Royal Enfields

[bennylaird]

http://www.royalenfieldaustralia.com/index.php

Anyone had any experience with these? Might be a nice way to get back into bikes?:confused:

[Gra]

but do they leak like a real one ....

[bennylaird]

Yep I hope so, they have a retooled model as well, but why?

[Daddles]

They've been doing this for years. Great if you want heavy, obsolete designs made to Indian standards.

Unless you have a hankering for one, buy low mileage Jap. A better way of getting back into bikes is to buy one of the 250 4-stroke commuters (not the four cylinder pencil sharpeners you see around) - they offer far more performance than the Indian Enfields and are actually quite fun to ride (as instructors, we used to give them hell while the students were in lectures )

Richard

[bennylaird]

I'd really prefer a Vincent but thats not gunna happen. Love the sound of a 500 single and don't mind the maitenance. The majority of the Jap bikes do nothing for me especially down around the 250 size and even the Shadows etc just give off a "I'm trying to be a Harley" look.

The newer Trumpets are sort of ok, the Bonnie etc. But I love nostalgia.

A restoration might be the go? :confused:

Have to negotiate a licence without the 250 limitation though as a returning rider.

Now just have to get it past SWMBO

[bennylaird]

If I had a lazy $100,000 plus

[Gra]

I know a bloke with a Vincent black shadow hanging on one of his barn walls...

No he wont sell, we tried, though Mother wasn't impressed when dad offered the car we were in as a swap

[MurrayD99]

Yamaha FJ1200 Benny. Big smooth machine at a good price (for 92/93 ish) and they are around with not too many miles. The torque is out of this world. For the record, Pam talked me out of this bit of madness but did allow me to build a shed and get some bits & pieces of machinery. But still....


Re the Vincent: Hunter S Thompson compared it to an F4 (or similar) and said it would beat the F4 to the end of the runway but then the F4 took off and the Vincent carried on straight ahead with no way of stopping - hello to the sausage machine!

Then there is this...

"There are some things nobody needs in this world, and a bright-red, hunch-back, warp-speed 900cc cafe racer is one of them - but I want one anyway, and on some days I actually believe I need one. That is why they are dangerous.
Everybody has fast motorcycles these days. Some people go 150 miles an hour on two-lane blacktop roads, but not often. There are too many oncoming trucks and too many radar cops and too many stupid animals in the way. You have to be a little crazy to ride these super-torque high-speed crotch rockets anywhere except a racetrack - and even there, they will scare the whimpering #### out of you... There is, after all, not a pig's eye worth of difference between going head-on into a Peterbilt or sideways into the bleachers. On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.
When Cycle World called me to ask if I would road-test the new Harley Road King, I got uppity and said I'd rather have a Ducati superbike. It seemed like a chic decision at the time, and my friends on the superbike circuit got very excited. "Hot damn," they said. "We will take it to the track and blow the bastards away."
"Balls," I said. "Never mind the track. The track is for punks. We are Road People. We are Cafe Racers."

[MurrayD99]

http://proitalia.com/reviews/hst.html

Here is the rest of it.

[Daddles]

One more photo like that Murray and I'm moving this whole thread to the orange room

Love the Ducketties - there's a yellow 900SS been for sale in a car year yard for nearly a year and the temptation to go in and take her for a test love ... err ... ride has nearly caused a couple of prangs

Richard

[bennylaird]

Whatever I get is not gunna be jap, wont be a speed machine etc. Been there done that lost the licences to prove it. I want something that I can criuse on and get out of the way of cars. Has to be a talking point when stopped as well. European or maybe a Harley but has to be personal not just a mass produced rev box.
Moto Guzzi Le Mans 750? Laverda 750? Munch Mamoth? Jawa 500????????? oops sorry the smell of methanol caused that one.
Norton? Squafa? Silk? Gotta be something for me

[bennylaird]

One more photo like that Murray and I'm moving this whole thread to the orange room

Love the Ducketties - there's a yellow 900SS been for sale in a car year yard for nearly a year and the temptation to go in and take her for a test love ... err ... ride has nearly caused a couple of prangs

Richard

I was all set to get a Darmah, but got married instead

Kicking myself still

[MurrayD99]

OK, Speed Triple perhaps?

[MurrayD99]

I have one of these stored in a shed.... you wouldn't get arrested for speeding and it might cause comment....

[bennylaird]

I have one of these stored in a shed.... you wouldn't get arrested for speeding and it might cause comment....

Smooth as