[neil.jericho]

Lovely updates KarthikK. Its so nice to see some familiar old places from Coonoor, Kotagiri and Ooty. I had liked the food from my last visit to the Place to Bee. Also, the pictures of the food from Cafe Diem just makes my mouth water!

What sort of mileage did you get from the Himalayan on this trip?

Originally Posted by KarthikK

The full fledged travelogue will come shortly, that's all with the updates on the bike for now. Thanks for reading!

Gentle reminder that we are all patiently waiting for this travelogue!

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by KarthikK

4-day Ride to the Nilgiris (Bangalore - Ooty - Coonoor - Kotagiri - Bangalore)

Wow! What an awesome trip and an awesome travelogue! It is amazing to see how much you love your bikes and biking in the hills. You passion for traveling in the hills is really contagious. This is really inspirational stuff.

The photos are fantastic. Your narration and photos make it a very lively story, and makes me feel like doing his drive myself ASAP. I will surely visit some of these places soon. Thanks again for this wonderful report!

Finally, your reports always have good information about some very interesting homestays and restaurants. Thank you for discovering these places so that the rest of us can visit later. :-)

[katsumoto]

We went to Place to Bee few years back and enjoyed the food there.

We always see the Nahar's Cafe near that Adam's fountain and just shy away from the place for some reason unknown to me (May be it always seems to be deserted). I will Remember to walk-in there next time based on your recommendation. Also, Nice Pictures.

[KarthikK]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

Lovely updates KarthikK. Its so nice to see some familiar old places from Coonoor, Kotagiri and Ooty. I had liked the food from my last visit to the Place to Bee. Also, the pictures of the food from Cafe Diem just makes my mouth water!

What sort of mileage did you get from the Himalayan on this trip?

Thanks for the kind words Neil, indeed these places are so addictive to visit and eat at, that one can never get bored even with repeated visits.

The FE with the Himalayan for this trip was around 32.6 kmpl, via the tankful to tankful method. Generally I notice the FE doesn't fluctuate much and stays around 30-33 by and large. The expressway return journey must have helped the FE go up a bit and average it out, in the ghats I usually average around 30.

Gentle reminder that we are all patiently waiting for this travelogue!

Work in progress

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Wow! What an awesome trip and an awesome travelogue! It is amazing to see how much you love your bikes and biking in the hills. You passion for traveling in the hills is really contagious. This is really inspirational stuff.

The photos are fantastic. Your narration and photos make it a very lively story, and makes me feel like doing his drive myself ASAP. I will surely visit some of these places soon. Thanks again for this wonderful report!

Finally, your reports always have good information about some very interesting homestays and restaurants. Thank you for discovering these places so that the rest of us can visit later. :-)

Thank you for your kind words AD, always a pleasure to visit these regions and savour the food and scenic beauty from the Nilgiris mountains. Glad to know the information was helpful .

Originally Posted by katsumoto

We went to Place to Bee few years back and enjoyed the food there.

We always see the Nahar's Cafe near that Adam's fountain and just shy away from the place for some reason unknown to me (May be it always seems to be deserted). I will Remember to walk-in there next time based on your recommendation. Also, Nice Pictures.

I must have been going there at least once a month or two since a decade now for sure, haha! Their food quality remains the same, but the place is not as popular now since many other better / fancier eateries have sprung up in the recent past. The continental food here is not 100% authentic as such, but the quality of fresh veggies and fresh dairy (cheese) is excellent. We primarily go there because they have clean restrooms and a safe parking area where we can dump the car and stroll around, apart from (of course) relishing the woodfired fare on their menu. Parking is a difficult thing to find in the town centre especially on busy weekends.

[Rocketscience]

Although it has been quite a while since you posted this it would be a shame if i go through this thread and don't appreciate the sheer effort you have put in this highly detailed review.
So congratulations on this outstanding review and great pictures too! You should have been paid a decent sum for something like this but then you might loose this passion with which you have crafted this.

Coming to the bike itself, incidentally i have riden the Himalyan quite a bit as my cousin owned one, we both purchased our bike almost in the same time frame and swapped rides a couple of times. (His was a BS4 purchased in early 2019)

While i'am no fan of Royal Enfield for their ancient tech and the ADV segment in general, i couldn't bring myself to dislike the bike for what it is.
The lack of tech is made up by somewhat reasonable pricing and having that cleared up the bike works really well in a wide variety of applications. For one it is like a SUV of sorts that it can take all sorts of roads with ease and comfort. No problems there.
The power is adequate and rather enjoyable in the low end and midrange and if you don't push it further you will never find it lacking anywhere.

The usual RE vibrations are also excellently controlled and even in my brother's BS4, the overall refinement till around 6000 RPM felt smoother than my R15v3 till that point, ofcourse my bike revvs much further but its a revelation of sorts, i found its refinement to be very similar to the BS6 you write about rather than the BS4 you encountered, perhaps that unit was abused.

It wasn't without its issues though, the bike used to randomly stall, even at idle when cold, and this is not in winters mind you. This was a first for an Fi bike. It even had a choke which i found really amusing.
Then there were engine head problems wherein he had to have the engine head replaced at around 2-3K Kms and when he came with me on a ride after around 500kms driven in his new head i noticed the new one leaking massive amounts of oil, he repeated this process 2-3 times before eventually getting bored and selling off his bike.
He tried adventure riding and found the bike to be too heavy and did not enjoy it, i had warned him about all of this though but he learnt the hard way, i must add he was a novice rider and this was his first bike, someone else might have a different experience.
But then again, i usually dislike ADV styling and the segment in general but as a second bike this works well in one's garage and i don't dislike it at all, despite being simple and not my type i still feel it looks international, different and not bad.

[WhiskeyTangoFox]

Originally Posted by KarthikK

I stay very close to the Royal Enfield brand store (company operated) so this was the logical option for me to go check out the Himalayan. Since it was a company operated outlet, it was a given that they would uphold high levels of service and customer satisfaction. I definitely wasn’t mistaken, and it turned out to be a great experience from my first enquiry day till my delivery day and beyond.

Hello Sir! Great Thread, absolutely loved reading it. I too have booked the BS6 Himalayan in Rock Red from the Electronic City Dealership. I wanted to know whether there is a service centre attached to the Company Store at Jayanagar and if so, how the quality of service is? In addition, were there any initial niggles you had with the bike? Thanks in advance!

[100Kmphormore]

@KarthikK, amazing review of the Himalayan. I had narrowed it down to the same just because of the engine and suspension and your review sealed the deal. 6 months and 4600 km later, can safely say I made a great choice. Using it in the city is a pain no doubt because it’s not very nimble or easy to park, but I pass with disdain on those bone shattering rumble strips and the potholes. I also went to the restaurants you recommended in the Nilgiris and boy were they awesome. I would like to add Open Kitchen, Coonoor to the list. Amazing burgers pizzas and desserts served fresh.

[KarthikK]

Originally Posted by Rocketscience

Although it has been quite a while since you posted this it would be a shame if i go through this thread and don't appreciate the sheer effort you have put in this highly detailed review.
So congratulations on this outstanding review and great pictures too! You should have been paid a decent sum for something like this but then you might loose this passion with which you have crafted this.

Haha, thanks once again for your kind words, glad you liked it

Coming to the bike itself, incidentally i have riden the Himalyan quite a bit as my cousin owned one, we both purchased our bike almost in the same time frame and swapped rides a couple of times. (His was a BS4 purchased in early 2019)

While i'am no fan of Royal Enfield for their ancient tech and the ADV segment in general, i couldn't bring myself to dislike the bike for what it is.
The lack of tech is made up by somewhat reasonable pricing and having that cleared up the bike works really well in a wide variety of applications. For one it is like a SUV of sorts that it can take all sorts of roads with ease and comfort. No problems there.
The power is adequate and rather enjoyable in the low end and midrange and if you don't push it further you will never find it lacking anywhere.

The usual RE vibrations are also excellently controlled and even in my brother's BS4, the overall refinement till around 6000 RPM felt smoother than my R15v3 till that point, ofcourse my bike revvs much further but its a revelation of sorts, i found its refinement to be very similar to the BS6 you write about rather than the BS4 you encountered, perhaps that unit was abused.

It wasn't without its issues though, the bike used to randomly stall, even at idle when cold, and this is not in winters mind you. This was a first for an Fi bike. It even had a choke which i found really amusing.
Then there were engine head problems wherein he had to have the engine head replaced at around 2-3K Kms and when he came with me on a ride after around 500kms driven in his new head i noticed the new one leaking massive amounts of oil, he repeated this process 2-3 times before eventually getting bored and selling off his bike.
He tried adventure riding and found the bike to be too heavy and did not enjoy it, i had warned him about all of this though but he learnt the hard way, i must add he was a novice rider and this was his first bike, someone else might have a different experience.
But then again, i usually dislike ADV styling and the segment in general but as a second bike this works well in one's garage and i don't dislike it at all, despite being simple and not my type i still feel it looks international, different and not bad.

Quite interesting to hear of these issues. I do agree, the reputation this bike built up especially during the first few years was terrible. Luckily my bike was entirely niggle-free for the 2 years that I had it. It is quite a shameful thing that they had to take almost 4 years or more to iron out even simple niggles.

Originally Posted by WhiskeyTangoFox

Hello Sir! Great Thread, absolutely loved reading it. I too have booked the BS6 Himalayan in Rock Red from the Electronic City Dealership. I wanted to know whether there is a service centre attached to the Company Store at Jayanagar and if so, how the quality of service is? In addition, were there any initial niggles you had with the bike? Thanks in advance!

Thanks a lot for your kind words WhiskeyTangoFox. Congratulations on your Himalayan BS6, hope you have many thousand miles of fun with it!

There is a service centre attached to the company store, it is in BTM layout on Lake road (you can look it up on google maps). That is where I used to get my interceptor and Himalayan serviced and I can vouch for the stellar quality of work there as opposed to a private dealership.

There were no niggles with my bike, whatever I had are documented here on this thread. Only one thing I can think of was the instrument cluster used to fog up in the early morning rides due to moisture trapped inside. However, this seemed to clear up by itself after a few months, so didn't need to replace or fix anything.

Originally Posted by 100Kmphormore

@KarthikK, amazing review of the Himalayan. I had narrowed it down to the same just because of the engine and suspension and your review sealed the deal. 6 months and 4600 km later, can safely say I made a great choice. Using it in the city is a pain no doubt because it’s not very nimble or easy to park, but I pass with disdain on those bone shattering rumble strips and the potholes. I also went to the restaurants you recommended in the Nilgiris and boy were they awesome. I would like to add Open Kitchen, Coonoor to the list. Amazing burgers pizzas and desserts served fresh.

Congratulations 100Kmphormore! Thanks for your kind words and wish you the very best on your journey with this lovely machine. Also glad to know you visited those restaurants in the Nilgiris. Thanks for the recommendation on Open Kitchen, I have heard about it but not been able to visit it so far. I'll definitely go there on your recommendation the next time I visit the Nilgiris, hopefully this monsoon.