Royal Enfield V-Twin

I received this video as an e-mail forward from one of the groups I am a member of. This guy in UK had a dream of building a 700 cc V-Twin motorcycle using two Royal Enfield Bullet engines. He is one of those characters who is not just a dreamer and decided to do it, and the result is this fully functional V-Twin motorcycle engine. Sounds great and I am sure runs smoothly too. I wish Enfield guys will take note of this biker's innovation and try to produce it commercially in India so that Bullet enthusiasts will have something more than the 350 and 500 cc bikes to ride and rave about.

Antiquated Enfield Commercial

I chanced upon this TV commerical of Royal Enfield Bullet on youtube and thought I'd share it with my readers. This is one bike which I probably owned for the longest period of time while I was in India. I have ridden several motorcycles since parting with the Bullet but none have come anywhere close in terms of the feel and riding comfort of this big thumper. It is on this motorcycle that I doscovered the joys of riding in the backroads of rural India... places where there are no roads but only foot trails... places where rivers flow across the roads... places where traffic is so thick that one has to inch along for hours before opening the throttle. But all said... Enfield Bullet is the bike...

Website of a disgruntled Harley owner

The legendary Harley Davidson is definitely my all time favourite when it comes to motorcycles. But then I am fully aware of the ups and downs of owning a thumper motorcycle. It is expensive, time consuming and one has to spend a lot of time off the bike working on it to keep it in great form that we love it in. Anyway coming to the point I recently found this interesting website promoted by a disgruntled Harley owner.

Ths website reads like the diary chronicle of a Harley owner who has had lot of trouble with his bike. This man who calls himself as the "IT guy" who maintains the web-page. He has written his pains and pleasure experiences with the Harley Davidson motorcycle and has provided a platform for people to discuss the good and bad things about the motorcycle. The disclaimer on the site clearly states that "everyone who writes on the site takes ownership of what he/ she says. "Therefore, as a matter of policy, all posters on this page will be added to my e-mail list and will receive e-mails whenever there are additions to this page. If an e-mail address bounces repeatedly, the corresponding post will be removed from this web-page," reads the text on the homepage.

According to the owner of the website he has had several bad experiences with the motorcycle as well as the dealer who sold it to him. A summary of the problems reads something like this:

Summary of the problems I have personally experienced with a brand new Sportster in less then 5 years and 20,000 miles:
1. two major oil leaks: one and two
2. one major electrical failure (stranded, followed by a trip to a dealer)
3. gear shifter sticks for 5000+ miles (dangerous!! no longer happening)
4. fuel cock died, bike would not start, had to tow to shop
5. broken mirror
6. bubbling of chrome on top of air cleaner
7. periodic extended power losses (becoming less frequent?)
8. "dieseling" since the day I bought it, tune-ups have no effect

I recall the years I owned the Enfield Bullet, often referred to as the Indian Harley. And believe me I could have started a website like this. I owned the Enfield for five years and had a host of minor and major problems with it. The bike would give up at the most unexpected situations and create embarassing moments for me.

My videos

Since I didn't have much to blog or write about... as I have been mostly stuck at home in half-gloomy weather.. I thought I'd post some of my youtube videos on my blog. And this is what they are... mostly amateur stuff... some stunts I tried out at home....

A composition of pictures of my travel pictures. More like a slide show with some background music score and some bad titling.



This is a video of a short motorcycle tour in Tumkur district we can see Gopi on the Yamaha. The video was actually shot in a small digital camera by Dev who was sitting pillion on Anand's enfield.