These look to be truly compelling bikes. I've wanted a twin for years, nearly bought a Hyosung Comet earlier this year for its sound alone, and always thought it was a shame that our neighbors in Sri-Lanka and Nepal had affordable common-man's twins long ago (small Honda CB/CM/Benly's) and we (apart from the rare Hyosungs, RD's, Jawas - or the recent high-end stuff - none of which were ever very serviceable), really didn't. This is the most exciting introduction in India since the (now slightly deflated/tainted) Himalayan, I'd say. My wife and I like the orange Interceptor. Really excellent, and I can't wait to ride one.
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Originally Posted by aravind.anand - Sid Lal got it wrong when he called the 650 twin an air cooled engine, Simon - the Product Development head had to correct him that it is actually oil cooled ![Smile](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.png) |
Seriously? And my Machismo is oil-cooled by nature of having some cooling fins on the oil chamber??? In fact, one doesn't even need those
or an external oil cooler to have a measure of oil-cooling, which happens in any engine as oil circulates through hotter areas (piston underside, for example) and then contacts the cooler (due to their other side being exposed to air, mind you) surfaces of the cases/block (or even of the chassis, in the case of my DR350, which anybody knows is air-cooled!!!). So this new RE twin is clearly an air-cooled design (cooling fins on the cylinders, over which air passes for cooling purposes) vs. liquid cooled (having a water-jacket/radiator/pump). Total heat extraction would be from a percentage of each in this case, but I'm going to side firmly with Sid. Are the product development people getting a little too much into marketing? Hopefully so, as technical ignorance in the ranks would be even worse...
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Originally Posted by 21Archer84 I'm wondering how affordable... it's going to be |
Online conjectures currently ranging between 3.25-3.8L for the Interceptor... If so, one way of looking at it is that this could be over a lakh more than the current Conti GT, and gosh, it's only got 115cc more, is marginally heavier, and doesn't really look any better.
Another way of looking at it is that even if I were to shell out lavishly for a Hitchcock's tuning kit for the 535, netting I think a 20% power increase, that still limits me to maybe only 35bhp total... and the thing is still going to vibe like mad (forever), and not really be anything like free-revving. It's got character maybe, but the twin should be a lot more refined and flexible hopefully.
Moreover, anything below 4L still puts it at less than half a Triumph twin, really the only other similar product available here. The Triumph is badly overpriced (globally speaking) owing to import duties - if it could sell for the price it does abroad that'd be a different story; But as it is, the RE is looking like a relative bargain.
I wonder what this is going to do to sales of Bonnevilles... and resale of Conti singles.
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Originally Posted by 21Archer84 I'm wondering how... durable it's going to be. RE's bread and butter is the Indian market and would not want to be in the same soup as with the case of Himalayan. |
Regarding (global) sales demographics: Truly wonder how this will do in the home market. Company's re-adjusting its sights now, global branding, etc. Will it be highly niche here? Will it woo Bullet owners away from their beloved, underpowered, vibratory singles? (
bhaiyya, wo bilkul bekaar hai! Thump nahi hai!). Will we actually be seeing a lot of them out there on the roads? I hope so, but do wonder...
I was involved earlier in designing test equipment for evaluating - for both production an R&D, various automotive mechanical / electrical / hydraulic components... but it was often the case that products that tested well on our machines (incl. endurance testing) sometimes ended up with high warranty return rates.
At the time of the Himalayan launch, it seemed that the thing had undergone a huge amount of "real world" testing... (a number of spy photos out there, and I saw the team up here in Manali, discreetly thrashing several of them on bad roads at least 6-8 months before the announcement/introduction). And yet the production versions were plagued with various (largely resolvable) issues that never should have been there (how on earth can a company in the bike business this long mess up things like a charging stator... or steering head bearings, or a clutch assembly???).
We've got to admit that RE has been worse than probably anyone else in this market about introducing unsorted products (early UCE's - especially the 500 cranks, starter sprags, etc, oil leaks, cracked chassis more recently; Earlier, AVL's had hard times with pushrods/tappets breaking, etc). Not to mention all the bike-to-bike inconsistencies earlier... which with modernization / automation is probably less of an issue now.
Might be worth bearing in mind that this is how the Japanese managed to kill off all these old English marques in the first place. Even
they mess it up occasionally (In my time, Honda V4 Interceptor engine failures, etc), still it's amazing how consistently they manage to get superior, trouble-free products to market.
But at some level it's also true that weaknesses / deficiencies often show up only in the rigors of day-in, day-out actual conditions that real-life owners put their machines through. "Durability" assumes multiple years of ownership, not a few months of spirited stress-testing. Two very different things, often with different results.
It would be nice if these twins turned out to be trouble-free... but let's just be ready for anything, and assume that the first round of owners are going to kinda be guinea-pigs... and they are going to assume that risk for the privilege of being some of the first to own these very compelling machines.
If it's any consolation, RE took the Himalayan's several issues very seriously, and provided warranty services, updates, whatever, to resolve them at no cost. Consistency of service providers at a local level, of course, is sometimes the challenging part.
-Eric