[timuseravan]

Originally Posted by avisidhu

For all the hoopla about Quality, no reviewer seems to have spent time or effort giving a detailed analysis of the same. Just one or two lines here and there, and a woeful reminder that similar coverage happened with the Himalayan. Why don't these fellows have their ears to the ground, and tailor their reviews towards what people actually want to know?

A lot of first reviews have mentioned that quality is quiet good - almost as good as any other Indian bike. Vibrations are also down a lot which would mean lesser problem with bolts or other parts falling off.

But its impossible to talk about reliability with half or one day of riding. RE would have checked the bikes before handing over to Journalists so distorting any true picture.


I am super tempted but will wait till Sep 2020 before buying.

[srini1785]

Disclaimer : I am not much of a RE fan. Too many on road now a days for any type of uniqueness.

Looking at the design and prices it does seem to be very attractive. I have always doubted the first reviews of any automobile product since your first impressions of anything new is always favourable. One of my friends purchased a Himalayan and regretted it later. Its only after a few months of riding , after the initial euphoria of the vehicles die down, that you really get a feel of the vehicle.

My father once worked for RE when they had a factory in ranipet and he told me how Explorer was a success in its initial days only to be rejected in batches due to its gear problems after a few months in the market. Let keep of fingers crossed for the time being.

[avisidhu]

Originally Posted by timuseravan

A lot of first reviews have mentioned that quality is quiet good - almost as good as any other Indian bike. Vibrations are also down a lot which would mean lesser problem with bolts or other parts falling off.

But its impossible to talk about reliability with half or one day of riding. RE would have checked the bikes before handing over to Journalists so distorting any true picture.
....

Completely agree. But a bit more deep dive and pictures of parts, joints, electricals etc. would have made things much more clear. Or maybe its just an effect of being spoiled by Team-BHP reviews For instance, that wonderful review of the Classic 500 by Randhawa.

[//M]

Originally Posted by nasirkaka

Superb pricing and very very tempting!
I may just get back RE with interceptor 650, provided the quality is good. No hurry this time as i personally dont see any specific need for this bike, except having a torquey low revving retro styled twin in the garage for one of those lazy sunday breakfast ride types. poormans bonnie for sure!!

I am in a similar boat. After my Classic 500, I thought I will never touch a RE again, but the Interceptor 650 in chrome livery makes me go weak in my knees. I might just be tempted to get one - would be a nice addition to my Tiger 800. I am in no hurry to get a second bike, so I will wait for atleast a year after launch till proper ownership reports are out.

[R-Six]

Absolutely killer pricing for the US market. Classic 500 retails for around $5500 and the prices revealed for the Twins range between $5800 and $6000. Merely a 10% more than the Classic 500.

While Sid Lal did not reveal the pricing for India, he did mention that we can expect a similar pricing for the Twins as well. If that logic is true, then we are looking at some mouthwatering price when launched.

Sid kept repeating that the pricing in India wouldn’t be too low or too high but somewhere in the middle. So I’m guessing that they might launch the Twins within 3L vicinity. If that is true, then it is going to be a sweet deal.

If not for anything else, there would be people queueing up just because it is a Twin cylinder and to the folks who pick up bikes for show off, a bullet with two functional silencers will be the icing on the cake.

And again, that rumble from the exhaust. I just love that. Sweet!

[rakesh_r]

Originally Posted by srini1785

My father once worked for RE when they had a factory in ranipet and he told me how Explorer was a success in its initial days only to be rejected in batches due to its gear problems after a few months in the market. Let keep of fingers crossed for the time being.

I am pretty much sure, RE wont make the same mistake as what they did when the BS3 Himalayan was launched. They got bashed, left and right. The BS4 is much improved one (have one myself). A 650 twin at 3 to 3.5 is Indeed something we can dream off. As said earlier, I will buy one only by 2020 H2 once the "Beta" testing is done.

[varunswnt]

Zigwheels' First ride impressions

https://www.zigwheels.com/reviews-ad...-review/31943/

Noteworthy points from first ride

We've got to mention the build quality here, as at least at first inspection, the Interceptor seems to be a big step up from the company's current lineup of motorcycles. We’d go so far as to say that this is built as well as pretty much any other Indian-made motorcycle.

The cross-braced handlebars are tall and really wide, yet you have a very slight lean to reach them. The footpegs too are slightly rear-set - a far cry from the forward set pegs of the Classic or the Bullet - so the rider’s triangle is just spot on. However, the seat height, at 804mm, isn’t exactly short. But then the seat itself is quite narrow, so getting your feet down to the ground isn’t too much of an issue. Still, shorter riders won’t really be able to flat-foot the bike. And then the narrow seat isn’t too great either, even though its soft enough. Short stints in the saddle are comfortable enough, but after a full day of riding, our backsides weren’t too happy. And if we’re being really picky, we'd have to say the rear part of the seat is also somewhat of an issue. The sharp slope off at the back will have slightly larger or heavier pillions feeling that they’re sliding off the bike.

At the heart of this motorcycle is a fuel-injected 648cc parallel-twin motor, which for the sake of keeping things simple, is primarily air-cooled. But there’s an oil-cooler here as well, with oil circulating through the head to cool down the area around the spark plug and valves. So in that sense, it’s a true air-and-oil cooled unit. The other bit of modernness is a 4-valve head that allows this motor to breathe better, and unlike RE tradition, these valves are actuated by an overhead chain-driven cam.

The numbers are the highest we’ve seen on any RE motorcycle - 47PS @ 7250rpm and 52Nm @ 5250rpm. However, they aren’t really what this engine is all about. The focus here has been on producing a flat torque curve from as early on in the rev band as possible, and this motor makes 80 percent of its torque from just 2500rpm. So anytime you open the throttle, you have plenty of grunt available to get moving. But even though this motor is fairly quick to rev thanks to its short stroke configuration, it’s pointless pulling it all the way to its redline of 7500rpm. This is an engine that’s best enjoyed from 2500rpm to 6000rpm.

It’s amazing how relaxed and refined this motor feels at slow to medium speeds. There are barely any vibrations when cruising along at 120kmph, with the tacho needle hovering a little below the 5000rpm mark. Once you build up the speeds, you will notice minor vibes, but these are of the low frequency kind and won’t leave your hands or feet tingling even after prolonged stints of really wringing the throttle hard open. RE says that the brief here was to make an engine that could ‘easily crack the ton’ - i.e. cross 100mph, or 160kmph - and it’s a claim that we were actually able to verify.

The gearbox, too, bears mentioning. It’s a 6-speed unit - a first for any modern Royal Enfield, and a super slick shifting one at that. Gear changes slot in with a soft, positive click, and in our full day of riding, we never got a single misshift or false neutral. There’s a slip-and-assist clutch here, which works really well during hard downshifts. That said, the clutch lever feel isn’t as light as we were expecting.

The bottom line is that this twin is completely different in feel from any of the company’s single-cylinder motors in terms of refinement and performance. And if this is the sign of things to come, bring it on RE!

Now we rode these in dry conditions only, but when we set out in the morning, the tyres gripped nicely even though the temperatures were really low. And even when we encountered some gravelly roads, they didn’t put a step wrong. But RE has stuck to their tradition of 18-inch wheels rather than opting for a more modern 17-inch setup. In some places, these larger wheels caused the bike to weave about a little bit, but that was only when we were pushing the bike really hard, and this weaving never got to the point where it felt really unnerving.

The brakes deserve special mention too. At the front, there’s a 320mm floating disc - the largest on any RE motorcycle till date - and the rear gets 240mm unit. The calipers are by ByBre, while the dual-channel ABS has been specially developed by Bosch. Overall brake feel is quite good, and there’s a decent amount of bite on offer as well.

For how good the handling feels, the suspension setup for bad roads doesn’t feel all that great. The Interceptor is running fairly beefy 41mm forks at the front and twin preload-adjustable gas-charged shocks at the back. Now most of our ride was over fairly good roads, and the bike behaved impeccably over those. But the back end did tend to feel stiff at times, and over a series of bumps, it managed to bounce me around on the seat. To be very honest, these Californian roads weren’t exactly the best place to judge how the ride will feel on our roads back in India, so we’ll reserve our judgement on that.

I am mighty impressed with this bike for the value it provides at this price point and really looking forward for that sweet sounding burble from twin exhaust. There seems to be no challenger in near future for this bike which comes with a character of its own.

[nasirkaka]

I am guessing that after about a year, they will launch new colour schemes as they usually do and and am really hoping for a matt greenish with all blacked engine, something on the lines of street scrambler scheme. By that time, most of the initial issues would be taken care of also, hopefully. This is a new engine and chassis developed from scratch, so very likely to have some initial niggles. Media ride report does hint towards stiff suspension, and will be felt more so on our Indian roads. Also, at this price point, its difficult to provide a very sophisticated suspension system, and that will be my top priority to upgrade. Am sure someone on the likes of Rally Raid will offer much better suspension kit (dreaming ofcourse). Add a bit of wind protection, un-restricted pipes, and tubeless conversion and interceptor would be a potent machine. And with the currant price indication, it would not pinch much to soend a bit on upgrades. the next available 650+ twins are all north of 6L anyways. Any idea on what is the ground clearance for these twins?

[sprocket]

Found some accessories - http://180.179.160.247/news-cars-aut...0-accessories/

[R-Six]

Originally Posted by nasirkaka

Any idea on what is the ground clearance for these twins?

As per the spec sheet TusharK had shared earlier, the GC is 174 mm.

Link to the thread: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...cs-leaked.html (Scoop! Royal Enfield 650 Twins specs leaked)

Ride safe
R-Six

[payeng]

Am an happy that The 650 Twins are getting positive initial reviews.

But somehow the designs lack some "oomph" for me. Purely from design point of view they somehow don't get me say "Wow".

I remember the first time I saw photos of the "Bullet Classic" (it was initially named as the Bullet Classic) back in 2007, I was struck by its beauty.

The 650 Twins do not seem to have that X-Factor in terms of design.

[R-Six]

Originally Posted by payeng

But somehow the designs lack some "oomph" for me. Purely from design point of view they somehow don't get me say "Wow"

Probably because the design of GT 650 is the same as the 535 version. And the Interceptor has an understated design.

The Classic, on the other hand, wore a more refreshed look for that time (we had only seen chromes or black ones on the Enfields). Also, with the pillion seat removed, the classic still can turn a lot of heads.

[VishJ]

The interceptor looks mouthwatering and may bring in a lot of sales to RE. If they maintain the quality control properly, I hope we may see a lot of these twins in the Indian roads roaring with their beautiful exhaust note. I am hooked on interceptor 650 and if all goes well, will decorate my garage with a White and Red paint scheme Interceptor 650.

[tharian]

Originally Posted by VishJ

I hope we may see a lot of these twins in the Indian roads roaring with their beautiful exhaust note.

The number of bike enthusiasts who would book this bike constitute very less compared to the two wheeler market which will translate to not many bikes on road.

The Classic 350 is a different story which is what brings the revenue for RE. I don't think the 650 would be like that.

[nasirkaka]

But somehow the designs lack some "oomph" for me. Purely from design point of view they somehow don't get me say "Wow".

Agree! I think its the bench seat in interceptors case which is visually not very appealing. But if they tried making it good looking in conventional sense, the bike would be too similar to the bonnies. As it is, the interceptor looks very close to bonnie.

If we just replace the bench seat with a more conventional one, it looks much pleasing, me thinks: