I haven’t been riding the new Enfield all that much since I bought it, which was exactly one week before the virus hit our shores. You know, Covid 19, the lockdown, autonomous zone crises, and all that. And as a consequence, I’ve come under heavy criticism from two good buddies for my failure to accumulate miles on the Taj Mahal (as I sometimes refer to my orange Interceptor).
“I can’t believe you’re not riding that new Enfield all the time,” said Joe Gresh. Guilt. The guy reminds me of my Mom. You should try riding across China with him.
And then after I published that bit about getting out on the RX3, good buddy Rob had to weigh in: “Take the Enfield on the same road,” he said. “It will be a completely different ride.” Guilt again. If you don’t believe me, read the comments on the RX3 blog a few entries down. Rob, a guy who rode with us on the Western America Adventure Ride. He was waiting for us on a lawn chair by the side of the road early in the morning when we first met, already suited up, just before we crossed into Idaho. Rob’s RX3 was parked right alongside, both man and motorcycle ready to roll as soon as we approached so we wouldn’t have to wait. He seemed like such a nice guy back then.
Well, it worked, guys. Your guilt tripping got me out on the Enfield two days later, and it was awesome. I didn’t do the Glendora Ridge Road ride, but I was up in the San Gabriels. The very eastern end of that range, actually, riding deep into those glorious So Cal mountains through the little town of Lytle Creek. I went right past the West End Gun Club without stopping to send lead downrange, and that doesn’t happen too often. Not stopping in, that is.
So this is another one of those blogs where I’ll let the photos do the talking. Here we go, folks.
The first time I ever put gas in the new Enfield, and it returned 58 mpg and change. That’s consistent with what I saw on the first tankful on the Enfield I rode in Baja. By the end of that trip (nearly 1500 miles later), the bike was consistently getting between 70 and 72 mpg. Not too shabby for a 650 twin.This is a good-looking motorcycle. My good buddy Art over at Douglas Motorcycles gave me a hell of a deal on it.Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I take a good photo. I look better in a full face helmet, people tell me.Not today, but I had to stop for the photo op. Top gun. That’s what I want to be.You could interpret that sign to mean it’s okay to shoot at my street legal vehicle. Time to move along.Ah, the great San Gabriels, just west of the little town of Lytle Creek. The road dead ends a few miles further.A man, a motorcycle, America, and a mirror. Gets me every time.Time to open her up a bit. But not too much. I’m still breaking in the Royal Enfield.Editors hate these “motorcycle by the side of the road” shots. I kind of like them, especially when the road is in the San Gabriels.And finally, re-entering the burbs. Lawrence of Suburbia, as Gresh sometimes calls me. Look at those donuts. There’s probably 20,000 miles of tire wear there; the guy who did it probably owns stock in a tire company. I used to have tire company shares when I worked for GenCorp, the corporation that owns General Tire, but that’s a story for another blog.
Wanna know a secret? The ride above occurred several days ago. I went for another ride this past Friday with good buddy Duane. Duane was on his Indian, a motorcycle made in America. I was on my Enfield, formerly a British motorcycle but now made in India. As you can see above, the Enfield is a glorious orange and that’s the fastest color…just ask my good buddy Orlando (about the orange thing, that is). Duane and I had a hell of a ride, and along the way we bumped into good buddies Steve and Rosemary by Silverwood. But that, too, is a story for another blog. Stay tuned!
Want to read about the Royal Enfield ride in Baja? Just click here! Want to know more about the CSC RX3 I mentioned above? The skinny is just a click away. Are you interested in a killer deal on a Triumph or a Royal Enfield? Check out Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino!
Want to read a story about another beautiful motorcycle? Motorcycle Classics recently published my piece about good buddy Steve’s stunning and brilliantly bright red ’82 Yamaha Seca. You can read it here.
I wish I had a few words of wisdom for everyone concerning this COVID 19 thing, but I do not, other than to say we’ll get through this, don’t hoard, and wash your hands. That’s the extent of my advice, so let’s get on to lighter stuff, which I could sure use a good dose of these days. Good buddy Duane sent a link for an Enfield story to me a day or two ago from Bloomberg news. When I saw the source I thought perhaps Duane had gone over to the dark side (you know, Bloomberg and all), but I guess even egomaniacal billionaires like Mike (who obviously didn’t make it happen) find an acorn once in a while. This is a story on the new Enfield, and they did a pretty good job with it.
Then another Enfield story popped up in my Facebook feed with a very cool Enfield video. It’s light, I enjoyed it, and it pretty much sums up my feeling about motorcycles these days:
I had the new Enfield 650 up on Glendora Ridge Road this week and I thought I’d share a few photos with you. Not a lot of words this time, folks, other than to say I’m still breaking in the bike and I’m taking it easy. And the bike is pretty enough that it doesn’t need a lot of explanation. I’ll offer a little, though, and with that in mind, here we go.
To me, the Enfield is the closest thing ever to the original Triumph Bonneville, more so even than the modern Triumph Bonneville (in my story on the Royal Enfield in Motorcycle Classics magazine, I said that Enfield out-Triumphed Triumph). And that’s a good thing, because to me a ’60s Triumph Bonneville is the yardstick by which I measure all motorcycles. Edward Turner and the folks in Coventry got it right, and late ’60s Triumphs were the ultimate in style, performance, and cool. I spent major portions of my youth dreaming about Triumph Bonnevilles (and maybe a little bit about Raquel Welch). The 650 Enfield has that old Triumph Bonneville look and feel, and that’s the highest compliment I can give a motorcycle. But’s it not old Triumph quirky. Think original Triumph mystique, but with Honda fit and finish, and you’ll pretty much have an idea of what this motorcycle is like.
That’s enough wordsmithing for now.
More photos, you say? Coming right up!
It was a glorious day up in the San Gabriels. Glendora Ridge Road is always a great ride.
The new Enfield photographs well, I think. There are several colors available in this new model. I like the metalflake gold. It’s the same color as the test bike I rode in Baja and it makes for great photography.
This next photo could be a magazine cover. There aren’t too many magazines out there any more. It’s nearly all online now, as Gresh and I know all too well. That’s a topic for another time. Back to my point: This next shot would make a hell of a magazine cover.
And finally, one more photo…my signature selfie. This one is yours truly in the Enfield’s starboard muffler.
Glendora Ridge Road is a great road and a great place for breaking in a new motorcycle. A road with 234 curves in 12 miles…just what the doctor ordered for keeping the revs down and the shifts up. Click on that link above and you’ll learn more about GRR, and please do follow the ExNotes blog to learn more about the Enfield. I’ll be posting a lot on this bike. And I’ll still be posting stories about my CSC TT 250 and RX3, too. The right tool for the right job. They’re all great machines.
I may head over to Douglas Motorcycles later today; they’re having an Enfield open house and if I go I’ll grab a few more photos to share with you. There are other Enfield colors (they’re all beautiful), and they need me and my Nikon. The 24-120 lens and I hear them calling.
Hey, there are other Enfield owners out there. Let’s hear from you! Please add your comments to the blog. Folks want to hear what you have to say!
So you’ve probably noticed I haven’t been riding too much lately. You know how it goes…it gets cold, you have other things going on in your life, you want to send some lead downrange, and on and on it goes.
I needed to break that pattern, and there’s no better way to do that than to buy a motorcycle. Yeah, I know…I already have two motorcycles (what has to be the world’s most well-traveled RX3, and a pristine, low miles TT 250). I like CSC motorcycles. But you may recall that Uncle Joe Gresh and I road tested two Enfields last year and I fell in love with the 650 Interceptor.
Down Mexico way…dinner at the San Remedio in Guerrero Negro. Life is good, folks.
I was primed to buy a Royal Enfield when I returned from Mexico, but the Enfield dealer in Glendale had done a God-awful job prepping the Bullet (I wouldn’t buy squat from those guys now), and the Enfield dealer in Brea was doing the normal bend-you-over-a-barrel, here-comes-the-setup-and-freight-charges routine. Folks, I’ve worked in the industry, and I know what setup and freight costs actually are. Trust me on this…they ain’t $1500. So I didn’t buy an Enfield.
Then an amazing thing happened. One of the few dealerships I trust picked up the Enfield line last week. It’s Art Guilfoil’s Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino. I asked Art what he could do for me on a new Enfield, I was shocked at how low the number was (don’t ask, because I won’t tell), and, well…
I think this is No. 42 or No. 43 or something. I’ve owned a lot of motorcycles. This is the latest. Sue is cool with it, too!
I’m picking up my new 650 Royal Enfield on Thursday, and to say I’m excited would be an understatement of immense proportions. It was a tough call for me between the Enfield and the new CSC RX4, but truth be told, I love my RX3 and it checks all the boxes for what I want in an adventure touring motorcycle. Arguably, the RX3 is the finest adventure touring motorcycle in the world if you’re going places other than the corner burger joint (for all the reasons I explained in my piece titled Why a 250?). I know. I’ve been to places other than the corner burger joint, and I’ve made most of those trips on an RX3.
So with my new Royal Enfield coming in, it begged the question: What should I do with my RX3 and TT 250? My first thought was that I’d sell them. Then I got to thinking about the RX3. I’ve done some miles on that thing, folks, and we’ve bonded. Nope, I’m going to hang on to it. Baja beckons, and all that. The RX3 is perfect for poking around the peninsula. And next, month, that’s where I’m headed. Susie’s going with me, and we’ll share a Tequila or two with Baja John. You can read about it here.
That leaves the TT 250. Hey, I was involved in bringing the TT 250 to America, and it all started when I eyeballed the 150cc version on display in Zongshen headquarters. It was a bit of an uphill struggle…you know, getting Zongshen to make a 250cc version, and then selling the idea in Azusa. I got the powers that be to go along and then I was out of town when the prototypes arrived in California. A couple of the CSC underlings didn’t like the bike, and I had to sell it in Azusa all over again. But it worked out, and the TT 250 is one of CSC’s best selling motorcycles ever. It should be…it is a hell of a bike for a stunningly low price.
My TT 250 on the road at La Rumarosa in Baja.
With the Enfield coming in, I thought I would sell my TT 250. Hell, it’s pristine, but because I don’t ride it too much, the carb gummed up on me. I thought maybe I’d bring it to CSC and have them make it perfect again, and then another serendipitous thing occurred. A few days ago, a post popped up on Facebook (why do I spend so much time on that moronic site?) from Revzilla, and what do you know, it was about doing your own maintenance on a CSC motorcycle. In this case, it was the San Gabriel (a wonderful name for a motorcycle if ever there was one), and the guys from Revzilla said the CSC shop manuals were wonderful. I thought that was great for a lot of different reasons, including the fact that, along with help from Gerry Edwards and the guys in the shop, I wrote many of the CSC manuals. Then I realized…hey, I wrote the TT 250 manual. I can fix my own carburetor. I looked up the carb stuff and this afternoon I took mine apart, I cleaned the low and high speed jets, and now my TT 250 is running great. There’s something uniquely satisfying about fixing your own motorcycle, and the Revzilla boys were right: Those CSC manuals are amazing. So are the motorcycles. And so is the 650 Enfield. I know, because I took one on what had to be the longest demo ride ever…all the way to Baja and back!
More good times coming up, folks, on the Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor!
This is going to be one of those rambling, topic-hopping blogs that flits like a butterfly in a bed of flowers. You know, touching lightly on a variety of topics and then flitting to the next one for a pollen fix.
First up: Do you have a favorite family restaurant? We’ve got two. One is Rancho Las Magueyes, a Mexican place right around the corner. I know everyone there by their first name, and they all know Susie and me. And my shooting buddies (we always have lunch there after a day on the range). The other is an Italian restaurant. It’s Di Pilla’s in Rosemead, and I’ve been going there for thirty years. Susie and I always get a small pizza and a pasta dish, we share some of both while we’re there, and we’ll bring the rest home (it’s good for another two meals for both of us). I was in Los Angeles last week to renew my passport and we stopped at Di Pilla’s for exactly what I described above (a small pizza with olives and mushrooms, and Dante’s angel hair pasta). It’s just wonderful…the closest you’ll ever get to Heaven without a one-way ticket. If you stop in there, tell Claudia Joe sent you.
Next topic…the Superbowl. I guess the game was okay. It used to be I would occasionally watch the Superbowl just for the halftime show and the commercials. I’m not much of a football fan (never have been), but the commercials and the halftime show used to make the 4-hour slog worthwhile. Not any more, though. At least not to me. I thought the halftime show was revolting, and if my kids were at home, I would have changed the channel. Is it me, or was it like going to a strip club? Maybe I’m just getting old. I don’t like twerking coming into my family room on a widescreen TV, and I didn’t understand a good 70% of the commercials. They weren’t clever or entertaining, and I wasn’t sure what most of them were advertising. The commercial would end and I’d wonder: What was the product? Ah, there’s no maybe about it…I am getting old. But hell, even old people still buy stuff. After four long hours of Superbowl LIV, there’s nothing I’m going to purchase as a result of watching any of those commercials. Color me cranky, but I thought the whole thing was a stupid waste of my time. That’s four hours I won’t get back. It won’t happen again.
I do buy stuff, though. Lots of it. In fact, my new goal as a senior citizen is to make sure my outgo equals my income (I keep telling the kids if there’s anything left after I’m gone, it’s strictly the result of an computational error). And to help me meet that goal, I think I’m buying a new motorcycle. One that has no fraud associated with freight and setup, as is typically encountered at most dealers. Maybe around the end of this month. Watch for more details. Before I do that, though, I want to get my TT250 running. I don’t ride as much as I should, and my TT250 carb gummed up from disuse. I’ll have to refer to my free CSC TT250 shop manual (why don’t all the manufacturers do that?) on how to clean the carburetor, but I’m not worried about the job. I hear the TT250 manual is pretty well written. I’m thinking I’ll get around to the TT250 this week or next.
More rambling, this time about Facebook and the endless supply of brainless memes that flow from its feed. I like Facebook and I like to keep up with my friends and my memories, like that photo above of good buddy Carl and me up on Glendora Ridge Road with the CSC 150 Baja Blaster I rode to Cabo and back. But the rest of the Facebook schtick…wow, it gets old fast. Is anyone else here tired of the mindless political ranting on Facebook? Look, who I vote for is a decision I’ll make without any help from CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, the Russians, or you. It’s my vote, and all the breathless exhortations by Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, and Sean Hannity will matter not one whit. It’s what happens in a free country. Mindlessly sharing memes on your Facebook feed (I know, there’s a lot of redundancy in that phrase) isn’t going to change a thing. Folks, get a life. Grow up. Vote, and then move on. It’s what we do in America.
On to a new topic…I’m afraid this coronavirus business is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I have good friends in China from my Chongqing and Riding China adventures. I recently wrote to one of them to see how things were going over there. In a word, it’s bad. Real bad. The streets are deserted in China, no one is going out, companies are shutting down, travel is severely restricted, and the market is plummeting. Their economy is tanking. Approximately 2000 people a day are getting infected (and that number is likely going to increase). I loved my time in China and I love the Chinese people. I respect their engineering and manufacturing prowess. I hope things get better for them soon.
A happier topic…I’ve been spending more time on the range. If you didn’t see the 9mm cast bullet comparo, you might want to take a look at it. I’m going to start shooting the 9mm jacketed bullet series in another week or two. Jacketed bullets are frequently more accurate than cast bullets, so I’m excited about how that’s going to go. I was tremendously impressed with the Sig Scorpion and how it handled cast bullets. We’ll see if it brings home the bacon with jacketed bullets.
One of my shooting buddies is a California Corrections Officer, and he told me about their qualification course with the Mini 14 (the California Department of Corrections uses the Ruger Mini 14, one of my favorite rifles, as an issue weapon). They qualify with the B-21 target, and when I was at the target manufacturing operation where I buy all my targets I asked if they stocked that one. The guy behind the counter was surprised, and he told me the only folks who ever want that target are CDC officers. But they had it, and then it was my turn to be surprised. The B-21 target is huge. I’m going to have to make a bigger target stand for it. I’m thinking maybe our next informal milsurp match will be with it. My objective is to shoot a higher score than my CDC buddy, and he’s real good.
And on that subject, we’re still toying with the idea of a postal match. You know, one where we specify the course of fire and the target design, you mail your targets to us, we score them, and there’s some kind of a prize for first, second, and third place. We’d make it for handguns only and spec the distance at 50 feet, and we’d make the prizes significant enough to bump up participation. Like maybe a Gear’d Hardware watch for first place, with a book and a T-shirt for second and third place. Let us know…if we did that, would you participate?
Last topic for today, folks: Baja. Yes, Baja beckons. I aim to get down there sometime soon and then again later this year. Maybe stop in to see Baja John in Bahia de Los Angeles. See the whales in Scammon’s Lagoon. I’ll be on my motorcycle, and of course, I’ll be insured with BajaBound. Gresh will be along, maybe even on Zed now that his Kawi 900 resurrection has resumed. Whaddaya think?
This has been a fun year, and a fun year to be a blogger. When we started ExhaustNotes 18 months ago, we had no idea we’d get the loyal following we have, the number of hits we’re getting, and the number of comments we would receive from you, our amazing readers. In the past 18 months, we’ve published 572 blog posts (this is Blog No. 572), we’ve had something north of 200,000 page visits, and we’ve received 2,481 approved blog comments. We actually had quite a few more comments, but the spam comments are filtered out and we’re not counting those. And you spammers out there, thanks for all the biblical excerpts, the website optimization offers, the hairstyle stuff (seriously, you think Gresh or I need hairstyle products?), and the offers to manufacture stuff in and buy chotchkas from China. You guys keep it coming, and our filters will keep bouncing it. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
Our most commented upon post last year? It was Joe Gresh’s blog on Bonnier and the demise of Motorcyclist magazine, which really raked in some zingers. Nobody makes the written word come alive like Joe does, and that includes his opening line in that blog: The distance from being read in the crapper and actually being in the crapper is a short one. According to Dealer News, Motorcyclist magazine crossed that span this week.
Other ExNotes blogs that drew comments big time are our blogs on what constitutes the perfect bike, what the motorcycle industry needs to do to grow the market, dream bikes, and of course, the gun stuff. Keep your thoughts coming, folks. It’s what we enjoy the most.
Our most frequently visited blog post last year? Far and away, it was our piece on Mini 14 Marksmanship. Somehow that post got picked up by a service that suggests sites to people when they open their cell phones, and we were getting in excess of 10,000 hits a day for a few days on that one. Go figure. There must be a lot of people out there who want to shoot their Mini 14 rifles better. Glad to be of help, folks.
We’ve stepped on a few toes along the way. Some folks got their noses bent out of shape because we do gun stuff. Hey, let us know if you want your money back. One guy went away all butthurt because Google ads popped up mentioning President Trump and mortgage deals that I guess our President helped along. Hey, whatever. We don’t control the popups, and the Internet’s artificial intelligence does funny things with what it reads on the blog…I mentioned using my Casio’s backlight to help find my way to the latrine at night, and since that blog I’ve been getting an unending stream (no pun intended) of prostate treatment popups. I may click on a few of them. When you get your artificially-inseminated Google-driven popups, we’d like you to click on them, too. It makes money flow. To us. It’s what keeps us on the air, you know.
We did a lot of travel this year, but not as many motorcycle trips as we wanted. The Royal Enfields we took through Baja were fun, and we had a great story on that ride published in Motorcycle Classics. I really enjoyed riding and writing about the Genuine G400c. Joe did a great series on his Yamaha EnduroFest adventure, and he’s had articles published in Motorcycle.com. Joe did another series on motorized bicycles and it was a hoot.
Joe and I both did shorter moto trips this past year, and we both want to get more riding in next year. Gresh and I are going to do a moto trip to Baja in 2020, and we may get to visit with Baja John in Bahia de Los Angeles (that dude likes Baja so much he moved there). On any of the Mexico trips, we for sure will be insured with BajaBound Insurance, the best insurance there is for travel in Mexico. More good travel stuff? We published Destinations, a compendium of the travel stories appearing in Motorcycle Classics magazine, and it’s doing very well (thank you).
More plans? Gresh will be pouring more concrete, and I’ll be spending more time at the West End Gun Club. Joe is planning to maybe pick up the Zed resurrection again, and I’m pretty sure he’ll get that bike on the road within the next 12 months. We’ve got the upcoming 9mm comparo I mentioned yesterday, and for sure more gun articles. Good buddy Gonzo asked us to ride in the 2020 Three Flags Classic, and I’d like to make a go of that one this coming year (I was disappointed in myself for not riding that great event in 2019, but the circumstances just weren’t right). I think I’m going to write Tales of the Gun as a book and offer it for sale here on ExNotes, and maybe Joe Gresh will do the same with his collection of moto articles (and when he does, you can bet I’ll buy the first copy). We’ll be doing more product reviews, including movie and book reviews. I’m going to get on my bicycle more, and we may have some info on electric bicycles, too. You’ll read all about it right here.
So it’s a wrap for 2019. Susie bought a bottle of Gentleman Jack for me, and I’m going to pour a shot and watch 2020 roll in later tonight. To all of you, our best wishes for a happy and healthy 2020. Ride safe, ride often, and keep your powder dry.
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Yours truly and the Genuine G400c, patrolling the mean streets of San Francisco!
This is one of those blogs for which I could have used any of several titles. The Real Deal got the nod, as this is indeed the real deal…a genuine (pardon the pun) motorcycle. Another contender was The Streets of San Francisco, like that Karl Malden and Michael Douglas show 30 years ago. And yet another was We Are Living In Interesting Times (read on, and you’ll see what I mean).
Anyway, enough of the trip down memory lane and alternative blog titles. I made a few memories of my own yesterday, riding around downtown San Francisco around good buddy Lunchbox’s San Francisco Scooter Centre. Barry is the guy who owns and runs the dealership, but Lunchbox is the guy in charge. He’s about a year old now (I’ve known him since he was a pup), and he’s a cool 82 lbs. After checking in with Lunchbox, I visited with Barry for a bit. I always like coming up here. I like Lunchbox, I like the city, I like the San Francisco Scooter Centre, and I like Barry.
Lunchbox, the man in charge. He’s cool. He lets Barry think he’s the guy running the San Francisco Scooter Centre, but Lunchbox is the one really calling the shots.Good buddy Barry and the Genuine G400c motorcycle.
Barry and I had a great taco lunch downtown, we talked about the motorcycle market, and we swapped stories about a couple of our other common interests. Then it was time to get on the G400c. Barry tossed me the keys and the bike’s registration, and told me to have fun. Being a guy who aims to please, I did as I was told. It was easy on the Genuine.
So let me tell you about the Genuine G400c. The first thing I noticed was that it’s a motorcycle. A real motorcycle. Tear drop gas tank (where the gas actually goes), a tach and speedo that look like a tach and speedo should, and a long, low, flat seat (good for moving around on when necessary, carrying a passenger, and strapping on soft luggage for longer trips). Wire wheels. Chrome fenders. Chrome handlebars that put the controls in comfortable reach. It all came together the way it should. Yessiree, this is a motorcycle that is visually appealing. None of that Ricky Racer, low bar face on the tank, angry Ninja insect, or giraffesque ADV wannabe silliness or styling. This is a motorcycle that looks like a motorcycle should.
The next thing I noticed was that the G400c was easy to throw a leg over. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a bike where I could say that. I’ll say more on this in a bit.
And another thing I noticed was that the bike sounds like a motorcycle. A real motorcycle. A Genuine motorcycle. I like that, too. I had my big Nikon with me (the D810) and I grabbed a video of the startup sequence…
This bike sounds good. It has a nice, deep, throaty rumble. The skyscrapers I darted between in downtown San Francisco amplified the exhaust note, and the reverberations were intoxicating. There’s something undeniably cool about riding a nimble, throaty motorcycle in a city. It would have been cool to grab more video of myself riding around San Francisco, but I’m not as talented as Joe Gresh in that regard and besides, I was having too much fun. You can have a great ride or you can make a great video. Unless you’re Joe Gresh, you can’t do both at the same time.
So back to that nimble thing. You’re reading something written by a guy who thinks that somewhere in the 1970s and the 1980s the wheels came off the wagon here in the US with regard to motorcycle size and complexity, and until very recently, things have continued to get nuttier as the years have gone by and advertising guys (who are supposed to be creative people) kept defaulting to bigger has to be better. My thoughts are in synch with most of the rest of the motorcycle world (not the aforementioned advertising gurus) in that I think a 250cc is the perfect size. A 400cc single is even better, especially if it comes in a 250cc-sized package, and that’s what the G400c is.
I don’t know the Genuine’s weight. I could find it in a few seconds with a Google search, but I don’t need to. I know what I need to know from my ride, and that’s this: The G400c is light and it’s nimble, and that’s all the spec I need. Hell, you can’t trust what most of the manufacturers tell you about their bikes’ weights, anyway. And even if you could believe their numbers, what really matters is where a bike’s center of gravity is located. Make it too high, and a motorcycle will feel unwieldy regardless of its weight. Make it low, though, and a bike becomes flickable, agile, nimble, and just plain fun to ride. That’s what this machine is. I had fun splitting lanes and braaapping around downtown San Francisco. The G400c is perfect for that, but that’s not the only arena in which I see it excelling. I think the G400c would be a great bike for a Baja ride, too. Someday. We’ll see.
Next up: Seat height. It’s the same story here, folks. Like I said earlier, I could throw my leg over the seat without having to take a yoga class or do any stretching exercises, and you know what? That’s a good feeling. The saddle is low enough to make getting on and off the bike easy, and that’s decidedly not the case for a lot of motorcycles these days.
You might ask about suspension travel. When I was younger and dumber, I used to pour over the spec sheets you’d see in the motorcycle magazines, and then I realized that unless you plan to ride motocross, the only thing a ton of suspension travel does for a street bike is make thing way too tall. The G400c seat height was just where I needed it to be. And on that suspension travel topic, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Even though our taxes in California (and San Francisco in particular) are among the highest in the world, we still have lousy streets with lots of potholes and rough sections. The G400c was fine being flung around in the city, sloppy streets and road surfaces notwithstanding. It soaked it all up without a whimper. I’d like to buttonhole our politicians someday and ask them: Exactly where does all that tax money go? In the meantime, though, I know the suspension on the G400c gets the job done.
Mean streets? Bring ’em on. The G400c was just plain fun riding around San Francisco. It’s a comfortable, right-sized motorcycle.
I didn’t take the G400c on the freeway, although Barry invited me to do so. Nope, the freeways are typically a mess in San Francisco, and I figured (correctly, as I experienced on the drive out of San Francisco later in the day) I could actually get more miles in and reach higher top speeds on the city streets. And I did. Until this guy you see in the photo caught up with me, lit me up, and started casting dirty looks my way. Then he got in front of me. Point taken, Officer. I rode a bit more like a normal person after that.
Another view from the cockpit. I like the instrument layout. It’s what a motorcycle is supposed to look like.
Okay, let’s not ignore the 800-lb gorilla in the room: The G400c is manufactured in China. As many of you know, I know a little bit about Chinese motorcycles and I played a tangential role in making the case for Chinese quality when CSC Motorcycles started importing the Zongshen RX3 back in 2015. You might have trepidations about buying a Chinese motorcycle, and it’s almost a certainty you know people who badmouth Chinese products. My advice when you hear the inevitable anti-China mush is to remember that God loves stupid people (because He sure made a lot of them). Yeah, they’ve got their stories about their buddy who worked at a dealer 10 years ago and he told them…well, you get the idea. Folks, these people just don’t know.
I know a little bit about this topic, I think. Maybe more than most of the weenies posting opinions on Facebook and the motorcycle forums.
My advice is to blow these weenies off, get yourself to a dealer, and see for yourself. I know a little bit about quality and manufacturing, I’ve been in several Chinese manufacturing plants, and I’m here to tell you that Chinese motorcycle quality is as good as or better than anything that’s out there. Consider this: Automobile and motorcycle companies like BMW, Vespa, Honda, Suzuki, and many others have components, major subassemblies, engines, and complete motorcycles manufactured in China. These world-class companies wouldn’t be doing that if the quality was low.
You might have a concern about the G400c being a new bike, that is to say, one that doesn’t have a track record. Actually, that’s not the case. This motorcycle has been rolling around China for a good three years now (I saw them when I rode across China on the RX3 a few years ago). The G400c is manufactured for Genuine by Shineray (it’s pronounced Shin-yu-way), and in China, they have been selling two versions of the bike for several years (a street version and an adventure-touring-styled version). The riding in China is way tougher than it is here. We tend to use our motorcycles as toys. In China, motorcycles are work horses. They are ridden hard and put away wet.
Another thing that’s nice about the G400c motor is that it’s a Honda clone. The concept (but not the engine) here is the same as the Honda CG clone motors that power the CSC and Janus bikes…an engine based on a Honda design built for an environment where folks don’t take care of their bikes. It’s a different Honda motor design, but it’s a proven design. It’s a strong, torquey, fuel injected single.
The G400c’s braking is good. It’s a single disk in front, and a drum in the rear. A lot of folks will be grasping their chest and convulsing at the thought of a drum brake in back, but it works, and it works for me. Again, don’t let some kid writing a magazine article (or worse, someone posting an opinion on Facebook) tell you that you have to have a disk brake in back. Drum brakes have worked fine for decades. It’s one of the things keeping the cost down on this bike, and it’s a reasonable tradeoff. Like it said, it works for me.
What I don’t know yet is the parts availability question, nor do I know about the availability of a shop manual. Those are fair questions to ask a dealer. I didn’t, mostly because I was focused on the riding.
Genuine states the top speed is over 80 mph. I’ve ridden bikes with the same engine in China and I saw indicated speeds on city streets over 90 mph and the bike still had more left (and at that point I thought to myself “Whoa, Bucko…what am I doing here?”). I think the top end is more than adequate for any real world needs. And on that note, this is another area in which you hear the keyboard commandos espouse things like “Ah need a bike made in ‘Merica that can do at least a hunnert twenty miles per hour or I’ll get run over…” You do, huh? Hey, I rode across China, I’ve been up and down Baja a bunch of times, I circumnavigated the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and I’ve ridden all over the US. And I did all of this on 250cc motorcycles. Motorcycles made in China, to be specific. But what do I know?
You might ask: Are there any negatives? I guess to play magazine road test writer I have to find something, and on the G400c it might be that some of the details could be more finely finished. Maybe the handlebar switchgear castings could be polished a little more, things like that. Barry told me the bike I rode is one of the very earliest ones to arrive in America, and that Genuine is sweating the cosmetic details like this. But these are minor points. The next question would be: Would I recommend buying this bike? To that question, the answer is yes. They retail at about $4600, and with all the fees they go out the door at a notch above $5700. Barry is one of the few honest dealers I know in that he doesn’t treat setup and freight as a major profit center. Here’s how he has the bikes priced…
The G400c pricing sheet at the San Francisco Scooter Centre. Freight and setup are honest numbers here, which isn’t the case at many other dealers.
We are living in interesting times. Just a few years ago the small motorcycle landscape in the US was pretty barren, and what few bikes were out there carried stupid-high prices and obscene dealer freight and setup fees. Our choices in recent decades have been outrageously tall, fat, and heavy motorcycles with prices in the stratosphere. Today, the moto menu before us is interesting and intriguing, and it’s rooted in the real world. There’s the CSC Motorcycles line with several 250cc selections and soon, the 450cc RX4. There the Janus line of magnificently-handcrafted contemporary classics. There’s Royal Enfield, with their 400cc Himalayan, 500cc Classic, and soon-to-be-released 650cc Interceptor (at an incredible $5795). I’ve ridden nearly all of these motorcycles (I haven’t caught a ride on the Himalayan yet, but that’s coming up), and I’ve ridden many of them through Baja (you can read about our Enfield Baja trip, the Janus Baja trip, and any of several CSC Baja trips). And now, there’s another great bike in the mix: The Genuine 400c. For the first time in a long time, we have choices. Good choices that won’t break the bank. Life is good, folks.
Check out our related Genuine G400c and San Francisco Scooter Centre posts!
This is a blog I did for CSC a year or so ago, and it’s one I thought I would run again here. We haven’t done a Dream Bikes blog in a while, and it’s time.
It’s raining, it’s cold here in southern California, and those two conditions are enough to keep me indoors today. I’ve been straightening things up here in the home office, and I came across a Triumph brochure from 1978. I bought a new Bonneville that year and as I type this, I realize that was a cool 40 years ago. Wowee. Surprisingly, the brochure scanned well, so much so that even the fine print is still readable…
Triumph had two 750 twins back then. One was the twin-carb Bonneville, and the other was the single-carb model (I think they called it the Tiger). The Bonneville came in brown or black and the Tiger came in blue or red (you can see the color palette in the third photo above). I liked the red and my dealer (in Fort Worth) swapped the tank from a Tiger onto my Bonneville. I loved that bike, and I covered a lot of miles in Texas on it. I used to ride with a friend and fellow engineer at General Dynamics named Sam back in the F-16 days (he had a Yamaha 500cc TT model, which was another outstanding bike back in the day). I wish I still had that Bonneville.
After I sold the Bonneville, I turned right around and bought a ’79 Electra-Glide Classic. There’s a brochure buried around here somewhere on that one, and if I come across it I’ll see how it scans. The Harley had a lot of issues, but it’s another one I enjoyed owning and riding, and it’s another I wish I still owned.
So there you have it. That ’78 Bonneville is a bike I still have dreams about, and they were made all the more poignant by the Royal Enfield Interceptor I rode in Baja last month. You can read about the Enfield Interceptor and our Baja adventures here.
Want to read more pieces like this? Check out our other Dream Bikes here!
I came across my new good buddy Chris Alves’ photo essay about a ride across India on a Royal Enfield a day or two ago and I was impressed. Imagine that…a 3,000-mile ride across India on a Royal Enfield. That’s a bucket list ride for me. You can get to Chris’ photo essay by clicking here. Folks, this one is worth your time.
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…
I do buy stuff, though. Lots of it. In fact, my new goal as a senior citizen is to make sure my outgo equals my income (I keep telling the kids if there’s anything left after I’m gone, it’s strictly the result of an computational error). And to help me meet that goal, I think I’m buying a new motorcycle. One that has no fraud associated with freight and setup, as is typically encountered at most dealers. Maybe around the end of this month. Watch for more details. Before I do that, though, I want to get my TT250 running. I don’t ride as much as I should, and my TT250 carb gummed up from disuse. I’ll have to refer to my free 
Our most commented upon post last year? It was Joe Gresh’s 
We’ve stepped on a few toes along the way. Some folks got their noses bent out of shape because 
We did a lot of travel this year, but not as many motorcycle trips as we wanted. The Royal Enfields we took through Baja were fun, and we had a 
I came across my new good buddy Chris Alves’ photo essay about a ride across India on a Royal Enfield a day or two ago and I was impressed. Imagine that…a 3,000-mile ride across India on a Royal Enfield. That’s a bucket list ride for me. You can get to Chris’ photo essay by 
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.