Royal Enfield Himalayan. The Answers On & OffRoad. Is It a Great ADV Bike? | Moto Offroad Adventures

So let's talk off-road performance. It's a beautiful little day here. It's actually only 89 degrees. Finally less than 100 degrees out. South Carolina. So we're going to take a little ride and just chat a little bit about off-road performance of the Himalayan. Mine's the 2022 Himalayan. I definitely understand that this bike is kind of a love or hate bike online. I don't know why it is so controversial. Yeah let's get down into it. So far you can say I'm still new to the Himalayan. I got about 3,000 miles on it. A little over 1,000 of that is off-road. That includes the South Carolina Sandhills which get extremely deep sand. I would easily say we got into 10 inch or more of sand at times. The South Carolina Adventure Route, the SCAR, Transamerica Trail, the Tad, the Appalachians. Kind of just a little bit of everywhere. Performance off-road has really been amazing. I am 5'9". Just so you kind of have a height as well there. In the sand, it has the factory tires on it. The factory American tires are pretty decent. It handles very well. That was right when I was learning to ride off-road. So my learning skills kind of had to come up there as well. But really once I learned how to stand, steer with my legs, the pegs and everything, it went outstanding. So heavily tested in the sand and I think that was definitely home run. When it gets to be the steep mountains, the rocky terrain, the gravel roads up in the mountains, I just can't say enough. At low speeds, that's why you'll see a lot of people commenting about this thing like being a tractor. At lower speeds, when you're really getting off-road and lower gears, it is just phenomenal. Like that 20 to 50 mile an hour off-road, it feels like you can get through about anything. The suspension system has been comfortable. I haven't had any issues with my long rides. I have gotten myself and my own talents into a little bit of trouble off-road and was able to step right out of it quite easily with the Himalayan. So the high amount of low-end torque which it offers is absolutely phenomenal. The big buzzword is always 24 horsepower. I haven't had any issue with that at all. It actually well outperforms the specs. I mean if you're trying to pass somebody on the interstate or do those type of things, it's not going to perform like a high-end BMW or something and zip right by somebody at 70 or 80 miles an hour. Not an issue for me. Performance on the highway and everything else has been great. I am usually kind of a 65 mile an hour or less kind of rider and no problems. So that being said about the 24 horsepower. Now the torque is getting through trails, through mud, everything well. What I really enjoy is it has a lower center of gravity. The weight is at a lower side of the bike. Not only being new to adventure biking and maybe not having some of the best techniques when I first started, but it's just really easy to handle. A very comfortable ride off-road because of the center of gravity is lower. That weight is lower. A friend of mine that I ride a lot with has the BMW GSA 850, the Adventure 850. That's a much bigger bike. The center of gravity is much higher so it feels different and I think there's only about an inch difference in clearance. Maybe even about nine-tenths of an inch or less than an inch. So this bike does have a lower center of gravity but for its size still a very good clearance. Absolute home run in reference to how it handles, how comfortable and easy to control off-road. It's a low rpm bike so it's never really revving too high. Shift points are a little lower. You know, very very easy, very very easy bike to ride and learn on. For the on-road travels as well, getting to and from makes it a very comfortable ride. Some of the lighter bikes don't quite have the the comfortable drive long distance. The seat, the factory seat that comes with this and the lower center of gravity I think really makes a difference and it's both comfortable on and off-road which is nice. A lot of that's the engineering that goes into where the weight was put into on this bike. I went out and had a full day on it yesterday. About an hour and 45 minute ride to a obstacle course, adventure bike obstacle course in the area which was fantastic. Southeast Outdoor Adventure Center. Rode around for a while and then an hour 40 back and again just such a comfortable ride the whole way. So I definitely praise that side of it as well. I would say if you are considering or been hesitant about trying out the Himalayan, I say full force go for it. It has been amazing if it's the type of bike that you've been looking at. It's a little bit of a, you know, no frills bike as far, you know, no large electronics on the front, no seven inch screen for GPS, no cruise control and all these things that make it such a streamlined bike I think also make it so amazing. The ride is great. They concentrate it on the ride. If you're going to work on it, do everything yourself, there's no complicated systems. Very easy to work on and I am no mechanic. So very, very easy to work on. Easy ride, feels good, comfortable. There's just a lot of positives. So again, like I mentioned, if you've been thinking, don't be hesitant. Go ahead and pull the trigger. You know, there are definitely some downsides. I don't think those downsides are affecting me at all because of my riding style. But if you're, you know, if you're really looking to hit the roads and interstates to get from point A to point B and do that quickly, you know, at high speeds, this just isn't going to be your high speed bike. I've mentioned before in a video, fully loaded down for a three day camping trip at I think, I don't know my exact weight, but probably 450, 475 fully loaded in that realm anyway. But about 77 miles an hour, I was had a little bit more to give it, but not a lot. I mean, I was going to tap out right about there. And that was the one rare time that I actually go on the interstate. And those speeds are just fine for me. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Just bring it up if you're somebody looking for that speed. That's about the only place that the Himalayan may not be able to perform. Highway speed, off-road speed, everything is fine. So overall, in the end of things, these are really just my beliefs and thoughts and my own humble opinion, but I could not imagine a bike performing better than expected or better than what I needed on and off road. So this has just been great. The way I'm going now, I'm, you know, quickly approaching the 5,000 miles and I'll do a little bit bigger review at the 5,000 mile stage, going into a little more detail and such, but just wanted to get my thoughts on a beautiful little ride. Get some errands done for the day. Talk to you guys. I'm giving it two thumbs up. I guess that's my action for two thumbs up, so my hand can stay on the throttle. And could not be happier. A few more adventures coming. We're going to go back on the Tatt Transamerican Trail and into the mountains again here soon. So stay tuned for those. If any questions on the bike, on being new to riding, gear, anything like that, feel free to comment below. If you haven't on this video, first of all, thanks for watching. I appreciate you taking your time. Like, comment on the video would be fantastic. It goes a long ways to help out. And don't forget to subscribe and hit the little bell button to get notified on new videos. We're going to head back to the tiny house now. By the way, if you have any tiny house questions, feel free. Probably not the questions you have. What a beautiful day. It's nice to be back under 90 degrees. It's only staying for two days, but I will take it.