Something old, lots new on Enfield Classic

Royal Enfield's new Bullet 500 Classic should reach the United States in 2009, according to Kevin Mahoney of Classic Motorworks. Mahoney provides updates on new products in the forums section of Classic's web site. A few examples from his recent postings provide insights into improvements coming with the unit-constructed engine these bikes will feature:

"The chain drive was moved to the right for a couple of reasons. Since it is a unit motor with a self-contained transmission there was no need to keep it on the left. Another good reason to move it is to put the rear braking mechanism in a direct line with the pedal. This provides better rear braking.

"As has been pointed out the UCE models will all have a nice O-ring chain. This is a welcome addition. Actually chain and clutch adjustment are the only adjustments to do on the new bike. It has a automatically adjusted primary chain, hydraulic valve lifters and EFI which have all eliminated maintenance."

More information comes from Dan Callum, who attended the NEC bike show in Birmingham, England. He posted the pictures shown here and many others. Callum noted the comfy looking single seat shown on the new Classic (which was displayed with a sidecar). To my delight, his pictures show that clamshell chain adjusters continue on the new bike, quite a familiar touch on a Royal Enfield.

Callum filed this report on the Bullet-Mania Yahoo message board:

"I was very impressed with the new machine. They had one chaired up with a colour coordinated sidecar and it looked a treat. I was asking about the kickstart, well the production EFI Electra will have a kickstart, and I was asking about the possibility of adding a k/start to the Classic machine, and there will be no factory conversion available to to do this, although who knows what independent engineers may come up with. I also enquired about the possibility of converting to right hand shift, this has not really been looked into yet. It seems that the Classic has all metric threads everywhere, except for the rear wheel which is the existing unit and will continue with the imperial threads until tooling needs replacing. The seat is very comfy, it has foam AND springs, the best of both worlds, and the clutch is very light.

"I did notice on the Classic that the lovely painted battery cover left two areas of the gaudy plastic battery exposed; if I had one of these I would definitely be painting those parts of the battery black."

Next: When will the new Royal Enfield get to the U.S.?