According to Zigwheels, Royal Enfield’s Himalayan adventure bike will not be on the market this fall.
When it comes to reports from the Indian press, it’s hard to know who to trust, and how far you can trust them. However, Zigwheels seems fairly certain the Himalayan adventure bike, instead of being unveiled in the coming weeks, will finally be revealed at the Auto Expo in Delhi, in the first week of February.
The Times also says the bike is going to be powered by a 410 cc single, as earlier rumours suggested, with overhead cames instead of pushrods. Zigwheels also says the motor will be oil-cooled. They’ve got a photo of a side-mounted cooler, similar to the setup on the Suzuki DR650, but on the opposite side of the engine.
Although oil coolers don’t provide quite the same performance as true liquid cooling, the DR650 has been basically unchanged since 1996, so the technology works just fine for adventure bikes.
It sounds as if Royal Enfield is taking the “Himalayan” badge seriously. Zigwheels has a photo they claim show an altimeter on the dash — click here to see. But, considering how many Royal Enfields are already being pressed into duty as adventure bikes through the world’s highest mountains, it actually almost makes sense to include an altimeter in the instrument panel.
So yeah, what were you saying about the accuracy and reliability of Indian press? Why so biased?