This is another article about a modern motorcycle which may, or may not, find favour with the more mature rider for whom bigger and more muscular bikes have become a chore. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Royal Enfield Himalayan. This machine is a little bit of a Marmite bike – earning many, many plaudits, and a few critical comments.
A declaration of interest; I own the green machine pictured here abouts. I own it, and I think it's great. Not perfect, but really great. The other day I was out, pottering about, thinking of the hurtful things that a small minority of people say about the Himalayan and I was reminded of an old advert for the Citroën 2CV. This listed explained why the Tin Snail was perfect as it was:
• We couldn't make it faster. After all it already exceeds the legal speed limit of 70mph by 1.5mph
• We couldn't make any roomier. It will already hold the average family of 3.7 people with room for an additional 0.3 hitchhikers
• We couldn't make it cheaper. If we made it any more basic, there wouldn't be much left
• So we painted it. How else were we going to improve it?
While it would be unfair not to acknowledge the little sophistications on the Himalayan, that too is fairly basic motorcycling. It will exceed the national speed limit, it will take two people and luggage almost anywhere you could want to go, and it has some funky paint schemes. Indeed, go back further in the history of the little French car and you will find that it was designed, allegedly, to be able to take four French farmers to market at 50kph with a 50kg load, and to be able to transport a tray of eggs across a ploughed field without
