As you know the LS410 named engine in the Royal Enfield Himalayan is all-new. But it most certainly doesn’t feel like a new engine. I’m not sure if Royal Enfield engineered it like this, but it feels more like an improved current engine than a brand-new one. This has pros and cons, naturally.
On the plus side, the 24.5PS(at 6, 500rpm) LS410 is a counterbalancer-equipped engine. Vibration is controlled well for the most part. Rev past 5, 500rpm and you’ll feel them. By this point, you will feel them in the seat, pegs as well as bars. However, the vibration is much stronger under acceleration than at steady speeds. So while pushing to higher speeds can feel shaky, holding those speeds is often much easier.
Over the highway miles we quickly realised that the RE Himalayan is happiest at 80kmph in top gear, just below 4, 000rpm. This is the speed you default to when you allow yourself to unconsciously pick a speed based on feel. Peak torque, incidentally is 32Nm, between 4, 000 and 4, 500rpm. It feels quite cheerful up to 95kmph, just below 5, 000rpm in top gear. Vibration starts shortly thereafter in the footpegs. Cruising at as much as 105kmph(5, 200rpm, approx in 5th gear) is possible though opening the throttle to pass traffic at these speeds immediately produces a less than symphonic noise as well as vibration. Top speed is 129kmph on the Vbox, 134kmph indicated. The noise and vibration will likely preclude you from seeing this speed often. It’s a similarly busy manner in which the Himlayan gets to 100kmph at full tilt, taking 10.52 seconds.
At this point, chances are RE haters are beginning to smirk at how weak the Himalayan’s performance sounds. Well, wipe the snark off smug-mugs because the bike isn’t slow. True it doesn’t cruise as fast as I’d personally like but it certainly has a spring in its step. Between 2, 500 and 4, 500rpm, the Royal Enfield Himalayan has great torque. You don’t hear much by way of a thump but you pass traffic easily and even on the highway, overtaking is just a matter of rolling the gas on.
On one commute, I was in a boisterous mood and decided to up the pace. As long as I used the gearbox to stay in the sweet spot, the Himalayan proved to be extremely swift and responsive. That torque, combined with its other abilities, makes this Royal Enfield a vastly superior commuter than any of the other RE motorcycles you can name.
Economy? No surprises. The Royal Enfield Himalayan returned 28kmpl on our city cycles and 36 on the highway. That tots up to a neat 30kmpl overall. With a 15l tank, that’s a range of 450km — eminently acceptable for a tourer.
At the beginning of this section, I told you that the LS410 feels like an improved old engine more than like an all-new engine, let me explain that. What I still don’t fully like about the LS410 is that it sounds wheezy outside of its sweet spot. I cannot imagine why a modern, made-yesterday engine would sound and feel like this. There is also the surprise of tappet clatter a la old RE engines that arrived as soon as our economy runs, the gentlest phase of the road test, was complete. It’s a bit strange that RE would be unable to quell this clatter that’s almost a signature of their older engines. I do have to point out that the clamour didn’t get worse once it started no matter how hard we pushed the bike, but still. We expect modern engines to be robust and healthy-sounding and the LS410 is some distance from that.
Overall then, performance is good for the Himalayan in the context of other Royal Enfields. Vibration is a only an issue at high revs and torque flow in the sweet spot is effortless. But there is a valid question about the relationship of the performance to the displacement. But I’ll come back to that.
Let’s also not forget that at 182kg, the Royal Enfield Himalayan is a very heavy motorcycle. For perspective, the 675cc triple cylinder Triumph Street Triple is 1kg heavier. Or the 200cc 25PS KTM 200 Duke is a whopping 44kg lighter. Had the Himalayan been lighter, the engine’s performance and economy both would have had a greater sheen to them.