STRAIGHT AWAY I NEED TO REVEAL THAT MY experiences with UK-built Royal Enfield twins have not been entirely positive. I’ve been trying to work out whether the ratio of good’uns to bad’uns is actually any different for RE big twins than for any of their more commonplace contemporary competitors, yet no answer springs to mind. But maybe a full third of the big Redditch bruisers to have been graced by my fundament have been less than delightful, sadly. Most of the others were okay, including a rather handsome maroon machine with the full Airflow treatment – properly factory-fitted weather protection – which I seriously considered buying. Until it ran onto a single cylinder as I returned it to base.
Likewise, my very first-ever commissioned (and paid-for!) road-riding feature involved a Royal Enfield Series 2 Interceptor, a machine of such brash and brazen brawn that had it been for sale, I would definitely have strained the wallet to buy it. But that Interceptor was built at Bradford-on-Avon, not at Redditch, was factory fitted with Norton’s Roadholder forks and 8in front stopper, which made it glorious through the wild roads between Buxton and Macclesfield, but retained the Albion gearbox with the bizarre chasm between third and top gears that seriously interrupted the fast flow along those winding, hilly roads.
I digress. The big RE twin engine was a mechanical marvel in its own right, with some creative engineering and solutions to problems that probably didn’t actually exist. The frame which carried it was also unusual in that it was remarkably minimal, employing the engine as a major, and indeed massive, part of the load-carrying structure, so keeping the machine short and dense, somehow. Some wit once remarked that a truly beautiful
