removed, set them aside (not like you see here; put them someplace where you won’t lose them).  The tank will then slide to the rear.  Put a shop rag on the frame behind the tank so you won’t scratch anything.

As mentioned above, there are five things that have to be disconnected underneath the fuel tank so that you can remove it from the motorcycle.  As seen in the photo below, going counterclockwise from the upper left corner of the photo, these five things are:

      • An electrical connector to the fuel gage (the green connector).
      • A fuel vent line.
      • The fuel pump electrical connector (the yellow, red, and black connector).
      • Another fuel tank vent line.
      • The fuel hose (this is mated with a quick-disconnect fitting that stays on the fuel tank; it has a button you press to allow pulling the fuel hose off).

I show this on the motorcycle side of the equation.  It would have been a little tough to get a photo of the bottom of the tank.

Here’s another shot of the fuel hose quick disconnect male end (it stays with the motorcycle).

This is another shot of the fuel level gage electrical connector.

And here’s a photo of one of the fuel vent lines and the fuel pump electrical connector.

After tilting the tank up and disconnecting all five of the connections described above, remove the tank and place it on a cloth to prevent scratching.

At this point, disconnect the sparkplug leads and remove both sparkplugs.  We are going to crank the engine by hand, and we don’t want to have to fight the engine’s compression as we do so.

The next step is to remove the three Allen bolts that secure an electrical subassembly between the upper frame rails.  We don’t need to remove the subassembly; we just need it to be pushed up so that we can maneuver the valve cover out of the way (which, incidentally, I found to be the hardest part of the valve cover adjustment process).  Set the three Allen bolts aside in a secure location.

Next, remove the four 8mm bolts securing the valve cover.  Set them aside in a secure location.

Once the four valve cover bolts are out, you can remove the valve cover.  It will slide out on the left side of the motorcycle.  You’ll probably invent a few cuss words when doing this.  The valve cover is a tight fit between the cylinder head and the motorcycle frame’s upper rails (it’s why we loosened that electrical subassembly described above).  There’s a complicated and reuseable rubber gasket that seals the valve cover to the cylinder head.  Be careful not to nick the gasket when you’re sweet-talking the valve cover off the engine.

Once the valve cover is off the engine, you’ll have access to the valve adjusters.  As this is an eight-valve engine, there are four adjusters for each cylinder (two intake and two exhaust valves).  The four valves on the right side of the engine are shown below.

And these are the four valves on the left side of the motorcycle.

Here’s where you’ll need that 14mm Allen drive mentioned above.  It was the only tool I didn’t already have.  It was something like $6 on Amazon, and I now have two of them.   Amazon sent me an email a couple of days after I ordered the tool because they felt like they lost one in shipment so they shipped it again, and then two arrived in separate packages on the same day.  Don’t tell Amazon.  I’m keeping both.  Bezos can afford it.

Here’s the access port cover on the left side of the engine.

Remove the access port cover on the left side of the engine with the 14mm Allen drive.

Note that the access port cover is sealed with a rubber o-ring.  Don’t lose this part.

If you peek inside the access port, you’ll see a 17mm bolt head.  This is where the 17mm socket is used.  You can crank the engine by hand (always going counterclockwise, never clockwise) to bring the crank to a position where the valve being adjusted is not being lifted by the cam lobe.  This is known as getting the lifter on the cam’s base circle, and that’s what we want when we make the adjustment.

I had a feeler gage from way back tucked away in my tool cabinet.  If you don’t have one of these tools, they are available on Amazon.  We’ll need the 0.003 inch (or 0.076mm) feeler gage for the intake valve adjustment, and the 0.007 inch (or 0.178mm) feeler gage for the exhaust valve adjustment.  The intake valves are the ones on the rear of the engine (closest to the fuel injectors) and the exhaust valves are the ones on the front of the engine (closest to the exhaust headers).  I know.  Duh.

This valve adjusting business is done by feel with the use of the feeler gage.  I guess that’s why they call it a feeler gage.  You want to make the adjustment such that after you make it, there’s a slight drag on the gage as you move it back and forth between the valve stem and its actuator (you get the “feel” of this slight drag; hence the “feeler gage” name).

Enfield makes it easy to get the engine rotated to the right spot so that the lifter is on the cam’s base circle with a handy indicator located in the cylinder head.  It’s on the engine’s left side as shown in the photo below.  The indicator is marked with an L above a scribe line, and an R above a scribe line.

Turn the engine by hand with the 17mm socket (again, always counterclockwise, never clockwise) until the L and its scribe line are aligned with the line on the casting as shown below.   We want the L and its scribe line aligned with the corresponding line in the casting when we adjust the valves on the left side of the engine.  After we’ve adjusted the valves on the left side, we’ll want to do the same thing to get the R and its scribe line aligned with the line in the casting to adjust the valves on the right side of the engine.

When the crank is appropriately positioned (for the left side of the engine, as shown above), we are now ready to adjust the valves.

The actual valve adjustment is accomplished by loosening the bronze-colored valve stem lock nut with a 10mm wrench, then making the adjustment with a flat bladed screwdriver in the adjuster screw slot, while positioning the appropriate feeler gage blade between the adjuster and the valve stem.  This is what controls the gap between the adjuster and the vavle stem.  When the gap is what it’s supposed to be, lock the adjuster in place with the locknut.  We do this for both intake valves with the 0.003-inch blade, and both exhaust valves with the .007-inch blade.

After we’ve done the left side of the engine, we similarly rotate the crank to align the R index mark and then we adjust the valves on the right side of the engine.  The R has to be on the right side of the index plate so it reads right side up.

At this point, I rotate the engine two complete turns by hand and use the feeler gage to check the valve gap again.  If it’s not good I redo the above adjustments.  This is just a check.  For me, it’s always been good.

So, about that valve cover and the complicated seal between it and the cylinder head.  Here’s what it looks like from underneath.

Note that the seal is orientation sensitive.  It’s got a little half moon in the seal on the left side.   As mentioned above, getting the valve cover off was a challenge.  Getting it back in place with the seal properly positioned was even more of a challenge.  But neither steps were really that bad.  The good news is that this was the toughest part of the job, and it wasn’t that tough.

After you finish adjusting the valves, assembly is the reverse of disassembly.  There are three cautionary notes:

      • Use a shop rag or two on the motorcycle frame so you don’t scratch the frame or the fuel tank when you reinstall the fuel tank.
      • When you remake the fuel line quick disconnect, make sure you feel it click into position.  It’s possible to not fully make the connection, which could result in pressurized fuel being pumped out over your hot engine.  That would not be a good thing.
      • When you reinstall the valve cover, make sure the seal between it and the cylinder head is correctly positioned.  If it is not, oil will leak from this interface.

So there you have it.  For me, that’s $581 (what the closest Enfield dealer charges for a valve adjustment) going in the Baja kitty.  Or maybe the reloading components fund.  Whatever.  It’s not going into the dealer’s pocket, and that’s the point.

Enfield did a nice job engineering these bikes, I think, and they made the valve adjustment process straightforward.  It would have really been cool if the valve cover was designed so that it could be removed without taking the body panel, seat, and fuel tank off (like on an old airhead BMW or a Moto Guzzi), but hey, it is what it is, and what it is is way less complicated than most other modern motorcycles.  There’s also an argument to be made for hydraulic valves (which never require adjustment), but hydraulic lifters weigh a little more and don’t work well at high rpm.

More on Enfields?   Hey, read our series on taking two Enfields (a 650 and a Bullet) through Baja.  It’s what prompted me to buy my Enfield!

This idea on online maintenance tutorials was something we started at CSC Motorcycles with the RX3 250cc adventure touring platform introduction.  The market received it well and we had a lot of fun assembling the tutorials.  CSC was well ahead of the curve on this sort of thing and it is one of the many reasons their bikes have done so well.

An Enfield Oil Change

This blog is a maintenance tutorial on changing the Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor’s oil.  The Interceptor requires a motorcycle-specific 10W-50 synthetic oil.  Motorcycle-specific means that no friction reduction additives are in the oil.  If you use an automotive oil with friction reducers, the Enfield’s wet clutch will slip.

I bought Maxima oil online for this oil change (you can get it from CSC Motorcycles or from Amazon.com).  It’s the synthetic oil CSC uses in their motorcycles and it served me well in my RX3 and TT 250 (both of which are wet clutch motorcycles).

I changed the Enfield’s oil in my garage.  I usually leave the Enfield on its sidestand, but I put it on the centerstand for the oil change.

The bike should be straight and level for the oil change.  This will let the oil drain more completely and make the oil site glass reading more accurate.

I have an oil drain pan I’ve used for years, and it was put into service again for this Enfield oil change.  You can see the oil filter in the photo below; it mounts on the front center of the engine.

Removing the oil filter for the first oil change was a challenge.  It was put on way too tight at the factory.  I have an accumulation of oddball tools in my rollaround tool cabinet, and I found this oil filter wrench.  I have no idea when I bought it or where.  It’s been with me for decades.

Even with the oil filter wrench, getting the oil filter to unscrew was not easy.

The oil filter finally came off, and I allowed the oil to drain into the pan.

The oil drain plug is just to the right and below the oil filter mount (as you face the engine from the front).

I guessed it was a 13mm, and I guessed right.  It, too, had been installed way too tight.

When the plug comes out, you’ll notice it has a crush washer (which doesn’t really look like a crush washer) and a magnetic pickup that sits in the oil bath.  The intent of that oil pickup is to grab any bits of loose steel that float around in the oil during the break in process (and after that, too).

As mentioned above, the oil drain plug is way too tight from the factory.  Be careful not to screw it up taking it off.  And remember when you reinstall the oil drain plug, it’s a steel part threading into an aluminum engine case.  Don’t overtighten the drain plug when reinstalling it.

Next up is removing the oil fill cap.  Mine was installed way too tight and if you’re taking it off for the first time you probably won’t be able to remove it by hand.  I grabbed a rag to protect the plug and persuaded it a bit with an adjustable wrench to get it started.  Once it was loose, it unscrewed easily.

After the fill plug was out, I let the oil continue to drain.  Note that there is no dipstick on these bikes.

I let the oil drain about 20 minutes so it would drain completely.

After the oil drained, I installed the new oil filter.   You can order the Royal Enfield oil filter if you want to wait months for the official Royal Enfield filter or you can hit Amazon.com and get a Mobil 1 M1-104A oil filter.  You can guess the path I took.

When installing the new oil filter, hand tightening (as tight as you can go by hand) is good enough.  Tighten it more and you’re just making life miserable for yourself at the next oil change.

So, here we are.  Oil drained.  Oil plug reinstalled.  New oil filter installed.  It’s time to add the new oil.  You’ll need a funnel at this step.  My advice is to use a plastic funnel that will deform when you flex it.

Wedge the funnel outlet into the oil fill port as shown below, and it will stay in place when you add oil to the engine.

There’s an oil sight glass on the engine’s right side.  The idea is to add enough oil (about 3.2 liters) so that the oil is approximately halfway between the lower and the upper fill marks.

After you see the oil level between the sight glass upper and lower level marks, reinstall the fill port cap and then start the engine and allow it to run for a minute.  The level will go down.  Add a bit more oil to get the level where it is supposed to be.

After adding a bit more oil, install the fill port cap, hand tighten it, and you are good to go.  Take the bike for a short ride and check for leaks.  And that’s it.

In case you were wondering, I called the nearest Royal Enfield dealer and asked how much they would charge for parts and labor to do what I described in this maintenance tutorial.  There’s no rocket science here, folks, and changing the oil is one of the simpler things you can do to maintain your motorcycle.  The dealer’s price for an oil change was a cool $170.  My cost to do what you see in this blog was about $50.

Our next tutorial will be on valve adjustment.  Stay tuned.

Enfield Recall and First Service Quotes

Things happen, I guess, and one of the things that’s happened to me lately is my new Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor was recalled.  As recalls go, it’s not that serious, I suppose.  It has to do with brake caliper corrosion, and from what I’ve read, it might be related to road salt as used in the snowy parts of our country.  Ain’t no snow in So Cal unless you get way up in the mountains, and we don’t use road salt.  Eh, I don’t know…if all the dealer is going to do is look at it and tell me it’s not corroded, hell, I can do that.  Maybe they’re replacing all of them.   I gotta look into this more.  I have had bad experiences on product recalls (including with my Henry 45 70 rifle), so unless the concern is real, I tend not to act on these things.

I thought that as long as I was going to be making an appointment to have the brake calipers checked out, I might as well go ahead and schedule the first maintenance.  Whoa, was that ever educational.  The first service is basically a valve adjustment, an oil and filter change, tightening the chain, checking the nuts and bolts for tightness, etc.  You know, basic stuff.

I started by calling the dealer closest to me (Southern California Royal Enfield), and they quoted $580 for the service.  Wow.  There’s no shims and buckets in the valve adjustment (it’s just threaded locknuts, like on the CSC bikes or a Moto Guzzi), so the valve adjustment should go pretty quickly.   $580. Wow, that’s steep, I thought.  Especially for a service that I doubt would take even two hours.  So I called Pro-Italia over in Glendale.  They came in at $110 less than the boys in Brea ($470 for the first service, after they first told me it was $440, then $450, and then finally when I asked if they were sure about the number, the kid looked it up and told me it was $470).  Wow, that’s quite a swing, and I’m not too sure about Glendale’s competence.   They’re the same boys who sent Gresh and me down to Baja on a Bullet with nearly no oil, a rusty chain, and a battery that died on Day 3 (you can read about that here).

Then I got interested in how much price variation for the same service I could find, so I called the Royal Enfield dealer in San Diego (Rocket Motorcycles).  They won the prize for the lowest quote at $368.55, which almost seemed sort of reasonable to me.  San Diego is 120 miles south of here, though, so it’s really a nonstarter for me.  I thought I would try one more, so I called the Royal Enfield dealer in San Jose, and not surprisingly, they got top billing at $600.  Hey, those Bay Area and Silicon Valley entrepreneurial types are rolling in dough.

If I lived in San Diego, I’d think about heading over there, but I’m not going to do that.  I’m the guy that wrote most of the service manuals for CSC (with a lot of the “how to” demonstrated and explained by Gerry Edwards), and the Royal Enfield service manual is a free download.

The biggest part of the first service is adjusting the valves, and I doubt that would take more than an hour.  I can change the oil and the filter, and I can tighten and lube a chain.  I know which way I’m going on this.  I may bring the Enfield in for the caliper recall because that’s a freebie.  As for the first service, I’ll pick up the synthetic oil and a filter, do the valve adjustment and the rest, and keep that $368, or $470, or $580, or $600 where it belongs:  In my pocket.

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Read the entire Enfield Baja trials (for both the Bullet and the Interceptor) here!

The Six Best Motorcycles for Baja

This is a blog that is sure to be controversial and elicit a few comments. It attempts to answer a very specific question: Which motorcycles are best for Baja?

As a qualifier, let me mention a few things up front:

    • Most of my Baja riding is on asphalt, and that necessarily colors my opinions. Yeah, there’s a lot of great dirt riding in Baja, but I am a streetster at heart. Your mileage may vary.
    • You don’t need to spend $30K on a Baja blaster.  What good is driveway jewelry if you are afraid to get it dirty and if you’re constantly worried about where you parked?  In Baja, a big, heavy motorcycle (ADV-styled or otherwise) puts you at a disadvantage.  I am not a fan of huge displacement, tall, expensive motorcycles.  For real world riding (especially in Baja), monster motorcycles are more of a liability than an asset.  Even that new one that’s 20 years late to the party.
    • What I think you need in Baja is a comfortable bike with range. There are places where you can go more than a hundred miles between fuel stops, and you need a bike that can go the distance. That means good fuel economy and a good-sized fuel tank.
    • Luggage capacity is a good thing, but if your bike doesn’t have bags, you can make do with soft luggage. In fact, I’d argue that soft luggage is better, because it’s usually easier to detach and bring in with you at night.

With that said, here goes:

CSC’s RX3

Say what you want about Chinese bikes, and say what you want about smallbore bikes, I’m convinced my 250cc CSC RX3 was the best bike ever for Baja.

The RX3 tops out at about 80 mph and that’s more than enough for Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway (the road that runs from the US border all the way down to Cabo San Lucas). The bike is comfortable and it gets 70 mpg. The fuel tank holds over 4 gallons. I could carry everything I needed (including a laptop, a big Nikon and a couple of lenses, and clothes) in the bike’s standard panniers and topcase. I also carried tools and spare parts, but I never needed them. It was superbly well suited for Baja exploration, as I and more than a few others know.   One more thought…before you pummel me with the inevitable “Ah need at least a thousand cc” comments, take a look at our earlier blog, Why a 250?

Kawasaki’s KLR 650

I owned a 2006 KLR 650 Kawasaki for about 10 years. I bought it new and I loved the thing.  I think it is one of the best bikes I’ve ever ridden in Baja.  Yeah, it was a little tall, but once in the saddle I had no problem touching the ground.

The Kawi didn’t come with luggage, but I bought the cheap Kawasaki soft luggage panniers and a Nelson Rigg tankbag and I was good to go (I didn’t need the obligatory KLR milk crate). Although the KLR was heavy, it did surprisingly well off road (especially running at higher speeds over the rough stuff), and I did more offroad riding with the KLR than I have with any of the other motorcycles I brought into Baja. It averaged 56 mpg, and with its 6-gallon gas tank, I could make the trek between El Rosario and that first Pemex 200 miles further south without stopping for fuel.

CSC’s RX4

I’ve never owned an RX4, but I’ve ridden one a fair amount and I’ve done detailed comparisons between the RX4, the RX3, and the KLR.

I’ve never taken an RX4 into Baja, but I’ve ridden both (the RX4 and Baja) enough to know that it would do well down there. Think of the RX4 as an RX3 with more top end, more acceleration, and a bit more weight. It’s got the luggage and the ground clearance for extended travels with some offroad thrown in, and it also gets about the same fuel economy as the RX3. Fit and finish on the RX4 is superior (it’s almost too nice to take offroad).  The RX4 is a lot of motorcycle for the money.  The pandemic hit our shores not too long after the RX4 did, or I would have seen more of the RX4 south of the border.

Genuine’s G400c

I rode Genuine’s new G400c in San Francisco, courtesy of good buddy Barry Gwin’s San Francisco Scooter Center, and I liked it a lot.  It’s compact, it has adequate power, it has an instrument layout I like, and it’s a fairly simple motorcycle.

I think with soft luggage, the Genuine G400c would make an ideal Baja blaster, and the price is right:  It rings in right around $5K.  With its Honda-clone 400cc motor (one also used in the Chinese Shineray line and others), it has enough power to get up to around 90 mph, and that’s plenty for Baja.  I rode a different motorcycle with this powerplant in China and I was impressed.  I think this would be an ideal bike for exploring Baja.

Royal Enfield’s 650 Interceptor

Yeah, I know, the new Enfield Interceptor is a street bike with no luggage. But with a Nelson Rigg tailpak and Wolf soft luggage, the Interceptor was surprisingly in its element in Baja. Gresh will back me up on this.

We had a whale of a time exploring Baja on a loaner 650 Enfield (thanks to Enfield North America and good buddy Bree), and I liked the bike so much I bought one as soon as I could find a dealer that didn’t bend me over a barrel on freight and setup. There’s one parked in my garage now. The bike is happy loping along at 65-70 mph, it’s comfortable (although I’ll be the first to admit it needs a sheepskin cover on that 2×4 of a seat), and it gets 70 miles per gallon. I wouldn’t take it off road (except maybe for that 10-mile stretch to go see the cave paintings in the Sierra San Francisco mountains), but like I said at the beginning of this conversation starter, I’m mostly a street rider.

Royal Enfield’s 400cc Himalayan

I’ve seen these but not ridden one yet.  Good buddy Juan Carlos, a great guy with whom I rode in Colombia, has gone all over South America on Enfield’s new Himalayan and he loves it (that’s his photo below).  Juan knows more about motorcycles than I ever will, and if Juan says it’s good, it’s good.

I like the look of the Himalayan and I like its single-cylinder simplicity (come to think of it, with the exception of the Enfield Intercepter, every bike on this list is a single).  400cc, I think, is about the right size for Baja. The price is right, too.   Royal Enfield is making fine motorcycles that won’t break the bank.  I think the Enfield Himalayan would be a solid choice for poking around the Baja peninsula, one that probably has the best off-road capabilities of any bike in this list.

I’m sure I’m ruffling a few feathers with this piece, and I’m doing that on purpose.  I’ve been taking pot-stirring lessons from Gresh (that’s him in the photo at the top of this blog).  We’d like to hear your comments if you disagree with any of the above. Do us a favor and leave them here on the ExNotes blog (don’t waste your time posting on Facebook as that stuff will scroll on by and be gone; ExNotes is forever).

All the above notwithstanding, I’ll add one more point:  The best Baja motorcycle for each of us is the one we have.  You can ride Baja on just about anything.  I’ve been to Cabo San Lucas and back on everything from a 150cc California Scooter to a Harley Heritage Softail cruiser.  They’re all good.  Don’t put off a trip because you don’t think you have the perfect motorcycle for a Baja adventure.  Baja is the best riding I’ve ever done.

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I’ve done a lot of riding on a lot of different motorcycles in Baja.  You can read all about that in Moto Baja!

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British Vertical Twin Wannabees: Royal Enfield vs Triumph vs Kawasaki

I think most motorcycle videos are silly, including the ones I’ve done (and I’ve done a few).  It’s a personal preference…videos (compared to the written word and good photography) dumb down whatever they cover, and I would much rather read a good article with great photos than watch a video.  But on occasion I’ll stumble across a video I enjoy.  I recently encountered a couple that hit home for me.  One compares the Royal Enfield 650 to the Kawasaki W800, and the other compares the Enfield to a Triumph Bonneville.

Back in the day (the 1960s), British vertical twins ruled the roost, and of those the Triumph Bonneville was the king.   My father rode a 1966 Triumph Bonneville, and I’ve owned a number of Triumphs from the ’60s and ’70s.  They were (and still are) awesome motorcycles.  It just makes sense to me that ’60s-era British vertical twins are a platform deserving of the sincerest form of flattery (i.e., copying), and apparently, the modern incarnations from Kawasaki, Royal Enfield, and Triumph do exactly that.  Well, maybe not exactly, but enough to let you imagine you’re Steve McQueen.

These videos are fun to watch.  The narrators are funny as hell and there are some great quotes.  One was, “I’m not even going to try to keep up with you on the way back…you just take care of yourself and watch out for buffalo.”  That quote reminded me of Gresh’s video when he entered a corner a bit too hot on a Harley Sportster and famously said, “It handles pretty well when it’s out of control.”

The video editing and imaging in these two videos are superior (way better, in my opinion, than what you see from the self-proclaimed videomeisters here in the US).   And the tech content is light years ahead of the typical vlogger tripe clogging up our bandwidth.

Enjoy, my friends.

Here’s a fun fact:  All three of these bikes (the Royal Enfield Interceptor, the Kawasaki W800, and the Triumph Bonneville) purport to copy British vertical twins, yet none of these bikes are British.  The Enfield is made in India, the Kawasaki is made in Japan, and the Triumph is made in Thailand.

I ride a Royal Enfield 650.  I like my Enfield, and for the money, the Enfield has to be one of the best buys ever in motorcycling.  Gresh and I already did a road test of the Enfield in Baja, and you can read our reports on it here.  One of these days in the near future I’ll do a road test my current Enfield and tell you what it’s like to own one of these grand machines, but I’ve got another road test I’m going to post first.  That’s on the 250cc CSC RX3, 5 years in.  Good buddy Sergeant Zuo over in Lanzhou has 50,000 miles on his RX3 and it’s still going strong.

I am enjoying my Enfield, and I just found a bunch of Enfield accessories available online through Amazon.  I’ll poke around on there a bit later today.

Stay tuned, folks.  More good stuff is coming your way.

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The $100 Hamburger…

The $100 hamburger:  It’s aviation slang for any hamburger that requires flying in to a local airport for a burger. I first heard the term from good buddy Margit Chiriaco Rusche when researching the story on the General Patton Memorial Museum.  You see, there’s still an airport at Chiriaco Summit, left over from General George Patton’s Desert Training Center.  Margit told me about pilots flying in for the mythical $100 hamburger at the Chiriaco Summit Café, and I knew I had to have one as soon as she mentioned it.  The Café doesn’t actually charge a hundred bucks (it was only $15.66 with a giant iced tea, fries, and a side of chili); the $100 figure pertains to what it would cost a pilot to fly your own plane to Chiriaco Summit, enjoy the General Patton Burger, and fly out.

Even though bloggers like Gresh and me are rolling in dough, we don’t have our own airplanes.  But we have the next best thing.  Gresh has his Kawasaki Z1 900, and I have my Royal Enfield Interceptor.

Good buddy Marty (a dude with whom I’ve been riding for more than 20 years) told me he needed to get out for a ride and I suggested the Patton Museum.  It’s a 250-mile round trip for us, and the trip (along with the General Patton Burger, which is what you see in the big photo above) would be just what the doctor ordered.  I’d have my own hundred dollar burger, and at a pretty good price, too.  Two tanks of gas (one to get there and one to get home) set me back $16, and it was $18 (including tip) for the General Patton Burger.  I had my hundred dollar burger at a steep discount.  And it was great.

I’ll confess…it had been a while since I rode the Enfield.  In fact, it’s been a while since I’d been on any ride.  I didn’t sleep too much the night before (pre-ride jitters, I guess) and I was up early.   I pushed the Enfield out to the curb and my riding amigos showed up a short time later.  There would be four of us on this ride (me, Marty, and good buddies Joe and Doug).   Marty’s a BMW guy; Joe and Doug both ride Triumph Tigers.

As motorcycle rides go, we had great weather and a boring road.  It was 125 miles on the 210 and 10 freeways to get to the Patton Museum and the same distance back.   Oh, I know, there were other roads and we could have diverted through Joshua Tree National Park, but like I said, I hadn’t ridden in a while and boring roads were what I wanted.

The Patton Museum was a hoot, as it always is.  I had my super fast 28mm Nikon lens (which is ideal for a lot of things), and I shot more than a few photos that day.  You can have a lot of fun with a camera, a fast lens, a motorcycle, and good friends.  A fast 28mm lens is good for indoor available light (no flash) photography, and I grabbed several photos inside the Patton Museum.

It was a bit strange looking at the photos of the World War II general officers, including the one immediately above.  I realized that all of us (Marty, Joe, Doug, and I) are older than any of the generals were during World War II.  War is a young man’s game, I guess.  Or maybe we’re just really old.

You can see our earlier pieces on the Patton Museum here and here.  It’s one of my favorite spots.  If you want to know more about Chiriaco Summit, the Chiriaco family, and the General Patton Memorial Museum’s origins, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Mary Gordon’s Chiriaco Summit.  It is an excellent read.

We rode the same roads home as the ride in, except it was anything but boring on the return leg.  We rode into very stiff winds through the Palm Springs corridor on the westward trek home, and the wind made for a spirited ride on my lighter, windshieldless Enfield Interceptor.  My more detailed impressions of the Enfield 650 will be a topic for a future blog, so stay tuned!

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It’s not a BSA!

I saw this YouTube video a few days ago on the Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor, and I’ve been meaning to post it here on the ExNotes blog.  I think YouTube motorcycle reviews are generally a time suck, but I enjoyed this one.  The dude who made it (MotoSlug, a guy I never heard of before) nailed it, I think, with his description of the Enfield, its capabilities, and the riding experience.  It’s no BSA, Senator, but it’s still a fun ride. Actually, it’s way better than any BSA I ever rode.

I’m inspired. It’s late afternoon here in So Cal, which is to say it’s hot.  When things cool off in a couple of hours, I’m going to fire up my Enfield (that’s it in the photo above) and go for a ride.

Read our story about riding Enfields in Baja here.

Bikes Gone By

Do you dream about the motorcycles you used to own?

Yeah, me, too.  I don’t have photos of all my bikes that have gone down the road, but I have a few and I’d like to share them with you.

My first motorcycle was a Honda Super 90. I bought it from Sherm Cooper, a famous Triumph racer who owned Cooper’s Cycle Ranch in New Jersey. My Super 90 was cool…it was white and it had an upswept pipe and knobby tires.  Mr. Cooper used it for getting around on his farm (the Cycle Ranch actually started out there).  I was only 14 and I wasn’t supposed to be on the street yet, but I was known to sneak out on occasion. I liked that Honda Super 90 motor, and evidently so do a lot of other people (it’s still being manufactured by several different companies in Asia).

Yours truly at about age 14 on the Honda Super 90. What’s that stuff on top of my head?

The next bike was a Honda SL-90. Same 90cc Honda motor, but it had a tubular steel frame and it was purpose-built for both road and off-road duty. I never actually had a photo of that bike, but it was a favorite. Candy apple red and silver (Honda figured out by then that people wanted more than just their basic four colors of white, red, black, or blue), it was a great-looking machine. I rode it for about a year and sold it, and then I took a big step up.

That big step up was a Honda 750 Four. I’ve waxed eloquent about that bike here on the blog already, so I won’t bore you with the details about how the Honda 750 basically killed the British motorcycle industry and defined new standards for motorcycle performance.  The 750 was fun, too. Fast, good looking, candy apple red (Honda used that color a lot), and exotic. I paid $1559 for it in 1971 at Cooper’s. Today, one in mint condition would approach ten times that amount.  I wish I still had it.

My first big street bike…a 1971 Honda 750 Four. It was awesome. It’s a miracle I never crashed it. I rode it all the way up to Canada and back in the early ’70s. Check out the jacket, the riding pants, and my other safety gear.

There were a lot of bikes that followed. There were two Honda 500 Fours, a 50cc Honda Cub (the price was right, so I bought it and sold it within a couple of days) an 85cc two-stroke BSA (with a throttle that occasionally stuck open), a 1982 Suzuki 1000cc Katana (an awesome ride, but uncomfortable), a 1979 Harley Electra-Glide Classic (the most unreliable machine I’ve ever owned), a 1978 Triumph Bonneville (I bought that one new when I lived in Fort Worth), a 1971 Triumph Tiger, a 1970 Triumph Daytona, a 1992 Harley Softail (much more reliable than the first Harley, and one I rode all over the US Southwest and Mexico), a 1995 Triumph Daytona 1200 (the yellow locomotive), a 1997 TL1000S Suzuki (a sports bike I used as a touring machine), a 2006 Triumph Tiger, a 1982 Honda CBX (a great bike, but one I sold when Honda stopped stocking parts for it), a 2007 Triumph Speed Triple (awesome, fast, but buzzy), a 2006 KLR 650 Kawasaki, and a 2010 CSC 150.   Here are photos of some of those bikes:

My high school buddy Johnnie with a Honda 500 four I later bought from him. That sissy bar was the first thing to go. It was a fun bike.
A Honda 50cc Cub, the most frequently produced motorcycle on the planet. In China and elsewhere, this bike is still being manufactured. I bought this one in the 1960s, mostly because I knew I could sell it and make a few bucks quickly.
My ’79 Electra-Glide Classic. I called this one my optical illusion, because it looked like a motorcycle. I couldn’t go a hundred miles on that motorcycle without something breaking. And people badmouth Chinese motorcycles.
Me with my 1982 Suzuki Katana. In its day, that was a super-exotic bike. Uncomfortable, but very fast, and way ahead of its time. I bought it new and paid over MSRP because they were so hard to get. I was a lot skinnier in those days.
My ’92 Softail Classic Harley. This motorcycle was superbly reliable right up until the moment the oil pump quit at 53,000 miles. At about the time I shot this photo on a trip through Mexico, I started thinking that maybe a Big Twin was not the best answer to the adventure touring question. And I know, my motorcycle packing skills in those days were not yet optimized. That’s a Mexican infantry officer behind the bike.
My buddy Louis V and me with our bikes somewhere in Arizona sometime in the mid-’90s. I’m not sure why Louis had his shirt off…we sure didn’t ride that way. Louis had an ’81 Gold Wing and I had an ’82 CBX Six. That old CBX was a fun bike…it sounded like a Ferrari!
My ’97 Suzuki TL1000S on the road somewhere in Baja. Wow, that bike was fast.  Here’s a story about my good buddy Paul and me featuring this motorcycle.
The 1200 Daytona. I won it on an Ebay auction.  It was an incredible motorcycle and you can read more about it here.
I’d always wanted a KLR 650, and when I pulled the trigger in 2006 I was glad I did. Smaller bikes make more sense. They’re more fun to ride, too.  It seemed to me that this was the perfect bike for Baja.  That’s me and Baja John out at El Marmol.
The ’06 Triumph Tiger. Fun, but a little cramped and very heavy. It was styled like a dual sport, but trust me on this, you don’t want to get into the soft stuff with this motorcycle.
Potentially the most beautiful motorcycle I’ve ever owned, this 2007 Speed Triple was a fast machine. The joke in motorcycle circles is that it should be named the Speed Cripple. That’s what it did to me.
My CSC 150. Don’t laugh. I had a lot of fun on this little Mustang replica. My friends and I rode these to Cabo San Lucas and back.

That brings up to today.  My rides today are a CSC TT250, an RX3, and a Royal Enfield Interceptor 650.  I like riding them all.

Do you have photos of your old bikes?  Here’s an invitation:  Send photos of your earlier motorcycles to us (info@exhaustnotes.us) with any info you can provide and we’ll your story here on the blog.  We’d love to see your motorcycles.

Want to see some of our Dream Bikes?   Give a click here!

Good buddies and a great ride…

When the phone rings and it’s good buddy Duane wanting to head into the San Bernardino Mountains for a motorcycle ride, I know it’s time to hop to.  That’s what I did last week and it was an awesome ride.  East on the 210, up Waterman to Hwy 18 into the mountains, and then down the 138 on the other side to ride home through the Cajon Pass.  Good times, and this trip was made all the more special because of two more good friends we connected with on the ride.

Duane and his magnificent Indian up in the San Bernardino Mountains. It was a glorious day.
Geezers.  Motorcycle geezers.  CSC Mustang and RX3 geezers.  Former Army motorcycle-riding geezers.  Former Army motorcycle-riding gun nut geezers. Whatcha gonna do?  Great minds work alike.

It was a grand ride through one of the greatest motorcycle playgrounds on the planet.  The weather was perfect and the bikes were running like Chinese 250s (I was going to say like Swiss watches, but I have Swiss watches and I have Chinese 250s, and the Chinese 250s run better).  Both the Indians were running great.  My Indian is an Enfield made in India.   Duane’s bike is an Indian made in America.  It’s very confusing, I know.

A grand day for a grand ride.  No polarizers or saturation sliders needed.

So we turned onto the 138 somewhere in one of the little mountaintop towns and we had a fun slalom down through the twisties.  As we approached Silverwood Lake, I wanted to stop to get a photo of the bikes.  There’s this huge parking lot and it was completely empty, so I thought we would park there and I could angle my shot for the best photo.

So we’re rolling to a stop and I noticed this silver SUV pulling in behind us, and wouldn’t you know it, the guy parks right next to us.  I was thinking that would completely screw up my photo.  You know the drill…a parking lot the size of Texas and the guy, this, this, this interloper parks right next to me.  I was all set to dip into my not-such-a-nice-guy routine when Mr. Silver SUV stepped out of his car with a giant grin.

Twin Peaks Steve!

Twin Peaks Steve and Glendora Duane…two great guys!

Wow, we were ever surprised and happy.  Duane and I have a lot in common, as alluded to in one of the photo captions above, and Twin Peaks Steve is right there with both of us in every regard.

We had a real nice visit overlooking Silverwood Lake and caught up on things.  Steve’s beautiful wife Rosemary was there, too, and we had a wonderful chat with her.  I can’t tell you how great it was bumping into these two.  Steve told me he recognized us when we rode by and he and Rosemary followed us down hoping to have a chance to connect.  I’m glad he did.  We all met back in the CSC Mustang days about 10 years ago, when Steve was the very first guy to order a custom CSC Bobber.  It was one of the prettiest bikes we ever built at CSC.

Steve’s custom CSC 150 Bobber. It was a real show stopper…a visually arresting, gorgeous little jewel of a motorcycle.

Twin Peaks Steve rode with Duane and me on a bunch of CSC rides, and the more we learned about him back in those days, the more impressed we were.  How about ultra-lights as a hobby?   Yep, Steve did that, too.

Ah, for the love of adventure. Twin Peaks Steve has done it all!

Then CSC went into the ADV motorcycle business by importing the RX3.  Steve and Duane both bought bikes from the very first RX3 shipment to arrive in America, and we rode together (Duane, Twin Peaks Steve, and yours truly) on a bunch more rides.

One of my favorite photos of Steve.

Steve is a serious rider and camper, and he outfitted his RX3 with all the good stuff for disappearing into the boonies.  He did a lot of trips up and down the 395 (one of the prettiest highways in America), and the motormaestro even did a guest blog or two about his adventures when I was writing the CSC blog.  If you poke around on the CSC blog and search on “Twin Peaks Steve” you’ll find he’s a regular there!

Steve’s RX3 somewhere up along Highway 395. Steve is the real deal; he’s done some amazing trips on his RX3.

What a ride and what a day!

So, how about you?  Are you getting out on your motorcycle?  Do me and yourself a favor and live large, like Steve, Duane, and the rest of us.  Get off your computer, get your riding gear, and get on the road!

More great rides are right here!