Royal Enfields From India, Anyone Had One? Any Good?

I am going to take my time and think carefully over if I really want and what I want. I am planning this for later in the year/winter anyway. I like the colour of the blue one in the owners handbook but I haven't seen one of those for sale.

 

I have to say that I have never seen a modern Royal Enfield in the flesh although, out for a spin last night, I had just turned off from the Rest and Be Thankful to head down the road to my village (in a queue of apparent visitors to the area crawling along) and a red and white interceptor passed me going in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately I have to say that, while I find the external look of the 500 single to be a thing of beauty, the twin engine looks like an ugly squat lump to me compared to the elegant design of the Triumph twin motors new or old.

 

I kind of get the feeling that Enfield are on the up and I'm worried that Triumph are on the down. The feeling I got in the showroom in Glasgow was that they are trying to aim for an 'elitist' market and their prices certainly aren't pocket friendly, especially on accessories. They weren't at all interested in dealing with a scruffy old oik of a 'biker' like me even though I had over £20,000 in my pocket burning a hole in my bank card. Yes this model works for Harley Davidson but they have been at it a long time and have that 'Americana' allure for a lot of people where 'Brit Bikes' have a very different ethos. Quite frankly I find the current line-up visually quite boring. The big 'classics' resemble Harleys way too much to my eye. I don't know what the general view is now but I well recall that in the 90's the Japanese Harley clones were very much viewed in the vein of "Oh you couldn't afford a Harley so you had to settle for one of those" and, if they cost pretty much what a Harley costs then I would go for a Harley(If I actually liked them and the way they look and ride that is). The scramblers could bear more of a visible nod to historic machines the way the Enfield Scrambler does (I have to say that it is quite gorgeous and looks every inch the pre-65 machine) and the 'Adventure' bikes are starting to look like the same 'Plumbers nightmares' everyone else in producing. It kind of beats me why they didn't take the looks of the original Tigers as the starting point for the 'Adventure' series. The 'Classic' are, to me at least, where the Triumph allure really resides and they are in danger of becoming 'just another bike manufacturer'. Finally add to that the location of the production facilities now then the elitist branding is a somewhat thin veneer. The brand under John Bloor came back so strongly and with so much imagination and now seems to be drifting without direction.

 

Aye @Don the Don and, if Triumph had created something along the same lines it would have been a cracker! Even the limited editions are a bit half hearted like their ISDT commemoration model where they just pretty much bunged a photo of the team, with Steve McQueen in tow, on the top of the tank of an otherwise stock machine. A distinct lack of imagination. The specials would have been so much better if they had just stuck something tasty and unusual on them and I don't mean just a limited edition handlebar clamp. Even the Thruxton R does little for me if I am honest to me it looks a bit too 'Manx Norton' or Triton but, at the same time not close enough to have that 'wow' factor and the Manx Norton has something about it that makes it look at once compact and very chunky. They could have gone with something that looked much more unique but retro and bearing all the hallmarks of Triumph history.