Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Royal Enfield Sighting

I've previously art blogged about Royal Enfield motorcycles -- those gorgeous expressions of mid-century British grace. But until last Sunday, I had never seen one in person. Then I spotted this beauty in a church parking lot:



A 500 Bullet Classic ES. It was breathtakingly beautiful, like a mechanical Venus rising from the breaking asphalt.

4 comments:

Sky McCracken said...

John:

Someone in Paducah has one - parks it uptown near the riverfront, and I've parked next to him a few times. Next time, I'll take a pic.

Jeff the Baptist said...

They're neat but I really wish they made a traditional parallel twin in addition to their single cylinder models. I like the right-left symmetry of the Brit twins plus the engine is smoother and better balanced for more power. They'd be prettier and more practical.

I also like the cafe racer models. I realize they aren't fast by modern standards, but I really enjoy their clean lines.

Not that my wife would ever let me ride one of course.

John said...

Yeah, I'd like to see them build a liquid cooled v-twin. You can now get after-market disk brakes for both the front and back wheel, but I guess that we're stuck with whatever is popular and affordable in India, since they are financially based on a domestic market.

Jeff the Baptist said...

If you want a liquid cooled v-twin, then buy a metric cruiser, there are many options available in a wide variety of displacements. But parallel twins in the Brit bike mold? Well you could buy a Triumph or a Triumph. Which is a shame because a lot of the Japanese manufacturers started out making copies of the old Brit bikes.