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Originally Posted by Urban_Nomad - Timid road presence (pictures, YouTube)
- exhaust note (YouTube)
- riding posture
- Performance figures (not actual performance)
And believe me, RE fanboys are much worse than RE critics. At least the latter speak with some experience and numbers. How does one have a meaningful discussion when all arguments are centred around the bike's soul?! |
I think many have gone too far on both sides... worshiping a thump on one side (nothing else in consideration), or else dismissing all RE's as antiquated, unreliable, overpriced lumps on the other. I say this as someone who used to have very little appreciation for them (despite having ridden many over the years) and who now owns and enjoys one.
There IS something to be said for "soul" or character or rider connection or whatever else you could call it - some of the best-selling, most-loved vehicles in history excelled in that if not in the specs, and some of the most technically advanced in reality felt a little uninspiring to many people in actual use. While sometimes useful, tech data definitely does not tell the complete story all that accurately. Mazda (automobiles) way back had the advert line, "It just feels right", and they produced a number of cars during that time that were good to drive (and good to look at too). That's something partly subjective, but is also arrived at by involving a lot of people in the development process, which it sounds like RE has been trying to do. But yes, they are a particular type of people it sounds like, who already appreciated an Enfield's good points. Exhaust note is important primarily to people who have already proven their priority on it - by buying Enfields in the past. If RE was targeting other customers primarily, they wouldn't have bothered so much about how it sounded.
IMO many "out there" tend to err on the side of being armchair enthusiasts / analysts. They advise someone which bike to buy because one has 1/2 more peak bhp. Or they feel bad about their 400bhp car, which they've fully enjoyed for the past 12 months, because this year's new model has 406bhp. They are allowing themselves to be manipulated by marketing departments and peer pressure / status obsession. Nobody is EVER going to be able on the street (and hardly on any track in the world) to tell the difference that supposed 6bhp makes at that level - or probably even the 1/2 bhp on the executive commuter. Ridiculous but it happens daily.
Until very recently, 500cc Bullets were considered to be pretty decent (if crude, vibey) performers, at only around 25bhp. In the mid 40's, the twin will represent a day and night difference in actual feel. Who cares if whichever Triumph has more per cc? I've ridden the Bonnie, the Tiger, a Ducati, RD350, and some Honda V4's / Suzuki GS750, FZ600 etc way back when. Let the bike stand on its own merits, it is going to cost a small fraction of what you're going to lay out for a T100 or Daytona. Duke 390 will likely be faster (full-on) and cheaper but then it's a completely different animal, not for everyone.
At the end of the day, you've got to get out and ride a bike, unless you are just going to keep it as a showpiece in your sitting room. And "the proof's in the pudding" as they say. Take it out for a 20-30 minute ride on the kind of roads you plan to ride, and see if you're smiling wide when you get back. If one or two things bother you, think whether they can be easily altered (riding posture would be one, with a different handle / footpegs).
Beyond that, almost nobody's riding around with a stopwatch, almost nobody's got mirrors all around to look at themselves in, few are going to find opportunity to do "the Ton" except in their dreams, and even if they do, it's gonna be far less than 1% of their total riding time in a year. Finally, if you're planning to spend solid time in the saddle, you've got to "feel right" about what the bike does for you. As others have said, it can be a very personal thing. If you're planning instead to sit at a cafe and gloat over the fact that you've got more (useless) bhp/cc than the next guy, or that your bike has allegedly better "road presence" (how do you measure THAT?) or a 5mm bigger disc brake, this might not be your bike.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban_Nomad Triumph is also much better at the "tech" aspect. They can (if they so wanted) pull out 120+ BHP from a 675 cc engine. They Chose not to pursue HP in case of the Bonnie
RE not being able to extract more from this engine is a constraint; not a choice |
??? The video was very clear that RE was making a deliberate decision based on the target market's preferences, to emphasize the perceived strong points of the well-loved singles: in particular the strong torque curve and flexibility and sound of the engine. A 120+bhp 675 would be peaky; It would also be expensive to buy / maintain. It would in no way fit the character of a retro-classic, practical rider type bike like RE wanted with these twins - it wouldn't be balanced / nimble as were also stated goals.
Whether or not RE was capable of building such an engine (unlikely) is completely besides the point - why on earth would they want to, and who cares if their tech capabilities are more limited than Triumph's at this stage? The engine they developed fits the character / performance of the bike they want to build right now, on the basis of what the existing RE customer base appreciates. Keeping in mind that RE is selling maybe 50,000/mo bikes right now and is the biggest 2-wheeler success story in India (commercially), apart from any new customers who jump on the brand, they are probably aiming largely towards a lot of existing ones upgrading. They don't need to please everyone.
Comparisons with Triumph, who indeed has much more history in the modern era of tuning high-performance engines over several vastly different platforms, are not really fair. Apart from the Himalayan, this is only RE's second truly new engine (maybe 2-1/2 including the UCE, which shares many parts / dimensions with the earlier AVL's, whose development was outsourced). They're taking it a step at a time and I think they're doing a good job. They (incomprehensibly) seemed to rush the Himalayan to market without having properly proven all its components, and they have suffered gravely for it. But the basic engineering and concept were solid, as is being proved with v.2. There were good people involved then and now, and I expect they'll get it mostly right with the twins - they know they can't afford another fiasco, and again there's no real upcoming competition they have to beat to market. They can take their time and get it right, and I'm expecting they probably will this time.
Personally, I can hardly wait to ride one, hardly wait to hear it in person - because I know for a fact that I've never been able to get a recorded video sounding quite like my bikes' actual output.
-Eric