600km with Himalayan 450; Takeaways riding on highway & off-road trails

The bike certainly helps in navigating off-roads better, however, the weight is daunting.

BHPian bhansali_hardik recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Just back from a 600 km road trip again!

This time it was the interiors of Chickmagaluru and a few off-road trails. Also, for the highway/normal journey, I was 2 up and we did an average of 280 kms on each side in 5 hours including an hour's break!

My GoPro's J hook went bad when I was mounting it and there are no POV videos this time around!

However, there are just a few photos from the whole trip at the end of the off-road trail that I did!

I realised I'm a below-average off-road guy when it comes to this bike and its handling. Almost slipped out downhill but was able to salvage the position the suspension gave good feedback to pumping it back and was able to not fall!

The bike certainly helps in navigating off-roads better, however, the weight is daunting and I don't have any guards installed yet living on the edge eh?

The takeaway from this trip is:

1. Mile muncher
2. The pillion on this is much happier than the other bikes and this is running on stock seats as of now, on the return journey both of us felt a little discomfort towards the end and this might mean touring seats are on the card. (Pricing is ridiculous and a waste of resources! What do I do with my current seats? )
3. Suspension - A reason alone to buy this bike.
4. Highway my bike sat on 4.5k ~ 5.5k rpm and for 90 km/h and this was the sweet spot for me to minimise the vibes! (have 2100kms on the odo - the engine might still open up)
5. The wind blast is deafening on this and there are no good enough solutions for this yet!

Also, just a refresher for all the Bangaloreans to see something like this during this time of the year.

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