| Motorcycle rides and riders in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia | |||||||
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07-16-2009, 01:44 PM
| #1 |
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 | Royal Enfield Bullet 500 So this is my thumper. It's a 2008. These pics were taken before the performance mods were done, so some parts look a bit different. And I didn't have the numbers on the pedestrian slicer yet.   I upgraded to the 'tombstone' LED taillight (the original factory light was so dim you couldn't see it in daylight)...       This is after the performance mods...   Last edited by Pony Trekker; 07-26-2009 at 02:09 PM.. Reason: Correct a typo. |
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07-16-2009, 02:47 PM
| #5 | |
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 | 
You mean bike night at Sonic? Do you guys still do that every week? Sounds cool, but I can't this week. I have in-laws coming down from Washington today (in fact, they'll be here in a couple of hours; I have to get off the computer and finish house cleaning), they're staying for the weekend. Maybe next week. | |
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07-16-2009, 02:58 PM
| #6 |
| Training Wheels Joined: Jul 2008 From: Double wide with all the cars and bikes in the yard I Ride: VF500F,GSF400,DR650SE,XT225 | Very nice. I thought the plate on the front was called a "nut-cutter" per the gentlemen with the english accent that told me about it. |
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07-16-2009, 03:20 PM
| #7 |
| Zone Head Joined: Jan 2009 From: Wenatchee, WA I Ride: Buell XB12R | If u dont mind my asking, where and for how much did u pick it up? A buddy I work with and I were looking at a used one that looked really nice for only $2,500. Beautiful bike!!! I would love to have one for puttin around town. |
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07-20-2009, 09:47 PM
| #9 | |||
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 |
Some people buy one and aren't happy with it, but it always turns out to be people who didn't do their homework first and didn't realize what they were getting into, or bought the bike for the wrong reasons. Although it's new manufacture, they're still being made (or they were anyway, until last year) by hand the way they were trained over 50 years ago. A lot of people buy one because they like the look, but they don't understand that this isn't just a retro bike (by 'retro' I mean a modern design styled to look like an old bike). It's the real thing. It's a half-century old design, still made a half-century old way. It has some improvements, like an upgraded 12 volt system, twin leading shoe front brake, electric starter added in 2002 (which I never use, I prefer the kick starter), etc. But basically it's still an old design that was made the way the original makers made it. That's why I bought one. I didn't just want the look, I wanted the whole experience of owning/riding an old design. Many people are disappointed with them because they overlook this aspect of it. They buy the bike but don't find modern bike quality or performance, and then they call it junk. But it's not a modern bike. That point escapes many people. It's definitely not for everyone. It has it's quirks, and you have to learn to coax it to life and keep it alive, just like the original machines 50 years ago. Maintenance is more involved than with a modern bike. That's not to say it's harder, there's just more of it. Things have to be checked/adjusted/maintained more often. But the design is vastly more simple than a modern bike, so it's easy to work on. Many people I've heard from say that's one reason they bought one, they figured a simpler design would be easier to learn to wrench on. It's definitely a shaker (they don't call them 'thumpers' for nothing), and nuts and bolts have to be checked occasionally to make sure they stay tight. It's all part of the experience (although today we have Loctite  ). I still have a lot to learn myself, but that was part of the appeal for me when I bought it. I wanted to experience what it was like for my dad when he rode around London with his buddies in the 1950s. So it works for me.It has an extensive break-in period, which I'm still in the midst of because I don't get a lot of free time to ride. Speeds have to be kept low during this time. It's also not a bike for extended freeway riding. The motor isn't up to it. It's happiest exploring back country roads at 25-55 mph. That's the primary type of riding I had in mind for mine. If you want to do a lot of freeway travel, look elsewhere. Some people say "If I want to ride an old bike, I'll buy one, not a copy." First, it's not a copy. The Bullet has the distinction of being the oldest model still in continuous production in the world. It's not a modern replica, it's the bike they never stopped making. Second, I like the Bullet just for it's own sake. It's just a really cool bike. And third, I don't have the time or resources to either buy a trashed 50 year old bike and restore it, or buy one that's been restored. This bike was the perfect answer, it suits my needs. If anyone is considering buying one because they love the look, I advise them to seriously consider why they want one and what kind of experience they want from it. If you want the experience in addition to the appearance, go for it. If you just want the look, but with modern reliability and convenience, this bike will disappoint you. Consider a retro bike instead, like a modern Triumph Bonneville or something. A bike like that would beat the Royal Enfield hands-down in those categories. These cautions don't apply to the new EFI models. They're retro bikes, a completely new design from the ground up, utilizing modern technology and manufacture methods and achieving reliability and smooth performance much more on par with modern bikes. They also gave it very attractive styling. It would be a much better choice if you want less intensive maintenance and more modern technology/reliabilty. It's also much better suited to freeway cruising, being a modern engine design, capable of higher-speed cruising for long periods. But with all that being said, I love my Bullet for what it is, what it embodies in an old design, and the experience it delivers. It's a machine with soul, not just a pretty face. I can hop on my Nighthawk, hit the starter button, and zip off down the road without giving it a second thought. But when it takes a little time to coax this beast to life, let it warm up as I enjoy the sound of that glorious 'thump-thump-thump', and feel the furiously increasing cadence of that one big cylinder as I power through the curves, I know I made the right choice when I brought this machine home. Other bikes may come and go, but I'm keeping my Bullet forever. Last edited by Pony Trekker; 07-24-2009 at 07:30 PM.. Reason: Correct a typo. | |||
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07-20-2009, 09:56 PM
| #10 |
| Superbiker Joined: Mar 2009 From: sutherlin, oregon I Ride: cb750 | ill ride the thing for break in.. no problem. you make a great case for the thing. makes me want some old thing that ill have to maintenance the hell out of.  and personally i like nut cutter better than ped slicer. but thats just me hehehe |
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....very nice! | |
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07-20-2009, 10:04 PM
| #12 |
| Superbiker | I've heard they're slow and noisy, simple and rugged....to quote an article about riding in India, "The kind of bike you can fix with a screwdriver and a boot if you have to." Great bike for the mechanically inclined, from what I hear. I wouldnt mind havin one someday. But not as an only bike... |
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07-21-2009, 01:12 AM
| #15 |
| Endorsed Joined: Sep 2008 From: burien, washington I Ride: to forget! | I seen one similar, a royal enfield anyway, on 520 between 405 and hwy 9, it looked sweet, I had never seen one before, had to go home and google it...gorgeous ride! |
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07-21-2009, 07:19 AM
| #17 |
| Newbie Joined: Jun 2009 From: Southern OR I Ride: RG250 Gamma | What's particularly fascinating about the RE's is the sheer amount of accessories one can add to it, which add a whole new dimension in riding. I know of no other bikes besides a CZ or Ural that matches so well with a side-car. While you're not going to win the Isle of Man with it, you would finish it and come back for more, then on to Dakar! If you're interested, there is major coverage and write-ups available on the 'Net about the series. One that comes to mind is written by a new rider who attempts to take on Kashmiri کٔشِیر mountain passes, lakes and roads. He loses his Honda Cub buddy early on and is always stopping to tighten a bolt or two. Yet later on (from his diary), there he is, putting along at about 19,000 feet or so on his Royal Enfield, and starts to complain the bike is running, "A little rich..." !!?? WTF?Well...yeah! I'd think so. But hey, at 19,000 feet, if 'ya think about it, it's sorta lucky the thing runs at all! Gasp, cough...pa-taw... Another tidbit is that the factory employs more family members than just about any other company in India...Grandfather clauses...most of the bike is still hand-painted and the guys building it are *truly* craftsmen...even with the new design, maintenance required is ten-fold over most new bikes, Ural notwithstanding. This is the kind of bike that you need to experience before you die. Indeed, if I was King, I'd require all riders, especially new ones...to ride one of these for 3-6 months...just to appreciate the sheer joy of motorcycling and to further prove that more cc's is not necessarily more fun. Oh, that and to learn the joys of a wet front drum brake. STOP! (If you can....? Whoa Besty...please stop...please...any time now...whoa!-osgo |
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07-21-2009, 08:02 AM
| #18 |
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 | The front brake performs very well for a drum. I won't be doing any stoppies, of course, but I've tried a few panic-stop simulations and it's strong enough to do what I need it to do. I don't feel disadvantaged with it at all. They really did a good job with it when they changed it to a twin leading shoe design (although there is a disc brake conversion kit available for those who prefer it). There are tons of performance parts available. Lost of people race these bikes. You can get everything you need to make it a real screamer; high-compression piston (up to 535cc), performance rockers with improved geometry, high-compression head, stroker crankshaft (increased stroke brings it up to 612cc), competition clutch... There's no end to what you can do with it. The catalog is full of hop-up parts. Here are a couple of guys who race theirs...   I'm not planning to do that with mine, I like it the way it is. The performance mods mine has are just the basic intake/exhaust/ignition stuff. Mine isn't in factory configuration regarding the external stuff. Besides the performance mods, I also have a few other options that gave it the look I prefer, in addition to the LED tailight I already mentioned. It comes with a two-up seat, but I got the solo seat because I like the look better and I ride solo anyway (there's a pillion pad available if you want to carry a passenger while maintaining the older seat style). It's also got the bullet turn signals. The factory lights were big round things that stuck way out on plastic stalks and looked as alien on this bike as an American flag t-shirt on Jane Fonda. I upgraded to the 7" tri-bar headlight, it's brighter and looks nicer than the factory 5" headlight. And I took off those tall bug-eyed mirrors, it now has bar-end mirrors that fold down out of the way for easy storage. Gives the bike an overall lower profile look. And here's some info about a more personal touch I gave it recently. I added a tax disc. I flipped the horn over (which was originally sticking out to the left) so it's in the center now, and that made room so I could mount the disc holder on the same bolt, facing the left...   I had to order the tax disc and holder from England, where exact copies of the originals are available. For those not familiar with it, it was the equivalent of a registration in the U.S. It was supposed to be displayed somewhere on the left side of the bike so the police could easily see it from the sidewalk (I've seen some people mount it on the back on one of the the license plate bolts, facing the rear, but that's not historically correct). It could be mounted on the frame, headlight bracket, front wheel hub, rear of the frame; didn't matter, as long as it was on the left side. I've studied the photos in my books about classic/café bikes, and the most common positions seemed to be on the front wheel or at some point forward on an engine bolt or the frame, which is where I put mine. All years are available from 1921-1987. It comes with a history of the tax disc, including prices paid for all years, so you can fill yours out correctly for your bike. You can also request the exact date and issuing office stamp for any of the offices in England. My dad used to ride with his buddies in England during the 1950s, I got the riding bug from him. I had a particular purpose in mind for my tax disc, so I got some details for it from his history. In the lower left corner, you write in the type (car, cycle, etc) and the make. In the upper left, the blocks that are crossed out are only for commercial vehicles. If it's a private vehicle, you cross out those blocks and write in the engine size (this block would be for the number of seats if it were a commercial vehicle). In the upper right is the price paid for your tax disc for a motorcycle in that year. They were issued for 3, 4, 6, or 12 months. I chose to make mine a 12 month fee, which in 1951 was 2 pounds, 1 schilling, 4 pence. In the block just below that you write in the licence plate number. I chose 1951 because that's the year my dad registered his first bike. I also ordered particulars for the issuing office stamp: it's dated April 5, which is his birthday (he couldn't remember the month and day he registered his first bike that year, so I went with his birthday instead). The issuing office is Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. That's where he registered his first bike, so I got the same office stamp. So in my case, the tax disc has a particular significance for me, pertaining to my dad's riding history, rather than just being an accessory or add-on. Since I love old British designs, and I got the riding bug from him, the tax disc having these details is sort of my way of honoring the riding 'heritage' (for lack of a better word) that he passed on to me. He's 75 now and hasn't ridden for many years, but he loves the Bullet (it was a popular machine during his day), and he thinks it's cool that I gave the bike a personal touch and honored him in this way with it. Last edited by Pony Trekker; 07-22-2009 at 11:57 AM.. Reason: Correct a typo. |
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07-21-2009, 09:15 AM
| #19 | |
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 |
That reminds me of a short video of the bikes being built at the factory. The pinstriping on every Bullet is done by hand. At one point you can see the guy applying the gold pinstriping on the tank with his brush. The lines are perfect on mine and you have to look close to see the brush strokes in the pinstripe paint. That guy must have done thousands of them over the years to have the moves down so perfectly and be able to get it just right every time... ETA: The video has no sound. Last edited by Pony Trekker; 07-21-2009 at 09:28 AM.. | |
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07-27-2009, 01:58 PM
| #30 |
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 | Here's a good (multi-part) article concerning Bullet maintenance, and other things. It will give you some insight into the sort of experience that comes with the bike, and maybe help you decide if it's the right bike for you. But keep in mind it's written for the older design, not the new EFI Bullets. http://www.cybersteering.com/cruise/...t/bullet.html# |
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07-30-2009, 02:29 PM
| #33 |
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 | I've never seen one in person, but I've been hearing they're smoother, better reliability, better for freeway cruising for long periods. Pretty much what a person would want if you want the old look but with modern technology. Last edited by Pony Trekker; 07-30-2009 at 03:08 PM.. |
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07-30-2009, 03:47 PM
| #34 |
| Endorsed Joined: May 2009 From: Anchorage, Alaska I Ride: Ducati, Kawasaki, Triumph | Cool bike. Cool thread. You sure sound like the ideal owner! Cool how much you appreciate it and the historical significance of it with your dad. Thanks for sharing. Mark H. |
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07-31-2009, 02:08 AM
| #36 |
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 | The history is pretty detailed. I left out most of it because it was already pretty long. But for those who may be interested, here are a few details about it. I'll just skim over the highlights... The Bullet dates back to 1931. Before that, George Townshend started a manufacturing company in 1851 in a village called Hunt End, near Redditch, in England. He first started making needles, then branched out into other things. They were located very close to the Enfield Armoury, and they eventually started making parts for Enfield rifles for the Armoury. They changed their name to Enfield Manufacturing in 1892. They added 'Royal' a short time later, after receiving an award from the crown for services to country or something like that. They began making bicycles, and later 'motorized bicycles'. Their first motorcycle was made in 1900. A four-valve single was introduced in 1931, and it was given the name Bullet in 1932. It went through various changes over the years. A new version of the Bullet was released in 1949, and that's the one today's Bullet is directly descended from. It was initially a 350, and the 500 was introduced a few years later. In 1949, the Indian Army wanted a motorcycle to use in the mountains around Pakistan. They chose the Bullet. The first order was filled and they were happy with the bikes. A following order was too large for the factory in Redditch to fill, so they built a factory in Madras (now Chennai). The original plan was that Redditch would send them bikes that were already manufactured, all they had to do in India was the final assembly. But this still wasn't enough to meet the military's demand for the bikes, and they also wanted them to be built in India. So they expanded the plant there and stocked it with the machinery and tooling purchased from Redditch that they would need to manufacture the bikes themselves. Then the entire Indian factory team was sent to Redditch, where they were trained one-on-one at the factory on how to manufacture the bikes exactly like the parent factory did. They went back to India to start making their bikes, and they've been going ever since. The parent factory in Redditch folded in 1970, but the India factory was doing fine with their civilian sales and just kept going. They have always been built by hand, no automation, the way they were trained in Redditch in the 1950s. This was true up until today (things are different now with the new EFI models). They started importing them into the U.S. in 1998. The 350 was sold in the U.S. for a few years, but lack of sales made them stop importing it. The 500 was the better seller. Royal Enfield has the distinction of being the oldest name in motorcyles still going today, and the Bullet is the oldest model in history that's still in production. So that's basically how it ended up being made in India. There are a lot more details that I can't cover here, but that's a basic timeline. But there's a lot more to it than just being a cool-looking bike. It's not a modern bike by any means (not counting the new EFI models). It's an old design that goes back to the early days of the British motorcycle industry, and it has a long history behind it. Here are a few more shots I took just today at our local bike night...    Last edited by Pony Trekker; 08-03-2009 at 11:16 PM.. Reason: Fixed a link. |
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08-09-2009, 02:38 PM
| #37 |
| Pit Crew Joined: Jul 2009 From: Winston, OR I Ride: Nighthawk S 700, Royal Enfield Bullet 500 | Here are a couple of shots after the latest mods done yesterday (it's a work in progress; I'll probably never finish modifying it to suit my tastes). I added a leather tool/accessory pouch under the headlight and an enameled Union Jack badge on the battery cover...    Last edited by Pony Trekker; 08-10-2009 at 02:46 PM.. Reason: Bad link. |
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08-10-2009, 03:19 PM
| #39 |
| WMRRA Qualifier Joined: Oct 2008 From: Dry Shiddies I Ride: 2008 Hayabusa, 2005 Hayabusa, 2000 GSXR 750 Track Bike | Wow wow wow wow wow!!!!! That reeks of total sexiness. I hope to meet up with you one of these days and get to see that in person. You done damn good there!  |
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