Dec 04, 2023 09:24 PM
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I have always been in love with bikes.
It was sparked in my childhood with my maternal uncle buying the Yamaha RX100 & teaching me to drive. Oh boy, that feeling of cutting through the wind, the gush of adrenalin & the sensation of freedom overtook me sooner than I expected. That was somewhere around 1988-89. I was born & brought up in the industrial town of Durgapur, West Bengal. Well paved tarmac roads & very few 2-wheelers on them. I had the time of my life on that RX100.
Later, as I started earning I bought a Bajaj Calibre, then a TVS Fiero F2 & then a Bajaj Pulsar 220 and then I migrated to cars.
Fast forward to 2023 & I realised that my time to ride bikes is passing away, I should get one now or I can never again.
Thought of the Harley & came to know they have stopped doing business in India, BMW was a good option, so was the Benelli or the KTM but didn’t like the aggressive driving position which I so used to love. I decided to look for a cruiser & chanced upon the Super Meteor 650.
The sitting position was an instant hit, the upright body position & slightly foot forward stance was very comfortable. I am not migrating from any motorcycle so I did not carry the baggage of the crouched aggressive position with your feet under your bum. In the aggressive riding position the weight is more on your knees whereas here it is on your bums. Where the aggressive position allows you to dart into corners easier & take tighter turns, it is not comfortable for long rides. Where the crouched position helps you cut through the wind better, this seating position subjects you to more wind blast on your chest. There are advantages & disadvantages, but I liked this position. RE has provided a large windscreen to save you from the wind blast but there a buffeting issues at high speeds.
I realised the heft of the bike as I tried to move it. It is a very very heavy bike, it has the capability of giving you muscle pulls & slipped disks in the parking lot. But, into the midlife crisis, the heart rules the mind in these decisions & rationale gives way to carpe diem. I guess that's what happened to me. I bought the bike. I did not have to wait for the 4~6 months after booking. In fact I never booked the bike, there was one available owing to someone's cancellation & I grabbed the opportunity.
One good thing, when moving the bike while sitting on it is very convenient as there are no foot pegs to bite into your shin bone or calf muscles, those are forward mounted & out of your way.
After bringing it home, it took me 2 days to realise what I have done. Then I started taking it out on short drives to re-familiarise myself to bike riding & to learn to handle this huge machine. I realised that I have not only got a huge & heavy piece of machinery but also a very powerful one. I'll not go into the maths in this forum of technically aware comrades, but if you do the math you'll realise that this bike is more powerful than the Mini Cooper….and that's frightening, because you are on 2 wheels. However good the Super Meteor 650 brakes are & they are damm good, they kinda make the bike stop on a dime & the ABS kicks in at the right moment without being too intrusive. But you must realise you are on 2 wheels not 4 so the contact patch with mother earth is way smaller & hence lesser friction.
After almost 20 years of driving cars, in which sometimes I used to wonder if my car is genuinely doing 120kmph on expressways because I don’t feel a thing, now the speed of 80kmph on a bike seemed frightening. The windblast at 100kmph is a commendable force to reckon with.
As I started getting comfortable with the machine, I noticed that when riding, the wight actually gives me the confidence of being on a planted machine. The ground clearance being low in this bike, you have to take speed breakers with love. I'm yet to scrape the underbelly.
The upright & low seating position, low CG & long wheelbase translates into wider turning radius than your average motorcycle. Add to that an excellent pair of shoes from CEAT gives the bike better than anticipated eagerness to lean into corners & the come back upright. It felt somewhat like the center weight of a good steering wheel, the bike is eager to come back up to the upright riding position from the tilt fluidly & confidently.
Esthetically, the RE badge on the tank & blacked out engine looks stunning, but the Super Meteor 650 badging on the side panels look like an afterthought.
The other positive is that the dual silencers do not stick out or rise upwards, like the interceptor for example, they are parallel to the sides & quite tucked in. The advantages you get are a narrower profile for meandering through tight spaces & your pillion sits more comfortably, not in a knee-up position.
The engine is high on torque so getting out of tight spots or overtaking is a breeze.
The LHS & RHS stock mirrors are of excellent quality, they do not vibrate, hence giving a stable view of your backside, maybe the stalks could have been a trifle shorter?
The gearbox, I'm told is way better than other RE bikes but, I feel it still is not as refined & smooth as the lesser competitors in market. I have experienced occasional slips. Some shifts are smooth while some are clanky. Getting to the neutral is tough sometimes. In my case the 3rd gear slips at times.
The brakes have the adequate bite in them to stop this huge machine. No complaints there.
I bought the Touring version(Celestial), meaning wider, more comfortable seats for the rider & pillion. These are very comfortable seats, better than the ones on the Interstellar & Astral. My PoV, the touring seats coupled with the backrest robs the bike of it's low-slung cruiser look that you get in the Interstellar & Astral owing to the tapered off almost non-existent pillion seat.
Once you get the muscle memory right, you start noticing the other parts around you, the switchgear for example, they are of very good quality, gives the impression they'll last a while. The side stand engine cut-off is a very nice feature, will definitely prevent some accidents. The bike will never allow you to ride away with the side stand extended. The LED headlamp which doubles up as DRL during the day is a nice touch, the light beam has a nice spread, but it should have been be stronger(more lumens). I have discovered it looks fantastic as a DRL(in the rear-view mirror) but it can’t stand up at dusk & in the rains, you can’t see beyond a few feet. The gear & brake levers though adjustable still seems designed for larger hands. The factory fitted windscreen is not vision corrected, so looking through it doesn't give you the right impression of the road ahead. You have to adjust to keeping track of the road far ahead & can’t tailgate a bigger vehicle because you just can’t see through the windscreen, try looking around it.
Another observation I have is the engine heat. This being a huge engine between your legs you tend to feel the heat on long rides. Specially if you were to stop at a redlight or railway crossing. Even while riding the bike I tend to feel the heat. In proper riding gear I do not feel it that much, but this baby is not for stop & go traffic.
The USD forks in the front do a very good job whereas the rear dual shocks are already at their softest setting when I bought the bike. The rear suspension is stiff even at it's softest setting. I believe this stiffness is required to give the bike the agility that it has. Coupled with the stiffness the angle of the rear socks are such that they directly aim at your bum, so you feel the speed breakers. The front set foot pegs are not convenient for saddling at low speeds. The suspension is a tad stiff specially at the back, this is mainly because the dual shocks here have a limited scope of travel. My observation, as the bike softens up after the first~1000 kilometers step up the rear socks by a notch & the bike behaves better. Similarly, the company prescribed tyre pressure is 41(F) & 36(R) for single rider, but if you maintain 41(F) & 38(R) the bike behaves better in my PoV.
A few things I didn't quite get. Are these misses by Royal Enfield's engineers(very hard to believe) or are they deliberate omissions(we think!)?
1. Some kind of protection/guard for the primary brake cylinder. Looks like it is waiting for you to inadvertently kick it or was it designed such so that the fluid level is visible? An explanation will cull the aftermarket promotions as they lead riders to believe that with out a protection/guard you cannot survive.
2. The other thing might not be a miss, but I feel the fantastic looking petrol tank lid could be more flush, not allowing for a gap in between for water to flow into the cavity during rains. Could RE have put a malleable gasket in-between to cover that gap. There is a drain hole beside the inlet opening, probably for this purpose.
3. The Oil filter is positioned right behind the front wheel almost aiming at it. Stone chips thrown back by the front wheel will directly hit that cover. Maybe that cover is designed to withstand that assault. But since there is no clarification from RE, sump guards are a must-have aftermarket fitment.
4. Finally, the colour options are limited. I mean the same bike is colored in so many colours already, why the limit of only red & blue for the highest trim? I believe the top tourer trim could have been offered in all the available colours, it's after all only the change of seat & addition of the windscreen. Some reviewers have remarked that the tourer version as a little different handlebar, but I couldn't make that out.
5. The internet is rife with photographs of the paneers mounted on the Super Meteor 650 and they look absolutely stunning. Even the official RE website sports such a photograph right on the homepage. But, you can't get them from either the online or offline RE stores. RE please make the accessories available with the bike now, it's been more than 9 months that this bike has been released.
6. Then there is the USB port for charging your smartphone. It's located inside the left side cover where you have the air intake. So, you need an extra long & strong heat resistant cable to travel all the way from there to the handlebar or tank bag depending on where you keep your phone. Point to note that this wire will travel directly above the engine head & will have to tackle all that heat.
7. Then there is the horn. It is definitely not commensurate with the bulk of the bike, it sounds puny. Feels like it's been plucked from a 100cc bike.
8. With the kind of power on tap, I believe RE could have added riding modes like the lesser competitors have. I don’t know the implications of adding a host of electronics apart from the increase of the base price of the vehicle, but maybe RE will add them in later versions.
9. What I really miss is a tachometer. I feel, the speedo on the left the tacho on the right with the tripper on top would probably have been the best dash layout for this premium bike. But that's only my PoV.
So far, I have clocked approx 3K Km on the bike & I have seen a mileage of 22Kmpl to 31Kmpl on different tank fill-ups.
All said & done, I have had people showing me the thumbs up sign on the road, this bike does get noticed, it's a looker for sure. RE has matured hugely with this machine. I sincerely believe this bike will age well & will be one of those machines that are passed on from father to son.
