When you purchase your subsequent bike, what’s going to you purchase it for? Will it’s a freeway hauler, a single-track slayer, or only a competent metropolis commuter? The reply in fact, is never only one factor — all of us select our bikes primarily based on a thousand little standards, a singular mixture of use circumstances that makes up the driving we do.
Royal Enfield’s new Shotgun 650, then, ought to logically be a success. It’s a motorbike that sits between genres, a mixture of sport and cruiser and bare that ought to match loads of of us’ commutes or weekend rides. Before it may take off, although, it wants a contact of refinement.
Full Disclosure: Royal Enfield shipped me out to Los Angeles to check the Shotgun 650. The firm paid for airfare, meals, lodging, and equipped helmets for the riders. I paid for my very own hoodie, as a result of it seems Los Angeles will get chilly in December. I, a dunce who introduced a mesh armored jacket and a bunch of t shirts, was unaware of this.
What Is The Royal Enfield Shotgun 650?
The Shotgun takes the body and operating gear of the Super Meteor, however adapts them right into a much less cruising-oriented configuration. Gone are the ahead controls, the swept-back bars, and tailbone-straining seat — even the Super Meteor’s chrome was left behind within the transition. Weight, although, stays the identical — 530 kilos for each the Shotgun and Super Meteor.
For the Shotgun, all these touchpoints have been shifted round with a view to make the brand new bike really feel extra aggressive. The attain to the bars is longer, the foot controls sit simply forward of the seat — it’s a traditional bare bike rider triangle. The Shotgun’s revised suspension helps that feeling too, by dropping the bike’s entrance finish and lifting the rear.
How Does It Ride?
The Shotgun is the third bike I’ve ridden with Enfield’s 650cc twin engine, and its 46 horsepower are as dreamy right here as they have been within the INT650 and the Super Meteor. The 31 lb-ft of low-end torque are nice, and the gearbox neatly clicks into every gear with confidence and ease — the clutch, too, makes stop-and-go driving a breeze.
The driving place on the Shotgun sits immediately between these two bikes, neither as pitched-forward because the INT nor as laid again because the Super Meteor. It strains neither your wrists nor your again, even after a full day within the saddle — a declare neither of its siblings within the lineup can match.
Where the Super Meteor felt surprisingly light-weight, nimble, and flickable, nonetheless, the Shotgun oddly doesn’t. Despite the revised geometry, the place Enfield even went as far as to shorten the bike’s wheelbase relative to the Super Meteor, the suspension merely feels off-kilter when the roads get twisty. In the canyons of Angeles Crest, I by no means had sufficient confidence within the bike’s entrance finish to hold actual velocity by the tight, winding corners.
That’s to not say it may’t be carried out, in fact, and sooner riders than I actually had the talent to go away me far, far behind on these canyon roads. But, opposite to Royal Enfield’s deal with accessibility, confidence within the Shotgun’s dealing with solely comes with preexisting talent — the stiff shocks and skittish entrance finish received’t be coaching anybody to push their limits as a rider.
Who Is It For?
After taking the Shotgun over mile after mile of freeway, by the twists and turns of California canyons, and again into Los Angeles correct, there’s a transparent space the place the bike feels most comfy. It is, at its coronary heart, a metropolis bike for metropolis riders — happiest when it may run stoplight to stoplight, filtering between lanes and darting previous double-parked automobiles that stick into the road.
The Shotgun feels constructed for an LA commute. Its low-end torque and simple clutch make the Stoplight Grand Prix a breeze, simply outpacing automobiles which will attempt to lay declare to lanes that bikes can lawfully share, and the upright driving place offers you confidence to weave previous potholes. Even the Shotgun’s cargo rack — which sits beneath the pillion seat — appears designed to allow you to carry groceries whereas splitting lanes.
Final Thoughts
The Shotgun is, actually, a motorbike that sits between established genres. It has the seems of a bobber, the facility supply of a cruiser, the ergonomics of a unadorned bike, and is constructed to hold extra cargo than most ADVs will ever haul to Starbucks and again. Yet, in chasing so many use circumstances, every one begins to really feel compromised.
The geometry and attain to the bars needs to really feel sporty, however the stiff suspension doesn’t need you to tug a knee. The seems slot in with the bobber and cruiser crowd, however the relaxed long-distance consolation isn’t there. It picks and pulls little bits of those varied bike genres, however by no means grabs sufficient to really slot in. It’s not a sporty bare bike and a cruiser, it finally ends up being neither one.
The Shotgun, then, is a motorbike that’s most at house in motorcycling’s personal grey are: Urban environments. When maneuverability is much less about cornering speeds and extra about dodging street particles, the suspension feels extra apt. When consolation is mentioned by way of 40-minute commutes somewhat than 400-mile touring days, the seat and bars really feel like a greater match. The bike that goals to be a jack of all trades finally ends up excelling in a single type of driving — navigating cities.
As a city-dweller myself, that’s removed from a foul factor. Two-wheeled transport is sensible in environments like these, and the Shotgun makes extra sense than loads of different bikes for that specific use case. And maybe, after a couple of mannequin years and a suspension revision, it’ll be a greater match for these knee-down canyon-carving desires.
Source: jalopnik.com