Is Royal Enfield going to attain a hattrick? First experience with the HNTR350

    The brand new Royal Enfield HNTR350, aiming to win over a youthful viewers

With this mannequin, Royal Enfield tries to make motorcycling and commuting by motorbike accessible and engaging to a youthful viewers. Assume new riders, college students, younger working professionals, maybe even as a second, lighter motorbike. The strains remind of us of the British heritage. It will not look misplaced in a line-up with the moderns classics like Triumph.

Driving expertise

The little thumper produces 27Nm of torque and 22 BHP of energy which might be predominantly skilled by the mid-range of revolutions. It’s third in line after the very profitable Traditional and Meteor mannequin (try our First Journey Evaluate and this Starship customized). It’s based mostly on similar the 350cc J engine. This single cylinder bike has a wholly totally different geometry and thus creates a really totally different using expertise. The lowered rake (25°) and path (94mm) mixed with the 1370mm wheel base make the bike really feel gentle and agile, good for metropolis using. The bikes we rode have been model new. Pushing them to their limits, testing peak energy at 6100rpm, would have been disrespectful to the expertise and torturing the machines. We’ll save that for an additional experience… 😉

It simply climbs by the revs and the black dial speedo with white numbers clearly shows rising velocities. 60km/h to 100km/h in fourth gear is a cushty acceleration with out discomforting vibrations. These do present up at 80km/h in fifth gear, so don’t quick shift it!

That stated, the engine could be very forgiving in second and third as a result of heavy flywheel. This makes it very appropriate for metropolis using. Unpredictable and abrupt metropolis site visitors stops are the accountability of the 300mm single entrance and 270mm rear brake rotor. Mixed with the twin channel ABS, these do the job.

Room for enchancment

Room for enchancment will be discovered within the suspension and within the exhaust. The cobblestone pavement within the historic centre of Dijon and surrounding villages, and the French nation lanes did put the suspension to the take a look at. Observations: the linear rear shocks are moderately onerous, the entrance suspension is moderately smooth, slightly unbalanced. Although, rear suspension upgrades will be carried out moderately simply at dwelling. As to the exhaust, for metropolis using it’s, to our style, too loud and never a pleasing, well-rounded thump one would anticipate from slightly thumper. Plus, I skilled that with a really common EU dimension 42 I discovered the heel of my boot touching the exhaust most of the time. A small nuisance, but I picture it to be worse for folks with bigger ft. Taken each into consideration, if I might personal one in every of these, I might swap the exhaust for an aftermarket (slip-on) exhaust as quickly as they’d develop into out there.

Make it your personal!

In addition to the exhaust and suspension, different work on the bike to do at dwelling can be personalisation of your HNTR. And that is the place it turns into much more thrilling. We attempt to present a platform to encourage motorbike house owners to personalise and customise their bikes. Due to this fact, we’re pleased to see that RE presents a plethora of equipment. These vary from mirrors and indicators to engine guards and tail tidies which might be simply bolted on and preserve the guarantee. Particularly the tail tidy with the ribbed seat will make it look very elegant in our eyes! There are two themes out there from the sellers, city and suburban, that embody a number of the equipment.

The suburban comes with black crash guards, a (though considerably flimsy) pannier plus rack, touring mirrors, a pillion again relaxation.

The city caters extra to the (undoubtedly impressed by café racers) roadster picture, a fly display, a degree seat, LED indicators, engine guards, and bar finish mirrors.

What performs a big function within the excellent seems to be of the HNTR350 is the paintjob. It’s out there in 6 colors, divided right into a single color and two-tone collection, referred to as ‘dapper’ and ‘insurgent’, respectively. The previous contains white, ash, and gray, the latter blue/white, black/white, and crimson/black. Personally I tip my hat to RE for not making the identical errors as many different motorbike (gear) producers when aiming to interact ladies riders. They provide predominantly white/pink and black/pink color schemes. These properly painted petrol tanks maintain 13 litres of gasoline, good for a pair hundred kilometres with reported consumption of two.63 L/100km.

In all, I had a good time using this very enjoyable motorbike! It’s glorious for its meant function, so it’d simply be that the hattrick just isn’t too far off. After all, all of us stay up for seeing what you do with these cool little rippers in terms of customisation!

(Photographs by Florian Meuret and Rodolphe Herpet)

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