[HandfulOfHell]

Some more love coming Interceptor's way. But this one's different because the paeans are in relation to the bike's capabilities with respect to a few big boys too, daytona, zx14r, ahem, monkey on steroids or not...

http://fastbikesindia.com/long-term-...eptor-650/amp/

[joeblack]

Workers strike at Royal Enfield factory near Chennai

The strike comes at a time when Royal Enfield is ramping up production of two new models

Source: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/te...i-3539261.html

I just hope this doesnt add more to my wait period.....

[roy_libran]

Originally Posted by HandfulOfHell

...But this one's different because the paeans are in relation to the bike's capabilities with respect to a few big boys too, daytona, zx14r, ahem, monkey on steroids or not...

"keeping a ZX-14R gasping for breath"
Really? What is this guy smoking?

Another planted review (if it can even be called one) IMO. Heading says "Long-Term", and then he says my "new long-term" motorcycle - not the same thing!
There's no assessment anywhere in the write-up, just vague motherhood statements and loose opinions.
What a waste of a click and scrolls!

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by roy_libran

"keeping a ZX-14R gasping for breath"
Really? What is this guy smoking?

Another planted review (if it can even be called one) IMO. Heading says "Long-Term", and then he says my "new long-term" motorcycle - not the same thing!
There's no assessment anywhere in the write-up, just vague motherhood statements and loose opinions.
What a waste of a click and scrolls!

Every single one of these guys have been paid off. Most automobile makers are smart these days, re routing all their ad spend budgets to guys like these.

The only review worth waiting for is FortNine (if at all). Everyone else has been bought. He's the only guy who calls a spade, a spade.

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by roy_libran

"keeping a ZX-14R gasping for breath"
Really? What is this guy smoking?

Another planted review (if it can even be called one) IMO. Heading says "Long-Term", and then he says my "new long-term" motorcycle - not the same thing!
There's no assessment anywhere in the write-up, just vague motherhood statements and loose opinions.
What a waste of a click and scrolls!

As a long term errr time reader of Fast Bikes, the contents they have posted in this link are certainly baffling. So far they have come across as a magazine with a good balance of factual and yet fun articles.


As an example, their recent test ride of the Jawa motorcycles was on point because they listed "The lack of much bottom end....", "... the absence of a top end...", non linear delivery, a tendency to splutter mildly on part throttle, skittish ride quality and "a tendency to thud through potholes". Obviously I cannot reproduce their article verbatim but they did a good job of listing both the pluses and minuses of the pre production bike.


The article (in the link)'s claim of "The Interceptor 650 managed to not only keep up with the fast bikes, including Alameen’s Daytona but kept the ZX-14R and 390 Duke gasping for breath! " seems to be more enthusiasm and hyperbole. I doubt even Royal Enfield would claim something like this in their marketing spiel !

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

Every single one of these guys have been paid off. Most automobile makers are smart these days, re routing all their ad spend budgets to guys like these.

You said it man! Everyone knows auto magazines are paid and are biased towards manufacturers. What is happening is that independent bloggers, vloggers, instagram accounts, etc are also slowly being co-opted into the great ad tamasha with paid posts, mentions and stories/reviews. Gotta be real careful about what you read these days. [Though I must say, it's usually more subtle than this, 'an RE Interceptor keeping a ZX-14r gasping for breath', I think the only 'gasping for breath' that's happening is because we're all laughing so hard at that statement!]

Thank goodness for TBHP!

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

The article (in the link)'s claim of "The Interceptor 650 managed to not only keep up with the fast bikes, including Alameen’s Daytona but kept the ZX-14R and 390 Duke gasping for breath! " seems to be more enthusiasm and hyperbole. I doubt even Royal Enfield would claim something like this in their marketing spiel !

Maybe they were all parked in front of a starbucks somewhere. The interceptor a few inches ahead. Rubbish!

Have stopped reading all these indian mags a good decade back. Nothing but polished (even this is pathetic these days) english on polished paper with polished photographs. There's a limit to imagination even.

Real time reviews from real time users = Team-BHP.com

Maybe Jawa didn't pay them enough. Or maybe they signed an exclusivity agreement with RE.

I had an eye out for PowerDrift. Sadly most of their videos also reek of just being an ad these days. I can't watch them anymore.

They can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time. You can't fool all the people all the time!

[krishnaprasad]

Not sure if this video was mentioned before, seems quite informative

https://youtu.be/SnwqU0xQPAU

[roy_libran]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasad

Not sure if this video was mentioned before, seems quite informative

Thanks for sharing this excellent video. Quite balanced and still sums up why it's such a sweet motorcycle.
We all want RE to fix these ergonomic blunders and these minor quality gaffes. Cheers.

[ashwinprakas]

Originally Posted by roy_libran

"keeping a ZX-14R gasping for breath"
Really? What is this guy smoking?

Here's the ZX14R's RPM vs Speed chart;



Guess the guy riding the ZX14R might've missed second gear and slipped into neutral amidst the excitement.

In comparison the Interceptor has a top speed of 161 Kmph whereas the ZX-14R does 172 Kmph in 2nd Gear.

[coldice4u]

I dont about the possible paid off gleaming reviews, but below are a few vlogs from UK and Down Under. All of the riders in the videos cant stop saying how much fun the bike is and how much they seem to love it during the short rides they took. These look really fairly authentic first impressions, see for yourselves to decide. And they all seem to have a common opinion on the bikes - loads of torque, easy rider, lots of fun, smooth engine and gearbox, weird footrests, excellent exhaust note etc.

On another note, if we had roads and traffic like the ones in the video, life would've been just so less strssful. Who wouldn't want to take a bike like the twins out for a relaxing ride. Here, its like jumping into a war zone when you go out for a ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2cfku_lzQ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug9LPowFUeI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fru7-wk8hYo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjz9iBB-r_0

[TorqueyTechie]

I am looking at replacing my 16 year old pulsar with this bike. And since I am out of India for some time , I didnt book the bike yet which gives some time to see if there are any niggles and issues that will be sorted out. Today I saw below article in NDTV which highlights 13 issues (which are already mentioned here) plaguing interceptor.
https://auto.ndtv.com/news/13-royal-...=home-toppicks


Most of the issues highlighted are for interceptor. Is it that there are not many GT650 out there or not many issues in that bike?
Source : NDTV Auto

[r_nairtvm]

There may be generic plug and play Gear Indicator available for the 650s

https://www.healtech-electronics.com...ts/gipro/gpxt/ - one of the leading manufacturers (have used the gear indicator from them in the past and it was reliable) of these devices have some of their products listed for Royal Enfield in this web page (search by bike option).

Was happy to see Gear Indicator listed for all models of RE except the 650s. For 650s they already have a Gear shift Indicator in the product line up. My gut feeling is that the generic gear indicator you have for the Contnental GT will do the job.

To fit it, you normally plug it to ECU of your bike and statrt the bike on a paddok stand or centre stand and shift throught the gears first time - the unit picks up the number of gears there is in the bike and then stores it hence, the thought that the Continental GT one would do the job.

Those complaining about lack of gear indicator can try this (tad expensive at around INR 5K)


Best Regards & Ride Safe


Ram

[neil.jericho]

Since the Jawa showroom in Cochin didnt have test rides available, I hopped on over to the RE showroom across the road and took a test ride of both the Interceptor 650 and GT 650. But before that, I couldnt help but marvel at the beauty of the Interceptor and the GT 650 in colour schemes I was seeing for the first time.

My favourite colour on the Interceptor since day 1....




...until I saw the black one and it became my new favourite colour!




Hold on, I think I changed my mind and have a new favourite colour...


...Yup, definitely top on my list!

Test ride initial impressions
The traffic was quite terrible today and with the rising heat of the incoming summer, I wasnt too keen on taking too long a test ride. I will admit that there were 2 reasons for me doing my first test ride of the 650 twins only now (three months after the launch) - first, there was some delay in registering the TR bikes and I didnt want to take a 500 meter loop around the block on an unregistered bike with the sales guy as a pillion rider. And two, I was genuinely excited by the prospect of the 650 twins and the last time I felt this way was with the first generation Yamaha R15, a motorcycle that I ended up buying. I say this in all seriousness, I was worried that I would be so impressed by the 650 twins (all the positive feedback on the forum and from journalists didnt help me be unbiased) that I would end up booking the bike (Interceptor or GT650 was the question, not should I book it or not?) even though the home minister has given me strict instructions not to. I used to tell myself, it is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission .


Anyway up first was the Interceptor and I loved everything about the bike. Butter smooth engine except for some very minor vibes around 3,500 - 4,00 RPM mark, good brakes, comfortable posture, smoothness (a.k.a lack of character) and that lovely orange shade on the tank. A very gentlemanly bike if you may. One thing I noticed which annoyed me no end was that RE has moved away from their two lights on the instrument cluster to indicate which errr indicator was on (same as on the GT535) to a single light which came on for the left and right indicators. Come on RE, you saved what, 10 rupees with that? I can understand no clock or GPS or other fancy stuff but why remove this?


The GT 535 was next and it had marginally more vibrations than the Interceptor 650. Im not sure why and shared the feedback with the sales guy. I was fine with the posture though. The sporty posture certainly matched the performance of the engine. Interestingly the GT 650 had done nearly 2950 kms whereas the Interceptor was around the 4150 km mark. Overall I was very impressed by both the motorcycles and hats off to Royal Enfield for engineering such good bikes. My RE GT535 felt quite agricultural on the return home from the showroom! I used the 5 month waiting period to convince myself that I shouldnt book the Interceptor in my new favourite colour today.


P.S - I faced absolutely no issues with the footpegs on either the Interceptor or the GT650.

[ku69rd]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

P.S - I faced absolutely no issues with the footpegs on either the Interceptor or the GT650.

Hi Neil,
In all the 18 days of my ownership with the Twin here are a few of my observations

1) Never Felt it to be a threat to my shin or calf
2) Never Felt the missing gear indicator to be a show stopper (remember I am used to the RD, Yezdi which does not even have a neutral light). The sense of hearing & Speed picked up in a particular gear is good enough to know if an upshift or downshift is needed
3) Never Felt threatened if an adventurous Auto Driver or Cab driver will run over my toes cause the Twin makes you stretch your legs a bit wider than other bikes in my stable
4) Never Felt that the handlebar was too far away, this is an entirely new position when compared to the stance in RD, Roadking, TB, Himalayan, FZ1. All that I had to do was to get accustomed to it and a few hundred kms my aging body is coping up really well
5) Fuel Console is a bit off, the first two sticks don't go away till you done around 100+ kms and then very soon you get to the last two. The last two stick on for quite sometime and roughly after 200 kms it starts to blink. The measure for me? I reset the Odometer in trip 1, and ensure start of day when idling the bike I visit the trip odometer reading. Based on the reading I fill in consistently over 220 to 240 Kms which means an intake of 8 to 9 liters based on the run it has.

Have attached a few photos of the last weekend rides.