How to define Royal Enfield motorcycles?

My first posting on this blog tried to define the Royal Enfield motorcycle. Re-reading it, I see that my definition has not withstood the test of time.

For starters, I was really defining only the relatively poky, maintenance happy Royal Enfield Bullet of 1999, which I own. I ignored the fast twins from the 1960s that one still sees for sale in the United States, and for which I list ads on this blog.

Additionally, Royal Enfield has now increased the speed of the Bullet and bestowed it with maintenance free fuel injection, no-bother electronic ignition, O-ring chain (with the oil inside it, not on your pant legs) and self-adjusting valves. Yet it looks just as charmingly dated as my Classic.

So I admit I was incorrect or, at least, I didn't capture the whole picture. In retrospect, I think I was wrong to look at the specification sheet and performance to try to define a Royal Enfield. This morning, on the Internet, we have two definitions, of a sort, one from a fellow in India and one from a Brit.

They certainly ought to know. I wonder if these two would agree?

James Higham writes about political and social issues in his Nourishing Obscurity blog. A Europhile, he nevertheless argues for the preservation of British values and practices, with a pleasant sense of irony. "Even our very confusion over what is British... is British," he writes.

This morning he takes a moment to applaud a paragraph by another writer, William Gruff.

Here it is:

"When riding my Royal Enfield I wore black polished, steel toe-capped scaffolders’ boots with seaboot stockings rolled down to the tops, and fancied myself quite the young blade. I may have looked like a prat but the music I listened to then lives with me still."

Now that certainly gives you a mental picture, doesn't it?

The second definition comes from a young Indian student and blogger in My Life on the Roll.

Here it is:

Selfism is Individualism.

Selfism is Self-Reliance.

Selfism only listens to the sound of its own voice.

Selfism is Independence.

Selfism is Dignity.

Selfism is not Arrogant.

Selfism is not Anti-Social...

Selfism can change the World.

ROYAL ENFIELD IS SELFISM!