Test Ride: Royal Enfield 500 Classic Chrome, Bad Ass Old Styled Bike!!

Mazbro n mbaksis, Sunday noon was a perfect time for me and Jatimotoblog’s members to take a short test ride on the brand new-old styled Royal Enfield 500 Classic Chrome. Thanks to Mas Arofah who  spared his time to let us knew how bad ass this classic British brand with Indian production. And FYI this is my first time testing motorcyle more than 250cc, which mean the first big bike I ever tested, yeeaaayyyy…..!!!

First Impression
First time I looked at this bike, it made me time travelling through the 50’s era where original Royal Enfield still produced in British, so classic, almost 100% hand made, and miracleously, it still used the same production technique as they used almost 70 years ago!!

You can see the hand made gold Royal Enfield letters and lines ornament on the fuel tank, which not as perfect as modern machine made ornament, but this made it more classic than the modern bikes, even modern Harley Davidson!!
Mas Arofah told us when he bought his bike to the classic bike club in Surabaya, like Pemudi’s, at first they thought that his bike was the original old Royal Enfield produced in 50’s, and not a brand new production bikes from 2014 😀

Engine
Its 499cc engine has no major change if compared with the original 499cc Royal Enfield engine, except the injection replacing carb for fuel system. Electric starter is already installed, while manual kickstart still there to be used when needed, or when you wanna try how strong your feet are to fired up this bad ass old styled 499cc engine!!
It has no engine balancer, which made it vibrate while it run, and sounds like (closely) to Harley Davidson’s V-twin engine, bad ass loud!!

Ergonomic
Because this is a cruiser bike, the saddle are thick, comfy and covered by hand made leather, just like sitting on sofa back home!! With my 183cm/ 78kg size, I can reach the handlebar easily and my feet also placed well, in total relax position

Riding impression
The electric starter are smooth to fired up the engine. Because this is an old tech engine, so you can felt the balancer-less engine, which means a major vibration on your feet (footsteps) and handgrip.

You cannot accelerate it fast, just like the modern bikes, but in no time the dashboard shows 100kph on 5th gear and still rising!! Too bad the track is not long enough to discover the top speed. But…its a cruiser bike, not a sport bike, so torque is more important. Which of course its 499cc engine had more torque than common mass production bikes in Indonesia, which 250cc is max here.
And….what made me amazed was the saddle has no engine vibration at all, while my feet and hands felt high vibration from the old tech engine, which will made a long distance riding, more fun and relax. Plus the vibration was getting softer (not completely dissappeared) while the rpm rised.

Conclusion
This is a high class cruiser bike for most of Indonesian, because of its on the road price around 187 million rupiahs, but if you a rich, classic old styled bike lover, this is a perfect bike to buy!!
Its old tech 499cc engine create a lot of vibration, but this “vibrator engine” thing, will made you miss the sensation of riding it!!
BAD ASS OLD STYLED BIKE!!

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