Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

Haha.. Thanks a lot this will surely help me.

And [MENTION=33612]Naveen1985[/MENTION].. If you know, can you tell me one more thing which i have been always concerned about but never knew where to ask.
How are carbureted bullets able to ride at very high altitudes (leh etc) while my fz struggled real bad even in kashmir (much lower than leh) ?
This is why i asked about the fi..

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

See its all about tuning your bike. People have gone to leh on platinas, splendours and even eternos. Its a fact that fi bike will perform better in high altitudes because of advanced fueling system but carbureted bike can also be tuned for hilly areas at any local shop or by himself if you are a DIY kinda guy. I got my SZ-R tuned by a local mechanic in shimla in between my journey to sangla valley and jalori pass after which bike performed well without any issue or breathing problem.

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

Thanks again
Yea, I never tried tuning the carb at that time. My bad.

Now lets see when can i get my hands on a classic and which one. Fingers crossed.

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences


TR thunderbird 500 also. It is the sexiest RE bike with all the required modern stuff. It is a better handling machine with good build quality than other REs. Its seating comfort is miles ahead of other RE bikes. Classic is a very good looking bike. No doubt about that but it lacks comfort because of its flat seat. Even electra and standard feel more comfortable than classic but at the end of the it all depends on personal liking and taste.

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

I somehow don't like Thunderbird styling. *personal opinion*
I will test ride both the bikes before finalizing the booking. I have never ridden any RE bike, so i don't really know what to expect. Test ride will reveal many things and you never know what we might feel more comfortable with.

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

another one biting the bullet...... well carbs can be tuned.. and tuned to such and extent that it will run good and parallel to performance of Fi bikes to be true..
and yeah.. if you plan for long rides.. do take a test drive of the TB.

on a side note. the Fi on bull aint very compromising on diffrent sea-levels and adjusting it is out of reach..if you plan for places like sikkim /ladakh.. stick with carb and it will be a better work horse in those areas due to the easy working nature/tweaking of the carb..

if major use will be city then no match for the refinement of Fi.

most new fi bikes run closed loop/open loop and some run both at diffrent rpm's . RE's fi won't be as forgiving as honda or ktm... and i am not telling you this with just an assumption..

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

Biting the bullet kya kre, bullet ka shok bahut purana hai..

So you mean to say we should stick to carb bullet for its easy maintenance. I have started going on tours and these will only get longer with time. So this would be used for that purpose only. For city rides, a Yammy is already in the garage.
I actually love these for their relaxed ergonomics.

Thanks for the post.

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

stick to carb... any bull mechanic will be able to work.. even newer UCE runs over push rods and not hugely different. Fi is not yet a ballgame for local road side guys...

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

Hello everyone,

Just got the first paid service for my bull last week. She is running normally once again post the oil change. I have removed the stock dual horns that come with the bike and have replaced them with hella red grilles. The horn is definitely loud and cabbies and autowallas give way with a single beep. Cost of the pair is 1460 rupees. I checked with my electrician if we need to install a relay for this but he said that it is not required since the bullet already comes with a dual horn setup. He did not change the wiring but installed the horn on the same factory wiring. Please find the pics of the horn and it's packaging details. If anyone needs anymore specific pics then please let me know. I shall try and upload them.











Regards,

S.R.Shravan Kumar

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

Hi my standard 350's sprocket has worn out...need to change the kit.OE chain sprocket costs 1790 INR.any other OEM chain sprocket is available in market for std 350?

"no matter who you are & where you are from, if you are a rider,we are brothers" cheers

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

EFI is great no doubt especially in cold starts no issues but the story is different with RE. Not because EFI cannot work on RE but because of their poor quality. Fuel pump failure is very common among EFI REs and I have seen many guys getting their fuel pump changed quite early and it cost a bomb...12K. So people say stick to carb. Performance wise there is not a huge difference between an EFI and carb and it shouldn't be a show stopper. BTW EFI can be converted to carb too and the conversion kit is available which is plug and play.

Now coming to carb tuning. A very easy to learn process, do it yourself and soon you will start understanding it better and better. If on high altitudes if just carb tuning is not helping then we can always carry 2.5-5 points smaller jets and can change that( which I think usually shouldn't be required)

Sent from my 8x-1000 using xBhp Connect mobile app

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

Thanks for the explanation mate. Cleared some important points/confusions.
Planning to buy an RE in may/june this year, hopefully.

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

Pleasure is all mine friend. Do let me know if I can help you with anything else. If you want 500 and want carb too then STD 500 can be a good choice. Typical Bullet waala look and a 500 with carb.

Sent from my 8x-1000 using xBhp Connect mobile app

Re: Royal Enfield Classic 350 Owner's Review and Experiences

Ya, i surely would ping you. That would be in a few months.

Hercules: My Royal Enfield Classic 350!

Royal Enfield? It\\\\\\\'s a Royal Oilfield dude
Bullet? If you ride a bullet it will look like bullet is riding you. Put on some weight
Vibrator le raha hai? (Are you buying a vibrator?)
Don\\\\\\\'t you have any other bike in mind?
You and 2-wheeler? Huh. What\\\\\\\'s wrong with you?

These were some of the remarks which I had to hear when I decided to finally buy a RE. They were not entirely wrong, since there is a long known history of REs and their maintenance. Since 2-wheelers were banned at my house, I never uttered a topic of buying a 2-wheeler till now. But in some corner of my heart RE had made its place long back (Buying a RE is entirely heart decision, if you involve brain here, you will never buy a RE). If I ever bought a 2-wheeler it will be either a RE or a superbike. Since my IT majdur salary did not allow me to even visit any superbike showroom, it was RE for now .

Decision and other options considered:

The only fear in my mind about riding a RE was about its weight and how will I handle it. I had ridden other bikes for very short time, but never liked riding them. One fine day at my native my uncle offered me to ride his Classic 350. I denied saying no I may not be able to ride, it\\\\\\\'s heavy and all. Next time too he forced me saying atleast try. Unless you try how can you decide. So with trembling hands I tried! And that was it. The next 3 minutes were enough for me to decide, yes I am buying it!

And I did consider other options just for the sake of considering it. They were - Honda CBR1000, Harley Davidson Nightrod and a Ducati. LOL.

Booking experience:

With the decision being made, I headed to the RE brand store at Nerul. No comments about typical RE showroom. Everyone is in their own world. You ask for price list and then wait. Someone will handover a piece of paper to you and disappear. You then ask about booking formalities. Some person will say \\\\\\\"pay 5000 get a receipt, booking done\\\\\\\". Ok. So I got the price list. Of all the REs around Classic 350 was love at first sight. Sadly the maroon color which I wanted was no longer available. The other colors namely some white and some greyish looked bad. Some blue was the new color introduced but it looked boring and dull. I really wish if they gave marine blue of TB350. That blue is definately smashing. So the only choice left was black. Ofcourse shiny black looks the best!

Enquired about the notorious waiting period and came a shocking number of 6-8 months. I knew if you have reference one might be lucky and get it earlier. Called up a school friend of mine who is an avid bulleteer and told him about my decision. Same remark...\\\\\\\"RE? You are buying a 2-wheeler? What on earth is wrong with you!\\\\\\\". Yes something is wrong, now get back to topic and help me out. He told me to go ahead with the booking and he will look into it...\\\\\\\"Ho jayega\\\\\\\". He did call up one person there and told him to help me out. With the booking amount paid the endless wait began. Trust me that was the most painful wait I ever suffered. Every week a common reply \\\\\\\"yes sir I will try my best\\\\\\\". I knew he will, but you see the impatient petrolheads, a week felt like a month.

3 months went by and one fine day I called up and came in a shocker. The giant was dispatched from factory and I was told to pay up the remaining amount. Very next day I went and paid up the remaining amount. OTR price came around 1.33. The tiring wait was coming to an end finally(?). It did arrive in 3-4 days and I went to have a inspection done, before it went for registration. I wanted a choice number same as my i10. Since the new series had just come up in Vashi RTO I was confident of getting it. Ideally it should have taken max of 2-3 days of registration process, but noo. My patience was put to test once again. My RE papers went to RTO on Friday and showroom guys promised me a delivery date sometime next week. I even applied for leave with my manager happily granting it.lol. But Monday I get the news that the great Vashi RTO has been shutdown for 3 days. Why? To clear the backlogs of pending registrations. Morons didn\\\\\\\'t understand that closing for 3 days will create another backlog. Rants apart, registration got delayed for long. I did get my choice number at the end though.

Delivery Experience:

With the registration fomalities done, delivery day arrived. Reached showroom to find the beauty ready and sparkling. Thankfully no delays in that. Person there handed all the delivery documents and explained each and every details about bike very well. Customary puja done. A generous 1litre petrol was provided initially. Since RE doesn\\\\\\\'t provide any accessories, I had to fit the crash gaurd at the service center.

The first official ride to home:

Frankly I never rode any bikes. Just few short rides here and there maybe, that too never in Mumbai. Only once I had ridden Enfield in my life (that\\\\\\\'s when decision was made). I had never ridden any 2-wheeler in peak traffic. So there I was standing at showroom getting ready to ride it for the first time. Started it and rode to the service center to fit crash gaurd which was barely a km away. Thankfully got adjusted to the clutch and gear things and it didn\\\\\\\'t stall anywhere in middle.lol. My friend was there whole time helping with the delivery process. He just said ride slowly and take the highway instead of Palm Beach road while going home. Heck, I did not even ride it out from the packed service center, told my friend to take it out for me.

All done, I started for home. Though a bit nervous, rode it confidently till home. Victory!

Initial riding impressions, Likes/Dislikes:

• Rock solid! Now I may not be an expert when it comes to 2-wheelers, but this beast is definitely very stable on roads. It just screams to rocket forward at the slightest input of throttle.
• Doesn\\\\\\\'t move a bit and no scary shaking when giants like trucks and buses zoom past by. Heavy weight advantage maybe.
• Best for cruising type of rides. Cannot zoom cris cross like other bikes, maybe it\\\\\\\'s difficult or maybe I don\\\\\\\'t know how to do. Anyways I don\\\\\\\'t like the way people ride haphazardly sneaking into gaps etc.
• Found the riding position to be just perfect for my posture. I may be the only person to find seating on CL350 better than TB350.lol.
• Definately a looker. People do glance.
• I don\\\\\\\'t know about other bikes, but gear shifting is not smooth. Maybe because it\\\\\\\'s new? Does it smoothen out later? Makes a scary khat khat noise while down shifting.
• Putting in neutral was great pain initially, it simply refused to go into neutral. Though after 450kms of riding, it\\\\\\\'s no longer an issue. But the known issue of false neutral exists.
• Low beam is exceptionally very good. High beam is bad.
• Factory fitted dual horns are excellent. No need of any upgrade.
• The traditional thump is absent. As is the case with all newer Enfields.
• Pilot lamps look awesome. Always loved this feature on Enfields.
• Rear brake travel is quite a bit. Though this can be adjusted, I did feel lack of bite. Front discs are quite good.
• Biggest dislike for me is the absence of fuel gauge. What will I do staring at the ammeter gauge which is provided?
• Fuel tank capacity is approx 13 litres. Should have been more. With FE hovering around 30, touring range gets limited.
• Seats are decent as of now. Maybe after riding for few months, the feel for upgrade might come. Have not rode with a pillion, so can\\\\\\\'t really comment on the pillion seat comfort.
• Traffic police give a loooong stare when riding with jacket. It\\\\\\\'s a rare sight to see a biker with proper riding gear. Though I haven\\\\\\\'t been stopped unnecessarily.

Time for some photos. Have not done a proper photo shoot. All photos from my humble mobile cam:

Beast arrives at home



Love these lights!








From a lazy Sunday morning ride