Speaker 0 (0s): Welcome to the Tim Heale podcast. If you have the time, you cannot only listen to the episodes, but you can also watch all the shows and you'll find the links in the description below. thank you.
What as she is the new Royal Enfield Himalayan four 50 sat next to the other demonstrators. So they've got a continental gt, the Himayan or Himalayan four 50, a Meteor three 50, and the shotgun I took out the other week.
However, today we are here at, to give a go on the new Himalayan wall on one. I'm waiting for mine to turn up. Mine's gonna be in the same color. Now this is a closer look at the, the new Royal Enfield Himalayan. This is, I guess, had come as standard, so we're just waiting for, for Claire to come back and we are finish on this engine and the whole thing is really, really good.
So. yeah, these are the, the tube tires. So I'm getting mine with a tube tire and if I get a puncher, at least I can fix it at the side that I road. So this is Balmar lawn's demonstrator. So this is the one I'm taking out this afternoon.
Looks like it's already had a run around in the wet. It's all a bit mucky under there, but that's what demonstrated before. So quite looking forward to having a cabbie on this. This is it. Bike's up and running. So I suppose without too much further ado, throw me leg over it and let's take it for a ride.
Let's write what everybody says the it does lean over quite a bit. Get the, the mirror squared away. That's better, right? First, wow, this is, this is really, really smooth.
It's incredibly smooth actually. Yeah, don't need to use the, the clutch to change Gear, old abbot's tired So. you get to the end of the road, turn left. He's very light and agile, I must say. He's really, really, I mean just, just really nice.
Takes a bunch really well. So this is it. It's, yeah, it feels really, really smooth. It's really like the duck around with some sake that feels really, really comfortable.
There's a bit of engine breaking as well, bad.
Speaker 1 (5m 13s): So
Speaker 0 (5m 14s): As you can tell, my audio's gone tits whenever I get over sort of 30 miles an hour or so, for some bizarre reason, I get that crackling popping noise and there's, I dunno, what, how to cure it. So if there's anybody out there knows how to cure that popping noise, please pop in the, in the chat and let us know how to sort it out. I'm using a hero GoPro, a GoPro hero, 10 black with a, with a GoPro mic, lav mic inside my helmet and I dunno how to fix it.
I've tried to different settings on the, on the GoPro. Yeah, so anyway, getting back to the, the bike ride now. I love it. It's, it's everything I thought it was gonna be and feels a lot better from the moment I sat on it. It, it felt comfortable. I've got a seat setting on the, the low setting, the standard seat on the low setting, which is, I think it's about 8 25, something like that.
And my feet are fairly flat on the ground, which just Hills just lifted slightly. I'm five foot, five foot nine or 1 7 5 centimeters with an inside leg of about 30 inches. So I'm not the tallest bloke on the wheel, but I'm a gobby little scrum off. So first Impressions of this bike, I really like it. I really, really like it. I'm so pleased that I put a deposit down as soon as it was announced back in, I think it was October they first announced this bike and then they started showing me the YouTube videos of him riding across India and up into the Himalayas.
And I thought that's the bike for me. Last year I did a, a tour on a multi stride. I went down through Spain, France and Spain doing a ride through history. And I, I had a couple of close calls with it, with me dodgy hip, talking to dodgy hip. I've just come from the seeing the orthopedic surgeon today and because I started this new drug called Lefler, he reckons that it may help with the, with not needing a replacement so soon.
He said there's still a bit of, bit of where to go on my hips and my knees. So I'm gonna go back and see him again in a year's time. So I'm just gonna go back to the, the original audio at the moment. Traffic. It is Absolute joy, it's comfortable, is capable.
What sounds good as well. Yeah, impressed. Much better. So what's now, I had a quick chat with Claire before, it's a bit man in the shop today, but I had a quick chat just saying that Royal slightly taken by surprise, the amount of interest in this bike and she's also saying that she's not sure about the, the accessories.
So at the moment, not, not a hundred percent sure about the accessories. Have to wait and see on that one. That looks at it clearly wasn't quick enough. It a nice, lovely Ben, look at this.
This is just
Speaker 1 (9m 58s): Gorgeous.
Speaker 0 (10m 3s): Yeah, Yeah, I'm back on the voiceover now you can see the problem that I've got with that crackle and the pop and it is just distorted. I don't, I dunno why it's doing it. So if anybody does know how to sort it out, please, please, please let me know because I've got a big trip coming all being well with, with a complete Himalayan, with with Pans So.
yeah, I was just saying that Claire was saying that they, him Royal Enfield had been taken a little bit by surprise about the, the total interest in this bike and the amount of people that are putting in orders for it. Claire was just saying that she's, the last two days people have been jumping on this bike, going out on a test ride and putting an order in for it.
Fortunately or unfortunately for those guys they got back until about July before they get it. I'm one of the first in the country to get it. Mine should be turning up next week. I'm really, really looking forward to it. But yeah, what we're saying about the the accessories, the paneas, no problem at all. It's the, the bracket. They're saying that the accessories aren't gonna be turning up until about the middle, middle of May sometime.
So I'm just hoping that if nothing else I can get the, the, the rack or the, the, the bars to fit the, the panties on, turn up and get those fitted. Before, before my trip I was someone gonna be struggling, I should be really struggling with stuff to, and when you've got a bag, the idea with the panty is, is one panties has got the sort of the, the the breakdown kit and the the waterproofs and bits and pieces like that in the other one's gonna have all my camera equipment but my laptop and everything.
So I can, while I'm doing the video in as I'm going round, I can do some of the editing at the same time. That's the idea behind all of that. If I haven't got the Panas, then it's gonna be a bit of a challenge. Also gonna have a bag across the back just for the clothes on it. I'm gonna be away from the, the 31st of May until I think the 25th or the 26th of June when I get back. And then it was, it's a day or so turnaround and then I'm off to the AdventureBike Riders Festival.
So fingers crossed that we've got all the bits and pieces before we, before we head out in the 31st of May. So going back to riding a bike, it is everything, you know, I mean, it, it it's slight and the clutch, You know, I mean they're saying it's, it's a little bit stretched out in the, on the, on the grip So it, it's a little bit wide but not, not a big drama at all. Most of the time I don't use the clutch other than pulling away, used to, used to riding with a, with a quick shift.
So every, every bike I have just quick shift and it seems fine. It don't, you don't need to use the clutch all the time with it. so that part, yeah, it's a nice light clutch anyway, brakes. The brakes are really good on it actually. Yeah, it's got a single distance front in the back. We edits up in sports mode or performance mode rather than e mode. so that, I think that just stiffens everything up slightly and gives you what you call it a BS front and back.
So I I, I did give a, a quick test on the brakes and they are fine, no problem at all with them. What else can I say about the bike? Yeah, handles bumps really well. I mean the, you can see the road surface isn't the best in the world and riding around a new forest there, there's quite a few potholes docking around, but it handled those fine. We get onto the twisties in a bit and really, really nice.
It, it just, you just lay it into to the bends and, and there's a, some sweeping bends coming up which are really, really nice that it just felt really stable, capable and yeah, it was, it just felt easy to ride. It's not like my old 7 4 9 s now that is a proper, proper rider's bike.
you know, not anybody can just jump on a, a 7 4 9 and, and ride it. They, you need a bit of experience best divided it on the road. I hated it on the road actually. The L 7 4 9 s dati was a handful on the road, get it on the track. Gosh, she was a fantastic track day bike. Really, really, really good on the track, but riding it on the road, yeah, no fun whatsoever.
So this is the, the route that they send you out on, you come out of Brockenhurst, you turn left towards Lindhurst, you get to Lindhurst, you turn left and left again onto the A 35 coming down the A 35 here. There's a turning to Baltimore or something like that. No, Burley no, I'll see it in a minute. So we turn off there and then we turn back towards Brockenhurst and come up over the, the new forest over the Hills that, that the open bit, which is really nice.
It's really, you'll see in a minute, you know, and fortunately it wasn't raining today, it rained earlier, but it, it fortunately had dried up and you can see that there's, there's clouds up there and they're threatening, they're threatening clouds. But what I did notice riding around and driving into the new forest, all the campsites are open. So to go with my new Himalayan, I'm going to purchase the Lone Rider Moto tent, you know, the one that you a can stand up in, b you can park your bike in it as well.
And so I've got the, the big trip, I've got the first trip, once I get the bike, I've got a, a route planned out where I'm gonna visit some of the, the motorbike calfs. There's one down at, what do they call it? Aven Park, gonna stop there for a cup of tea. Then I can come up to Stone Eng and come across to Box Hill and then come back down to Lummis or so got a lot of, got a little bit of a ride round to get the first, first 300 miles done in the first week.
So it could come back in, get its first service out the way. Hopefully the, the rack for the paneas are turned up by then and they can fit the pans. So that's hopefully all gonna happen next week. So I think this is, this is the turning that we're just coming up to. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back over onto the, onto the original voiceover go way.
There's one wants to go. Okay, So there you go.
I will give you some beans and it pulls away really, really nicely. So it's got some, it's got a bit of going it when you want it So, you just gotta give it a quick wind and, and blip up through the, the gears there. This road was particularly bumpy, but she just handled it. It's, it's great. I mean they're all bikes that are, you'd be bouncing all over the road, but the, the forks, the, the rear suspension just seemed to be set up quite well.
I, and a quick look at how they set up the, the rear suspension. I think that's sort of on the, the sort of second to, to stiffest setting and the, obviously the front forks are upside down ones and they seem to be handling the bumps really well. It seems a well balanced machine, really happy with the way that it handles. Now this bit we're coming up to is, is takes you through the windy bit, the, the twisty bit, which is, which is particularly nice to ride, actually I was quite pleasantly surprised that the, you just set it up, leave, leave, let it fall into the, the bench.
Look at this bend coming up. I rolled him back a little bit just for these cars. Hopefully the cars can go round the bends and when there's so many cars, if, you know, there are so many cars that can't go round bends and they slowed right down and go round a bend like this. This is gorgeous, this is a lovely bend. And there's a, there's a series of 'em coming up here and the bike just sort of, you, you just plant it, boom, there you go. Look. Oh, look at that.
Just straight in lift straight out. Again there's some poor, poor bug in the push bike. Yeah, you don't wanna be doing that. Here's another series of bends and the bike just just flows through 'em. So I'm really, really, really looking forward to getting this bike down in the, on some of these classic riding roads.
We've got the, we've got the, the national 500 from Barden Barden going south, then we're going down onto the Grimshaw Pass. I'm looking forward to the Grimshaw Pass and then we're coming back up over to, to Munich and then from Munich we're gonna be going, we're going down to do the gross glockner. The last time we went down to do the gross glockner, we got to the pay hours bit from the Italian side and, and it started snowing on the top and it wouldn't let us go, sorry to come all the way back down again going to the next valley and take the train through through to, to get back to Munich.
But hopefully this time we're going a little bit later. So Enc sheila, it'll be, it'll be the, the much nuts we'll be able to, we'll be out there, go and ride the gross glockner. I'm really looking forward to that. And then I'm coming back up to, to Nuremberg and then I'm off to, off to to Prague. So this, this is a nice little sweeping bend here and I looked overtake this car.
It is, it's starting to get to me. So bump blip the throttle away she goes. Yeah, just yeah, And, that was in sixth Gear, no, fifth in fifth Gear. Just bump is another lovely little bend look, just look at the way she, she just flicks from one side to the other and that's the glory of this bike. How, like, how they've set this bike up is, is really, really good.
Now I've ridden this route several times now on different bikes. I took out the shotgun the other week and a classic three 50 before that I, I took out the, the meteor and the, the old Himalayan on this route. The day I took that out it was raining So, it didn't really enjoy it that much, so just yep, just flicking the bike about it. It just so stable.
It is a really, really well balanced, capable bike. And I think for, for the sort of riding that we're gonna be doing or we're gonna be doing some big distances, another gorgeous couple of bends coming up here. Wow, look at that. It just, just holds it in there. It just, it doesn't wanna throw you out, it just, nothing scary about it. Yeah, sort of riding, we're gonna be doing, we're gonna be predominantly on a roads and stuff like that.
We're not gonna be doing big motorway mileages, but my whole trip is, is about 4,000 just under 4,000 miles. So I end up going to Prague from Prague, I'm going up to, into Poland to Sangin and that's where the, what do you call it, great escape and the wooden horse and that's Stalag Lu three.
So I'm looking forward to that. And then coming up to Berlin and yeah, it's gonna be a great trip going to Copenhagen and a few other places on the way back down. And just before I get back to go off to the AdventureBike Riders Festival at the end of June, if you've not been to the AdventureBike Riders Festival, it is pretty awesome.
So we're coming back into to Lindus now. So I'm gonna go back over to the original chat that I was doing. So where we go, we are back in, in Bro Broo, now we've got Don remember where to get back to the shop.
This is, you have to remember to press go this way.
Yeah. So my overall Impressions of the bike, I like it. I, that has confirmed to me that I have made the right decision to buy this bike.
I am really happy that I, I put a deposit down when I did just after I announced it in, I think it was Italy at the, the show in Italy. I, I came along here and I, I put the deposit on of a thousand pounds and I'm so pleased that I did. I know it's been a bit of a buggers waiting for, for the delivery, but that was out of our control.
That's because of what was going on in the Red Sea and I think that's part of the problem, why there's been a bit of a delay on it. It should have been near before sort of the middle of February. But because of this delay, there's also another bit of a delay going on with, with all the accessories coming over So. yeah, it's gonna be tight, but fear not, fear not their people. This is, this is the most capable bike and I'm looking forward to it.
So that's, that's it. I'll just come back on the, the new Himalayan four 50, the new Royal, Enfield, Himalayan four 50. It's every bit as capable as people have been saying. I absolutely loved it. It's, I was only out half an hour. didn didn't take it off road. I went on a, on the test route that they prescribed, but it, it just feels capable.
It, it goes, you want the handle as she goes. I mean, she's all mucky, but that wasn't me. I can't take the blame for that, but I can't wait to get mine. I cannot wait to get mine. So that's it. That's the new four 50 him and a. Now there, there was one thing I want to look at and you've got here is A USB, but it's A-U-S-B-C.
So just to make a point, it's A-U-S-B-C, not a normal USB. So that's it, that's the, that's a test ride done. I didn't wanna bring it back, but they've got other people to ride it this afternoon. It's a shame. Never mind.
Welcome to the Tim Heale podcast. If you have the time, you can not only listen to the episodes, but you can also watch all the shows and you'll find the links in the description below.