Royal Enfield is joining on the baby adventure bike pie feast! That mid-range adventure bike niche is absolutely blossoming in the last two years. BMW and KTM are already leading in this niche, with G 310 GS and 250 Adventure, respectively. Of course, the future of this niche is bright, as there is more variety coming each month! So, we learned that Royal Enfield will downsize its Himalayan bike.
Himalayan sports a 411cc single engine, which is a small engine compared to motorcycles made in the USA. In Europe and Asia, it is more beneficial to have a single-engine motorcycle, because of the driving license restrictions and tax rates during the purchase of the bike. India is a prime example of that, charging lower taxes for smaller motorcycles. Hence, their rise in popularity.
All these facts come in perfect time for a random rumor that surfaced a few weeks ago. Apparently, someone in India spotted a downsized model of 2020 Himalayan. While some speculate that this is the updated variant of 2020 Himalayan, there are also counter speculations that this is actually a baby ADV in works.
The counter speculations make sense in a certain way. The competition is aggressively launching bikes in the small-displacement ADV niche. It would be natural to see some sort of response from Royal Enfield.
Also, there were rumors during the summer of 2019, that Royal Enfield is developing a quarter-liter engine. When you combine these rumors, it makes sense that one of their next moves would be a baby ADV. We’ll see what happens.
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Source: Ride Apart
