In so many ways it does remind you of a 650 enduro and the fact that you can tackle any terrain sitting down basically is just one of those ways. That Showa suspension is super compliant to bad surfaces and makes the thing very easy to control. Power - it's enough for anything real world rides require and it has like a second wind when you need to maintain highway speeds. It won't blow you away but it doesn't feel underpowered either. Cruising at speed, it's stable, it keeps up with bigger bikes with no complaints. Fuel consumption is a party piece of the Himalayan - ridden at a decent pace it will still meander about the 3-3.5 l / 100kms mark.

We might be weird but we absolutely love the feeling of riding a bike everybody underestimates. It doesn't look it but it is more than capable of keeping up and it is very forgiving in all its controls. And you constantly find things you enjoy about it. Case in point - the gearbox. The action from the lever we understand - it's a bike built in a nation where a half-torn flip-flop passes for a motocross boot level of foot gear. However what really builds enjoyment is just how fantastically well spaced the gears are. Rarely do we enjoy going through every one. The more time you spend on this bike, the better it feels and the more you understand what they did. Really, it feels on purpose. It also has almost nothing in common with the old Himalayan other than the name.

We think Royal Enfield built a wonderfully comfortable machine. The Internet yet again will lie to you but here's our two cents to easy your worries: - suspension is superb. You hardly stand up for anything, it almost spoils you; - gearbox is just about the most precise thing in the business, that bit really does feel built like a gun; - vibrations - sure, it's a single and there are some but they sort of only become noticeable between 108 to 111 kms per hour. Don't linger there and it's magically smoother than any single ought to be - wind protection - hardly any, however you'll love that on a hot day and as a trade off - no buffeting of any sort;

It doesn't look like anything modern, yet it is very much so. And we don't mean the very good and functional dashboard. It's how the bike feels. It doesn't feel like it's been designed to remind you of an 1990s enduro, it feels like what a 1990s enduro would feel like if it was allowed to naturally evolve. The vibrations are much smaller, just to keep you connected to the machine, the exhaust note is deep and not agricultural at all, it's soft without being wallowy.