[mac187]

Mumbai: Royal Enfield unveiled two new limited edition leisure bikes - Classic Chrome and Desert Storm on Thursday.

"Our customers have been demanding the Chrome model of Royal Enfield for quite some time now. Both Classic Chrome and Desert Storm are meant to bring more thrills to the customer," the firm's senior vice president (sales and marketing) Shaji Koshy said.


Priced at Rs.1,65,400, Chrome is an improvised version of the 2009 Royal Enfield Classic. The Classic Chrome comes with a unique chrome tank, wide mud guards and oval tool box.It is equipped with a 500cc twin-spark engine, with 27.2 bhp power output

The Desert Storm, too, boasts of a 500cc twin-spark engine and is priced at Rs.158,200.



"Following the launch of Classic 350 and 500cc in September 2009, we have been continuously equipping our dealerships to take customer satisfaction to the next level. In 2011, we have added 15 dealerships and one brand store to our existing network," Koshy said.

Royal Enfield's domestic line-up includes the Bullet 350, Bullet Electra, Classic 350, Classic 500 and the Thunderbird Twinspark. Its motorcycles are exported to over 30 countries across the world including the US, Japan and Britain.

Read more at: Royal Enfield launches two limited edition 500cc bikes

[naveenroy]

Oh! Oh! Now waiting times will increase from 8 ~ 9 months to 20 months.

Man - like the bikes though. Have become tired of waiting for RE!

[aruncheloor]

Uber cool.. But, after seeing the live pics from overdrive, i feel my green C5 still looks more retro.

[mac187]

Originally Posted by naveenroy

Oh! Oh! Now waiting times will increase from 8 ~ 9 months to 20 months.

Man - like the bikes though. Have become tired of waiting for RE!

True, waiting periods are huge for an RE. But there was a new recently that they are planning a new manufacturing plant in Gujarat, if i recall correctly. It will take a long time to materialize but atleast its a first step in the right direction.

Originally Posted by aruncheloor

Uber cool.. But, after seeing the live pics from overdrive, i feel my green C5 still looks more retro.

Personally, I have always liked military green RE's. They just look the best. Chrome RE's are a too loud IMO. The Storm ticks the right check boxes for me.

[singhsid]

Any reason why the Military Green bull is not available for sale in India? A friend of mine was saying that some rule prohibits the sale of military green painted vehicles to civilians. Can someone verify this?

[h@r$h@l]

Got these pics from Royal Riders Ahmedabad page on FB. pics credit. : Swaroop Srinivasan

I went to see the beasts and i presonally loved the Black n Crome. Looked amazing.

[ku69rd]

How good is the quality of Chrome? How safe is it to ride basking in full glory of Sunshine? Both for the rider and other road users
Felt the Desert Storm could have had a better shade with a slight more gloss to it or is it the photographs doing injustice to the bikes?

[knaveen]

Looks Great! Are these only cosmetic changes over the existing Classic 500?. These i guess are sold in the UK for a long time now:
Chrome:
Royal Enfield Bullet Classic Chrome
Desert storm is a similar version of Battle Green:
Royal Enfield Bullet Classic Battle Green (This looks AWESOME!)

[Karlitoz]

The bikes look damn good on road, but are just cosmetically different. Only paint jobs are the difference.
Wonder when would RE come up withe the UCE engine mounted on a Machismo chassis, or a UCE with a 19 inch rear wheels

[shrini78]

For heaven's sake this is 2011 and why aren they still running rear drum brakes?
Are they waiting for an armageddon to change from drum to disc in rear

[Mpower]

I am really surprised these are selling so well. I thought single seat bikes would simply not work in India.

[naveenroy]

Originally Posted by shrini78

For heaven's sake this is 2011 and why aren they still running rear drum brakes?
Are they waiting for an armageddon to change from drum to disc in rear

Yeah - agree! But that involves some R&D and well, RE and R&D? Will take 50 years!

[Karlitoz]

Originally Posted by shrini78

For heaven's sake this is 2011 and why aren they still running rear drum brakes?
Are they waiting for an armageddon to change from drum to disc in rear

Rightly said Shrini. I feel the same about the RE.

But my question is that the bike is not really a high speed bike, so would a rear-disc really help.I guess its useful only if you consider the weight of the bike

[shrini78]

@Karlitoz I totally agree with you but if thats the case they have disc in the front for quite a while so why this discrepancy when it comes to rear
if you talk about heavy bikes then HD for one, has discs in front & rear and you can get floating discs...
Dont know if RE R&D guy came via time travel from 70s and still thinking that drum is better than discs

[ArizonaJim]

In my opinion the drum brake on the back of a Royal Enfield is more than capable of locking up the rear wheel any time someone wants to do that. I don't recommend doing that by the way.

About the only real advantage of a rear disk brake on most motorcycles is some weight savings over the drum style except for those equipped with anti-lock brake systems or those motorcycles that are on the track in racing conditions.

On the track in racing conditions, the drum brake's will fade or loose braking power when they get very, very hot but how many people who ride a Royal Enfield will ever use their rear brake enough for this problem to develop?
Yes, disk brakes don't overheat to the point that they loose their braking power but IMO this is only important under racing conditions.

Well over 85 percent of the braking power on a motorcycle involves the front brake and that brake on the new RE's, as others have noted is a disk brake.
They put the power and improvement where it is needed. Where it was not needed they kept the older, but still very capable drum.

There is a old saying in my country, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
In this case, It ain't broke.