Are Royal Enfield Motorcycles Famous Outside India? — We Explain

One of our followers in Sydney, Australia, owns a Royal Enfield Classic 500. There, motorcycles (and cars) are really expensive, due to the absence of manufacturing or assembly plants. Hence, he bought the Classic for almost Rs 4 lakh (when converted).

He says that Royal Enfields are considerably common there, but people do not give much importance to these bikes as they do in India. Foreigners who do buy an RE motorcycle would be either middle-aged or someone seriously into classics.

Meanwhile, in the US, Royal Enfield motorcycles are extremely niche. If at all someone buys an RE, it is only because they love the brand or they want a cheap single-cylinder cruiser.

In India, most roads are not that suitedfor high cruise speeds. But, things are different abroad. Most roads are wide and open, and you really have to floor it in order to avoid collision ‘from behind' on highways.

This is where the capability of a Royal Enfield is put to test. They just cannot go fast enough. A good scale of vibration also sets in if we really push the bike to its limits.

Royal Enfield motorcycles (single cylinder models) are not so rev-friendly. The stroke (piston's travel-distance in each power stroke) is high. This is the reason why we hear the slow ‘thump' in Bullets, while we do not, in other motorcycles (low stroke length).

Low stroke gives higher engine speed and hence higher top-end power. Meanwhile, higher stroke length, like as in the Bullet, is good for low-end torque or pull.

However, in the UK, Royal Enfields are much more common because they are used mainly for town-riding. After all, Royal Enfield is originally British.

Royal Enfield UK recently unveiled their new 650cc parallel twin motorcycles at EICMA 2017 - The Interceptor and The Continental GT 650, and fans are eagerly waiting for their India-debut.

The most important reason why Royal Enfields are not popular outside India is that there are a lot of better and ‘reliable' bikes from other brands available at the same price point.

But everyone who owns a Royal Enfield abroad gets a lot of attention, not because they are riding a two-wheeled powerhouse, but because they like the exclusivity of the motorcycle.

All kinds of questions arise when a rider sees a Royal Enfield outside India - ‘Which is this motorcycle? Is the motorcycle restored? Where did you buy this from?' and the list goes on.

Every rider on a Royal Enfield outside India gets into an instant friendly conversation, the moment they see one another on the road. Very few motorcycles can give you that.

However outside India, where much more performing motorcycles are easily accessible in the same price bracket, a Royal Enfield just cannot stand apart from the rest. The one thing that it has maybe, is Character.

DriveSpark Thinks!
The Royal Enfield Bullet was and still is one of India's favourite motorcycles. The bike still looks almost the same as it was before almost 50 years, and is praised to bring along a heritage factor. But that cannot make it a winner in every corner of the world. Like all those Royal Enfield purists say, ‘The Bullet is not about performance, it's about the Feel.'