Think Royal Enfield, and a large, heavy, thumping street cruiser comes to mind. Something like the classic or the Thunderbird, and you’ll definitely picture it being ridden on a picturesque mountain road.
Though these cruisers are taken to the hills, they aren’t really meant for hill riding. Royal Enfield has, therefore, come out with a purpose-built bike called the Himalayan and has designed it as a true blue adventure tourer.
We got our hands on the bike which is set to be launched on 16 March 2016, and took it for a ride on the challenging yet elegant roads of Shimla.
Yes, it did snow. And yes it was as bad as it looks in the picture above. But that’s not how it all began.
We began our day early and set out on a course from Chharabra to Gada Kuffar – a total distance of 113 kilometres.
The day started with a clear sky which was a good sign. We hoped that journey would be easy and the terrain, manoeuvrable.
But our happiness was short-lived. The weather took a turn for the worse. The heavy rain coupled with the altitude and high wind speeds made the journey quite difficult.
The rain made the dirt sections of our route quite tricky as the mud filled up the tyre blocks and made it difficult to keep traction.
To make matters worse, it started to snow. Sure, it was pretty but riding a bike in such conditions can get really painful.
After a while, your fingers start to get numb and when you’re nowhere around civilisation, the engine is your only heat source.
But, towards the end of our trip, we fell in love.
Yes, the trip had the sun, rain and even snow. Yes, that made things very difficult for us and yes, we did make it back alive. But love it or hate it, it was one of the most memorable road trips ever.
The Royal Enfield Himalayan was pushed to its limit but it did not let us down. The bike is yet to be launched and there are a lot of speculations regarding how heavy the price tag will be. What we found out is that Royal Enfield has done their homework and if they price it right then they have a winner on their hands.
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