Royal Enfield and limelight are those two words which sounds like synonyms of each other now a days. The company has been successfully able to create and maintain buzz around the brand since the launch of the products like Thunderbird 350 and Classic 500. Royal Enfield, once considered as old school bikes with outdated mechanicals, is now scoring way high on wish list of young Indian minds.
This drastic change is a result of efforts put in by the company, which brought us some serious machines with unmatched potentials to grab attention and which can easily stand out of the crowd. Now the next hot thing coming out from them is Royal Enfield Café Racer 535. Now, this starts altogether new segment of bikes in India.
Although it is not a volume segment and it is very unlikely to see any other manufacturer jumping in this segment, it enjoys a great fan following across the globe. As this type of motorcycle is new to us in India, let’s have a look at what actually the Café Racer is?
This concept of Café Racer came to life in around 1960s within the group of people which later turned into a cult. It is said that they used these bikes mainly for the purpose zipping through streets from one Café to the other in least possible time. Also, it is said that with these bikes, the cult follower should be able to hit 100 mph mark (called Ton) and return to Café before the jukebox finishes one song. This sounds like a perfect story of typical cult bike.
This is the motorcycle tuned entirely for speeds and its visuals also suggest same with bare basic body parts. Some characteristics or must have features of such a bike are the clip on handle bars allowing maximum level of adjustments, extremely bent forward riding posture to reduce the wind resistance, adjustable foot pegs for commanding position, stretched fuel tank which swallows riders legs to increase grip and confidence, minimum body part so as to reduce overall weight and solid power plant to tear apart the tarmac.
All these characteristics chalk out a perfect racing machine. Usually these bikes come with single seat, after all who wants to carry an extra weight at the tail while racing. Some equip their bike with a full fairing and cowl for the headlamp. All this level of customization was very hard to provide for any company at that time. Later on as the craze for the old bikes grew, some manufacturers like Honda, Suzuki and Harley Davidson tried their luck in this territory. Now Royal Enfield has loaded their arsenal with one such more weapon called Café Racer 535.
The Cafe Recer concept bike has 535cc engine churning out 36 BHP of sheer power. It has floating caliper Brembo disc brakes upfront, bigger diameter front forks and Ohlin air shockers at rear, double cradle chassis underneath, adjustable foot pegs, clip on handle bars and twin pod instrument cluster with tachometer. We hope that many of these parts will be carried over to production version but some parts like Ohlin shockers will be dropped to keep the cost in control.
The Cafe Racer has already created a set of followers before its launch across the globe. 2012 Indian Auto Expo, Long Beach bike show in US, ECIMA, etc have been visited by Café Racer 535 and everywhere it received overwhelming response. On the web also it is being appreciated and every fan out there is waiting for its launch which might happen sometime early next year. Expect the pricing of the Cafe Racer 535 to be around Rs. 2 lakhs plus. The bike will be a cracker for sure, let’s see how this cult bike gets welcomed in India.
