we often wonder aloud to
ourselves while relaxing river-side with the elephants, a fresh yoghurt
Lassi and decent serve of post-curry gulab jamun, just why there isn't
more Royal Enfield-based customs around the place. After all, they are
in a way a living fossil whose basic design hasn't changed since 1948.
Surely this would make a perfect base for creating a motorcycle that
would be pleasing to these young coffee racer-types we hear so much of?
Today we were doing just that - wondering, that is - when the young tea
wala broke his usual silence and pointed out to us that we had indeed
received a communiqué from our good friend Vijay of the very reputable
Rajputana Customs in Jaipur just this very day. "My word," I exclaimed.
Then there was a long pause in proceedings where I stared into the
distance, adjusted my monocle, and commanded the wala to refill my tea
with a mere twitch of my eyebrow. "Well, shouldn't we read it?" Scotty
interrupted. "Jolly good," I said. "Let's have at it then..."
Over to Vijay. "Vishal
Mangalorkar is a 35-year-old advertising film maker from Mumbai, and I
met him a month back while visiting the city. He wanted to spruce up his
existing 350cc Royal Enfield and had a budget of Rs 1.5 Lakhs (about
US$3000). Vishal wasn't sure what he wanted and I wasn't quite sure what
I'd be able to do for him either... given the fact that he didn't want a
build from scratch and had a restricted budget that wouldn't allow me
to do so even if I was to convince him. Nonetheless, we chose to modify
the 350 on the lines of a racer/scrambler without changing the stock
frame."
"To start with I lowered
the front suspension and stiffened it to keep the fender from touching
the neck of the bike. We fabricated the gas tank, tool boxes, seats,
rear cowl, exhaust, handlebars, and fenders. Vishal was insistent on
having a second seat for his wife who I'm guessing has the last say on
all major expenses in that house hahaha... so we gave the bike a
detachable rear cowl which conceals the pillion seat. The bike had to
have it's main wiring harness chopped and changed big time now that we
had moved the starter key and amp meter into the toolbox, replaced the
front mask for a single head light, and mounted the rear indicators and
brake lights under the rear cowl.
The rear tyre is a
5.00-16 Avon Speedmaster which was imported from England while the front
is a stock RE 18incher. The foot-peg placement has not been changed
because Vishal didn't want a very aggressive riding position, it's
actually worked in our favour cause for all i know maybe we've stumbled
upon a cafe racer kit for stock RE's in India having built Chingari.
Let's see how things go in time to come but as now I've been getting a
lot of serious inquires about potential cafe racer modifications to
other people's Royals."
"Lastly, Vishal was adamant
on having the bike painted yellow 'cause it's his favourite colour, we
went a step further and gave the yellow a few black lines and blocks
which draw inspiration from the old school Yamaha racing colours...
excluding the white of course. All round this build didn't involve half
the work we usually put into a build from scratch but it was a challenge
nonetheless. The main obstacle was to try and create something
authentic and unique while still maintaining the essence of a Royal
Enfield within a limited budget and we hope that we did so."
"Chingari for me is
probably gonna be the start of a new genre of 'budgeted customs' wherein
we don't build a bike from scratch but rather change up a few
essentials to a stock bike in order to do justice to the modified
finished product. Once the bike was done I decided to name her
"Chingari" which in Hindi means "spark" - let's see if this little
yellow spark can set off a bomb of "budgeted customs" in India. Fingers
crossed. Cheers!"
credit - pipeburns motorcycles
link - click here
Cleaning your Royal Enfield
An exhaustive article about cleaning and maintaining your royal enfield !!
EFI Made Easy
Everything you need to know to take care of the system on your new EFI Royal Enfield in one short article.
Great to see a custom that's not from the US, North America or Australia. Motorcycling has always been about being an "outsider", and this bike really embodies that.
Posted on 6:11:00 PM
Damn goooooood . . . . . . .
Posted on 6:14:00 PM
Great Job guys... Even with a modest budget... U guys managed to turn it into a hot piece of art
Posted on 6:15:00 PM
sob sob.. thats beautiful !! got tears in my eye's :/ i wish i'd never sold my cafe bull :(
Posted on 6:19:00 PM
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