Royal Enfield Thundervir

The Lusca Custom Design blog had a 10000 visitor competition and promised a custom motorcycle design for the winner lo behold guess who was the 10000 visitor on the blog? Me (Vir). The blog run by Luca who has been designing motorcycles in Italy for a long time. He himself rides a Custom Honda 750HRC and only last year did he start this great blog. He got in touch with me and after finding out that I have two Royal Enfield Thunderbirds and one Royal Enfield 500cc in my stable he decided to designed a custom design around the Thunderbird and today it is ready so here it is presenting the Royal Enfield Thundervir.

105 memories & more

In 1947 after partition my great-grandparents were allotted this land in lieu of everything they left back in Lahore and they built this house(105) in 1955 where our family has lived since. Of the many memories that reside here there are those of me riding on the tank of my fathers Bullet and falling in love with motorcycles as a kid. When it was time for me to get a bike this is where I got my first Enfield so I guess in a way a part of Helmet Stories was born here as well. What I am trying to really get at is today we have less than a week left with our old friend and I hope the new owners get as much love/hope/happiness out of it as we did.
Farewell old friend you will be missed but never forgotten.

Sunday Morning Ride

Last night got word on facebook of a Breakfast run to Dharampur from Chandigarh. Since I am a sucker for paranthas I joined 11 bikes from the Chandigarh Breakfast Run for a jaunt into the mountains.
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Thank God Its Friday

We have just got back from a recce in Pangi Valley where are you riding this weekend?

Fish!

Got one at last!
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Lunch

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Helmet Stories Weekend

Fishing near 17-Mile on the Beas. Hopefully some fat trout for lunch. Watch this space...
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Kotak 25th Anniversary Ride

Last month we rode two Royal Enfield Classic 500 from Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat, Mumbai, Pune, Goa and finally ended in Bangalore (map) doing almost 3000 km as part of Kotak's 25th Anniversary celebrations. Its taken us a while to sift through our many GB's of images that we took on the 15 day ride but here are some of our favorite ones.

              

 

      

 

 

 

 

   

 

  

 

Royal Enfield's Desert Storm and Classic Chrome

Last month, Helmet Stories and a few other fellow motorcycle journos were invited by Royal Enfield for a special preview of the then yet-to-be-launched Desert Storm and and Classic Chrome variants of the Classic 500 at The Serai, a very hip and luxurious tented resort that is improbably yet impeccably set in the scrublands 30 km outside Jaisalmer. Royal Enfield's theme for its two new models, the Classic Chrome and Desert Storm, is ‘leisure motorcycling,’ and The Serai provided the perfect setting that harked back to the opulent lifestyle of the erstwhile royals of Rajasthan.

Both variants look smashing—the Classic Chrome has acres of, well, chrome that is tastefully offset by a minimal paint scheme of your choice, as long as it is a deep maroon or black, edged with the trademark gold pin-striping on the tank and fenders. Less effete is the brawny looking Desert Storm with a monochromatic matt sand paint and the motorcycle wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Monty and the Allies versus Rommel and the Afrika Korps WWII battlegrounds of the Sahara. The solo saddle seat reveals the rounded contours of the rear fender, a pleasant sight to gaze upon amidst the sandy undulations of the desert.

While it's true there's not much entirely new on the Chrome and the Storm, the minimal alterations have made this motorcycle a much more pleasurable ride. While motive power is supplied by the mechanically unchanged unit construction 500cc engine in its claimed 27.2 bhp state of tune, the ECU has been remapped for a better roll-on performance from low revs. The handlebars are a tad higher with more sweep making the riding position more upright and comfortable and the Classic’s cockpit is a comfy place to pile up miles. Frame geometry and suspension tweaks make this motorcycle more planted and it exhibits little of the high-speed rear end nervousness that plagued its forbear. The front wheel is now a 19-inch, while the unchanged 18-inch rear wheel sports chunkier 120-80/18 tyres. 

In Mumbai, the Classic Chrome will cost Rs 1,65,000 on the road while the Desert Storm will set you back by Rs 1,58,000.