Royal Enfield’s first “Purpose Built” motorcycle in 50 years!

Royal Enfield currently holds the world record for being the largest selling big bike (350cc and above). With each passing year those numbers increase by 700,000! Some say its because these motorcycles were supplied to the Indian military and hence have an unmatched loyalty. Others claim it’s the abundant labor and lack of competition that gave them the edge.

There is no dearth of explanations one can find from Enfield owners or online posts but the one reason that has never been mentioned is that it got where it did today because their bikes were “purpose built”.

Until of course, in early 2016, when Royal Enfield launched a single cylinder, air-cooled, 4-stroke motorcycle that was created entirely in-house. To avoid any confusion about the direction for this bikes purpose, they named it the “Himalayan”.

The honeymoon period in the first year saw the expected list of niggles such as poor parts and gear not shifting properly. As long time fans we knew this from all their previous launches so we waited till those issues got sorted, the carburetor got replaced with the EFI and few more sensors thrown in.

Then to stay true to Royal Enfield’s philosophy of taking their bikes to places it wasn’t designed to go we rode the Himalayan into the Thar Desert.

The 1035 odd miles had us going from the highway into the less known back roads playing chicken with the bulls and cows and the occasional camel. When compared with the Royal Enfield Desert Storm, what the Himalayan lacks in its “thump” sound and classic looks, it makes up in with its comfortable stance.

The Desert Storm took the lead when both opened up the throttle on the highway. But it was when we had to ride over gravel, mud and sand that the Himalayan breezed past its Classic cousins.

Ultimately when you are in India your motorcycle will have to endure roads and challenges that are beyond its “purpose” on paper. That is usually when the real adventure begins. And at the end of the day, watching the surreal sunset over the dunes with a cup of chai in your hand, one can only wonder if all this talk of “purpose-built” isn’t really about motorcycles but us as well.

Joshua John writing from New Delhi

I’ve always had a thirst for extremes. From a business meeting in a suit on Monday to a pink Mohawk on Tuesday. From a lavish five star hotel in Manila at breakfast to a dank, fly-infested outhouse in the northern Philippines at lunch time. Or from the conclusion of 2 weeks riding in Cambodia torturing through the impoverished, knee-deep toxic mud hell of Poipet to a striking Cabernet and thick 8 ounce filet mignon in Bangkok in the span of only 8 hours.

After a week sheltered in an opulent suite at one of the most beautiful hotels in India, tomorrow I will be extruded onto a motorcycle into the tempest of Bangalore traffic for a ride 200 miles to the south. I can’t wait.

I don’t precisely recall the event, but I imagine the transition from the warm tranquility of the womb, through the birth canal to the cold, rubber-gloved hands of the masked doctor who delivered me must have been one of the harshest experiences of my life. The second most is doubtless the ejection from the serenity of the lush, walled compound of a fine hotel’s porte-cochère to the gritty cacophony of the streets of any large Indian city. One minute you are leading a blissful existence and the next, India is in your face.

It didn’t take too long to settle into a rhythm and after a few minor course corrections I pointed the front wheel south, jostling with the stream of all manor of vehicles like carpenter ants headed back to the hill.

National Highway 275 is like any regional connector: two lanes each way cluttered with an incessant mosaic of dilapidated shops, billboards and ‘hotels’ – cheap roadside food stalls where you can get your fill of good dal and roti for about a dollar.

What varies this ride from so many others over the past 10 years is that I am riding a ‘real’ bike – a Triumph Tiger 800 – instead of ubiquitous Royal Enfield Bullet 500 I have rented 10 times before. When I say ‘real’ bike, this is not to denigrate the humble Bullet: I have extolled its virtue as the perfect bike for India many times. But it cannot escape the fact that it is based a 1960’s design and the performance when you want to twist the throttle or yank of the brake is at about garden mower level.

The Triumph has two key distinctions from the Enfield. First is performance. I gleefully found myself riding at first-world speeds time and again only to almost ram into the back of an abruptly halted bus on one occasion, and into a herd of mules on another, violating my own Principle # 6 of Never Getting Comfortable. The other distinction is that it is distinct. Of the millions and millions of two-wheelers on the road in India, 99.999% of garden-variety 125cc Honda scooters. This distinctness brought back memories of when I rode here on my big BMW: every time I would stop, groups of men would congregate and ask how much it cost, or swarms of schools kids would encircle me and practice their English. I love when that happens..

The highlight of my day other than all of it was when I was passed by a shiny white Audi A6 – a hyper exotic car on the rural lanes of India – with the logo of the hotel I had just left embossed on its doors in gold. When we met up again at the next goat herder crossing they looked at me with a sense of utter befuddlement. ‘What’s he doing out there?’ was the message their eyes conveyed. ‘He’ll get killed!’ I thought of the air-conditioning and the plush leather seats inside their cocoon and then reflected on my sweaty, grimy face. ‘Nope, I’m fine. Very fine. But thanks for asking’, I thought.

Today I tried something new. I set off after breakfast with a mission: find the best Mysore Masala Dosa in Mysore. Well, that and a sherwani – a ¾ length kind of man dress made of silk that is worn at weddings – but more on that later. Or not. My old routine for heading into city centers after arriving at my hotel on a bike was to use taxis or autorickshaws. The primary reason is that getting lost in an Indian city on a big, heavy motorcycle when it’s oppressively hot and your depressingly tired really, really sucks. Today I cheated a bit and set off on the bike with a little Indian lady in my Bluetooth headset chanting step-by-step directions from Google maps. Yes, she did send me in circles several times but when I consider that first time I came to India – 25 years ago – not only was there no GPS but there were no road signs either, I accepted her artificially intelligent instructions without hesitation. With the sound of Indira Google in my ear as a safety net, I decided to wander aimlessly on the bike for a few hours as you might when ambling through the narrow lanes of an old European town. I spent hours getting deeper and deeper into the city, dosa by dosa, through residential neighborhoods, through inner-city dairy farms, through electrics town, transmission town and wrought-iron fence town. (most commercial districts focus on one commodity so you could have a whole block of guys selling screws or women’s undies or whatever). For showing me a new way explore the densest corners of India, I thank you, Indira Google.

Back to the dosas.

Dosa is a simple food served for breakfast or lunch. Try ordering one for dinner in India and you will be laughed at. To find the one most adored by Mysorians, I asked the barber who had just pruned my scalp and straight-razored my face for $2. He took me to the door of his stall-like shop and recited a stream of directions. I managed to retain the first 2 or 3 steps. But I did recall the name – Hotel Vinayaka Mylari. I wasn’t really hungry – I had eaten 4 already – but I was on mission from Shiva so pulled out my phone, Googled the restaurant, mapped the route and hit ‘start’ to have Indira calmly guide me there through the mid-morning traffic crush. The Hotel – really a hole in the wall restaurant with 5 tables – employs the standard approach of seating you at any table where there is a spot. I was tripled up with two young dudes on a day trip from Bangalore out to find – you guessed it – the best Mysore Masala Dosa in Mysore. We talked about typical guy stuff – work, motorbikes, girls – and food. Unlike the traditional variety with a thin, crispy shell, the Mysore version is more like a crepe and is smeared on the inside with chili paste before plopping in a hefty load of potato cooked with masala spices. The flopped over pancake then receives a spoonful of soft butter and is served with some coconut chutney that was so delish I could have eaten it all by itself.

Was it the world’s best Mysore Masala Dosa? How the fuck should I know. I’m not a dosa expert. But I can unequivocally declare that it was the most fun I’ll ever have trying to find the world’s best Mysore Masala Dosa and I guess that was the mission Shiva had for me all along.

The ride home from office to hotel was a route I had taken before. It has never been a pleasant commute. But for some reason this evening, draped with a dusky, corrosion-hued toxic sky, the scene was reminiscent of Bosch’s morbid The Last Judgment as the panorama of suffering slid past my car’s window.

Clustered around the 150 foot high, 1,000 foot wide garbage mountain at Ghazipur with 1,000’s of vultures circling above like a halo of death lives a society of despair; a civilization of ten thousand living things enduring hell on Earth. Villages of sticks and tarps encamped in a mile-long drainage ditch, children playing, men urinating, women crying. Rotting, randomly layered carcasses of discarded vehicles like one would see at the bottom of the sea encrusted with mollusks and coral as an artificial reef, instead are rendered monochromatic by a thick layer of poison dust. Herds of cattle graze in fields of garbage and drink from murky septic puddles. Emaciated packs of dogs forage for any scrap.

I read every day that India is rising. I am not fooled. India will remain the parent who caresses you with one arm while beating you with the other until those with the will, the knowledge, and the money – the men in the billion dollar skyscraper homes – take action.

Meet Carl. You might easily confuse him for the local barman, but Carl is the founder, president and COO of Claymore Jackets of East Yorkshire, England. Finding him is a challenge. His web site presence has a distinct ‘get off my lawn’ feeling: An welcoming user experience it is not. And locating his little house in the small village of Goole requires persistence. There is no ‘Claymore Jackets’ sign in front and Google Maps has not yet caught up to Goole. But a trip to visit family in the neighboring county of Cheshire gave me the opportunity me to try.

Heritage is a word liberally used when describing British waxed jacket makers like Belstaff and Barbour. But these brands have long ago pivoted to the luxury market and seem to have lost the utility strand in their DNA. Claymore remains true to the original mission: they are made to be worn on the road, not in the club. If you know Bestaff’s Roadmaster jacket, Claymore’s Roadmeister will seem familiar. You could even say the design is more or less the same. But where the $800 Roadmaster feels delicate but practical for every day wearing, the $400 Roadmeister is of heavier gauge fabric that could actually withstand a spill. And with the $120 armor option, it will protect from everything India throws at you.

Visiting Carl in his shed was a journey to the roots of craftsmanship. The 100 square feet of workspace is crammed with five sewing machines, piles of fabrics and boxes of components. There is no showroom to try on one of the eight models. Instead, Carl had one Jacket he had ‘buggered up’ that served as the only tactile proof of the finished product. After selecting a style, I was offered an array of colors to choose from, two different materials (traditional waxed cotton and ‘Ventile’, a non-waxed waterproof material of tightly woven cotton) and a choice of a national flag to be sewn into a front pocket. Next, Carl measured every dimension of my upper body and relayed these to his only other employee, his Thai wife. And that was that. In only three weeks my Claymore Jacket appeared in the mail, ready for action.

Obviously, there are simpler ways to buy an adventure touring jacket and yes, Cordura is a very practical material and is available everywhere. But if you are looking for something different and, in my my opinion, incredibly well suited to the diverse riding conditions of India, give Carl a try.

If you can find him.