Valheru Rides!

I have let the dust settle for a few hours before posting to prevent a torrent of “wows” and “The maroon” being vomited all over a confused and non cohesive blog post. Coffee has been drunk, and a protein bar wedged through the visor. Let’s do this!

So we had the launch today (01/09/23), the hype for this has been building ever since RE dropped a YouTube short with the date and the rather identifiable engine sound (with a slightly different edge). I was really looking forward to the launch day and hoped it would be closer in style to the Classic 350 launch, and not the slightly confusing Hunter intro.

Royal Enfield kept us warmed up in the few days leading up to it with both a podcast episode AND a quick vid showing the progression, or story of the Bullet since 1932.

The launch.

The launch video was absolutely great and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was quite clearly all about the bike and the people who rode them. It was a polar opposite of the Hunter launch vid in its style and presentation, it frankly did everything so much better. Looking at it from a critical eye, it seemed that RE were quite clearly presenting us with a storyboard: This is where we have come from, this is where we are, and this is where we are going. I’m unsure if that was their intention, but they nailed it frankly.

The end showed us quite clearly the colour and finish options available, these weren’t exactly expansive like the Classic & Meteor, but we know a lot of folk are going to pick that iconic black anyway.

With the two basic finishes, having the Military Red was something a tad different, it seems very similar to the red used on the base Meteor. The Black in the same finish is as expected, I think it will be interesting to see how these slot into the Western markets in terms of price.

I’ll be honest about the colour that caught my eye the most, originally I was hoping for a grey, but there wasn’t one. They had something a lot better:

That colour is absolutely gorgeous, I really cannot gush about it enough. When I saw it originally I thought it was the same as the Meteor Maroon I test rode all that time ago…. But it clearly isn’t (or the lighting is playing tricks on me!) and the gold detailing just looks amazing set against it. Whoever came up with that deserves a medal, or a pay rise, or something frankly, because that is absolutely beautiful. There’s even a top trim ‘Black gold’ which looks great, just that maroon blows me away. Honestly if I was a millionaire (which obviously I’m not) I’d be right now working out where I could squeeze it into the garage. The seat looks really rather good as well and I’ll be keeping an eye open on just how comfortable it is for longer trips, can it be retrofitted to others in the J series? Maybe it’s how it appears on the camera, but the pillion seat does seem more expansive.

The instrument cluster has had an update, not much mind you and keeps with the same aesthetic as the Classic did, I note we also have no Tripper option either (unless I’ve missed it somehow?).

The sound of music.

We’re going to have to mention the sound, because frankly there is no avoiding it. It doesn’t quite sound the same, it’s not far off, but it isn’t quite the same “Dug dug dug”, it is a nice sound though and will be interesting to see how it sounds brarping down Indian highways once released.

Btw if you ever hum ‘Bullet Meri Jaan’ to the same tune as ‘Telegram Sam’ by T Rex, you will give yourself a rather persuasive ear worm.

To conclude:

It looks another great looking 350cc there from Re and I’m hoping it won’t be too long until I get to sit on one at the local dealers. Because damn, it’s gorgeous and just as relevant as it was in 1932.