re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

So the review is finally up!!! The evening tea arrived at the right time!

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Excellent pics, as always! However, curiosity beckons!

How about the tyres? How is the exhaust note? Typical RE style? Are RVMs really functional?

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Nice review, I was hoping to see a rev-happy motor on this one due to the 100mph goal associated with cafe racers. How are the vibrations? It's an RE after-all.

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Thanks for the appreciation.

The Pirelli Sport Demons are just great and deliver tons of traction no questions asked. The exhaust note is typical RE, a trifle subdued but then there are accessory options to make lot more noise. The bar-end RVM's shown are not standard but are surprisingly effective. Great rear view, easily adjustable and blur free whatever the amount of vibration felt at the clip-ons. Don't ask me how they do that!

The vibrations are RE category, only more so at high revs not because of any specific deficiency in the engine but just because the excellent riding manners of the bike urge you to push the engine more! Anywhere above 4500 rpm, the vibrations dominate the proceedings. In any case it would be a very difficult task to entirely remove the vibrations from a large heavy single even if it is in a very mild state of tune as this running at 8.5:1 compression ratio.

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Lovely review Old Fox Sir and my goodness she is tempting as hell in that dash of red! Also I had a question, probably noobish but why is that a fuel injected motorcycle has been provided with a choke?

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

MCN, overdrive, autocar and many other magazines are claiming that its needle hovers past 140 on an open road but your test bike did 115 only...???

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Thanks F.I

That 'choke' lever is an enrichment device that shuts off the air intake partially to help enrich the mixture to aid start-ups in very cold weather. There is only so much enrichment you can build into the FI algorithm without sending value tolerances for a toss. Hence the manual intervention needed at extreme temperatures. A large single has its sheer engine volume going against it at temperatures that reduce fuel vaporization - read that as sub-zero air temperatures. Also the India specific version of the GT runs an open loop system which is not very good at self-correction.

Most of them tested the bike in the United Kingdom. Better roads, lower temperatures meaning denser air that aids volumetric efficiency - in short the engine performs better the colder and denser the air entering it and those speeds were achieved probably at the end of a fairly longish and empty straight. Goa was 36 deg C with almost 90% humidity - not ideal for good engine performance. Moreover traffic and road conditions in our famed nation do not allow wide-open-throttle runs at least in and around big cities. Other reasons in addition to those I'd mentioned (my weight, broad profile and a new engine) could have been low air pressure in the tyres. I did not particularly check that as I assumed it to be fine when the bikes were handed over to us. And topping it all was my reservation at pushing an almost brand new engine to the hilt on a hot day as I did not want it to seize on me. It is a machine after all and even a review bike needs me to use my head as I would for any bike.

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Top speed is definitely upwards of 140kmph. A few months back I spotted a GT being tested on the Chennai By Pass Road. When I tried to get a closer look the rider tried to get away. This resulted in a chase(or race?). I remember doing 137kmph on a straight stretch and yet he was ahead of me. Acceleration was also pretty good since I was really trying hard, to get a good look of the bike's front!

PS: Both of us did not ride rashly!

BTW are they providing any aftermarket parts like the an exhaust etc.

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

[MENTION=10597]Old Fox[/MENTION]:

Very nice review and a very nice motorcycle indeed. Felt great to read about the much improved handling and braking performance.

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

The review I was waiting for!! Thanks a lot [MENTION=10597]Old Fox[/MENTION] I am completely smitten by this red beauty

PS : Just observed that the switchgear is exactly same as what can be found on pre 2012 RTRs!

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Silly question, are the tyres tubeless type? I have read somewhere that manufacturing spoke wheel for tubeless tyres is very expensive.

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Good review and beautiful photographs... I was waiting for its review ever since yesterday after I saw it here .. a display model.

How good is the bike when iy comes for touring ..? Is the riding position comfortable ..

Sharing a pic that I took it from yesterday visit to Marikar Royal Enfield showroom - Trivandrum.


Sent from my GT-I9082 using xBhp Connect mobile app

re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

I doubt if it goes much beyond 140 but yes it definitely will go well beyond the 115 that I rode it to. The RE people themselves stated that the bike did fall well short of the ton (100 mph) mark which was the magic figure for the 60's cafe racers. But yes the acceleration is nice between 2000 - 4000 rpm.


I am not sure [MENTION=26348]giridhar[/MENTION] whether the tyres are tubeless or not. I missed asking about that. Spoked wheels for tubeless tyres are pretty expensive and so maybe the Sport Demons used here come with tubes.

If people (including your's truly) can tour on the Duke 200 then the Conti too would be eminently tourable. The seat is plush enough but quite narrow and so a couple of hours do make you feel butt-sore. The riding position is quite comfortable though with a slightly forward tilted torso. Of course you need to be able to take the load off your wrists by using a tight torso core and knees firmly gripping the tank recesses.

Re: Royal Enfield Continental GT Review

Nice review but I expected more pictures from different angles. Did you try to kick start to know how tough that it? Can the RVMs be turned forward backward too, because if on long ride we relax the sitting position the RVM might need to be adjusted since they are on handle bars.
Is the yellow colour also available in production version?