Enfield Classic offroad riding

[mototours asia]

Hi there!

We have imported 15 Royal Enfield Classic (350/500) into Vietnam using for our tours through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia.

I have tryied to search from internet but could not find any information about how they go on offroad part. Sure mountain road is OK but don't know if they can handle on offroad part.

We have experienced on organizing offroad rides on Honda, Yamaha and Russian Minsk (125cc) but consider about working on the Classic and take them on tour. Not every day offroad but some parts during the trip would be great.

If anyone has experienced, video, picture...would be very appreciate to see it.

Thanks for reading
 

[Lwt Big Cheese]

Try Googling Enfield and India. Most of their roads are "off-road"!

The Bullet started life as a Trials bike.

[barenekd]

If I weren't such an old tired git, I would have built my bike into a Scrambler rather than the cafe racer and been off roading it a lot more. It wouldn't take much to make it into an adequate light off road touring machine. I could put my scrambler handlebars back on it and use it as is.
Bare

[Arizoni]

I'm not really a 'off road' rider but I suspect the ability of the RE to handle that style of riding would depend greatly on what the path surface is made from.

The RE's are pretty heavy (about 400 pounds or 181 kg) and the tires are narrow so I can imagine them sinking in to the frame on a soft sand.
  The clearance for mounting larger cross section tires to support the heavy weight is also somewhat limited.

If no loose sand or deep mud will be encountered the RE should do fine though.

[Lwt Big Cheese]

A lot of dual purpose bikes out there are a lot heavier.

In fact they probably all are!

The weight of the super tenere is 575 pounds wet. BMW lists the wet weight of the R1200 GS is 516 pounds! The 2012 BMW F 800 GS weight of 207 kg.

[AgentX]

They won't explode on contact with dirt.

Check YouTube for tons of videos of them riding in Leh/Ladakh.  It's not a modern dirt bike but it's fun for dirt roads and even some trails if you're not expecting a CRF450.

Taken mine through much rougher than the flat dirt road seen here.  Just didn't have anyone taking pics!

[barenekd]

In the good old days 350-400 pound bikes were the standard off road big bikes, BSA Spitfire Scramblers, Triumph Bonneville TTs, Gold Stars, Norton P-11s, etc. We had a ton of fun with those in the dirt. The Enfield Scrambler was no lightweight, either, but somewhat lighter as you didn't have all the heavy stuff that's on them now. You could easily take about 50 lbs or so pounds off a modern one if you were really interested in building a dirt bike.
Bare

[Arizoni]

According to "CLASSIC MOTORCYCLES BSA by Don Morley, OSPRAY AUTOMOTIVE, 1991, the BSA 441 VICTOR weighted in at 336 pounds, wet with 29 hp.
The hp is in the Royal Enfield ballpark but the weight of the Victor is about 76 pounds lighter.

I will admit that 76 pounds explains why BSA was kicking everybody's butt back then as many other scramblers that weighed about the same as the Bullet.

[Ice]

The famed "Ladakh Express" race bike.


And our own "hooligan" cleaned up for a trip to town.
 It is a tank compared to modern bike but it very tractable and the low end torque cant be beat. It is an absolute joy to ride on the trail.
 

[barenekd]

the BSA 441 VICTOR weighted in at 336 pounds, wet with 29 hp.

The Victim was introduced in 1964 as a 420cc factory competition machine and won a couple of world Championships. It weighed about 270 pounds. The 360 2-strokes took over after that. the production was introduced in '76 with 441cc.
The Husqvarna 500 won the last of the big thumper WCs in 1963 after the big thumpers had dominated the World Championships since it was started in about 1948. In the late 50s, the little ringdinger 250s were beginning to dominate the 250 class (Greeves, Husqvarna, Maico, etc) and were much lighter and better handling than the 500s. People started entering them in the big class and winning, so the FIA mandated the minimum size for the 500 class was 350cc. The factories started working on the 360 2-strokes, but BSA hung in there with the 4 strokes until their demise.
A 1960 Matchless 250 Scrambler still weighed over 300 lbs.
Royal Enfields off road forte was trials of both the observed trials and the cross country (Enduros, by Americans) stuff, but Royal Enfield had a fairly competitive scrambles machine in the early '50s, but in '55 when they introduced the new frame, it broke in severe racing conditions so RE got out of the scrambler production mode for local consumption. They didn't stop building the Scramblers entirely, as they sent the entire production to the US as Indians as Americans wanted Scramblers. They were fairly successful as the Americans tracks weren't as rough as the European tracks and the bikes would hold up to the rigors. Enfields also did quite well in flat tracking. The Indian Scrambles versions were the Fire Arrow (250), Woodsman (500) and Westerner (500)
Bare