Today I rode my Zero electric motorcycle from my home in Pacifica to Big Basin State Park and returned via the coast highway, a trip of 150 miles. I arrived home with the battery pack showing 0%.
While riding into Big Basin SP, three groups of riders passed me coming out of the park. It looked and sounded like they were all riding new Triumph Thruxtons with the same color white tank, which I thought was kind of odd. After arriving at the Park I was approached by a British rider who asked me about my Zero and then mentioned that he was in a group of journalists who were riding the new Royal Enfield 650 Continental GT and asked me if I wanted to see the bike. Naturally I said yes! I took some photos with my cell phone camera, some of which actually came out. One of them had a chrome tank, the rest had white tanks with a red stripe. I have emailed the photos to myself, but they haven't arrived yet. When they do, I will post them here. The bikes really look and sound great, although the mufflers are kind of large and stick out quite a bit. It is going to be tough installing saddlebags on the GT with those mufflers in the way.
I sat on one and it felt pretty solid. The clutch pull is about average and the seating position with the low bars is not bad. Much better than the Thruxton, as an example. I could see myself buying one, especially at the advertised price in the U.S.
I watched as the riders took off up the highway that I came down, heading for lunch at Alice's Restaurant. As I was leaving the Park, two more groups of GT riders passed by. I would guess that I saw about 40 GT riders today. It appears that RENA is really trying to make a statement with the new 650 models. Now all they need are more dealers. We should be seeing a lot of 650 reviews all over the World soon.
Topic: Royal Enfield 650 arrives in the U.S. (Read 4167 times)