Unveiled at last November’s EICMA Milan Show, the Super Meteor 650 is available in two versions. Named after Royal Enfield’s first 100mph model launched back in 1955, a 700cc breakthrough bike marketed as a go-anywhere mileater, the 2023 models are both powered by the same air/oil-cooled eight-valve 648cc parallel-twin engine equipping the Interceptor and Continental GT.
This now well-proven engine (see sidebar) is carried as a fully stressed component in an all-new composite steel open-cradle duplex spine frame which was developed at the UK Technology Centre in conjunction with RE subsidiary Harris Performance, and incorporates a new cylinder head mount for additional stiffness. Showa has now replaced Gabriel as suspension supplier and, for the first time on an RE model, the Super Meteor comes with an upside-down fork – albeit a non-adjustable 43mm Big Piston item carried at a 27.6° rake with 118.50mm of trail and offering 120mm of wheel travel.
At the rear, the steel swingarm delivering a 1500mm wheelbase carries twin Showa shocks with five-step preload adjustment and 101mm of travel. There’s a 19-inch forged aluminium front wheel and 16-inch rear, shod with Indian supplier CEAT’s new Zoom Cruz tubeless tyres especially created for the Super Meteors. RE’s Chief Engineer Paolo Brovedani says his R&D test team – led by former AMCN staffer and 500GP racer Paul Young – has covered over one million kays on test tracks, cobblestones, highways, byways, towns, villages and city centres of India, the United
