New 2023 Royal Enfield 450 Himalayan Spy Shots!
welcome back to another motobot article and this week new spy shots emerge of what looks like a completely redesigned and massively improved Royal Enfield Himalayan and we’ve got hold of them and I’m not the biggest fan of the current Himalayan despite its cult following but I gotta say this thing actually looks pretty good and it really does look like a huge leap forward so in this article we’ll go through all of the info that we’ve got so far with the eight things that you need to know now my main gripe with the existing Himalayan is the lack of power for such a weighty machine you’ve got this 411 CC air and oil called single cylinder engine which is great in terms of low end grunt it really does chug
along nicely at lower speeds but as soon as you get onto a roads and motorways and quicker country roads between Corners it just doesn’t really spin up enough if you’re looking at this bike as like an adventure tourer then I just don’t think that 24 horsepower at six and a half thousand RPM really cuts it at least for me anyway Elsewhere on the market you’ve got bikes like KTM 390 Adventure so pretty similar in terms of engine capacity and it’s a single cylinder too but the key difference is that it’s liquid cooled to a much more modern design and the results are obvious in the performance figures 44 horsepower at 9000 RPM so not far off double and it makes a little bit more talk too so 37 newton meters at 7000 RPM I think that’s about five newton meters more now admittedly all this fun is made much higher in the Rev range so perhaps off-roading and stuff like that the Enfield might still be more
satisfying but on the open road where these sorts of bikes do a lot of their miles that’s a much more enjoyable amount of oomph so yeah for me it’s exciting to see a new 450 liquid cooled engine on this new Himalayan and it’s obvious from the Spy shots because you’ve got the lack of cooling fins on the cylinder head and of course the radiator now hopefully this along with the extra displacement is going to help and feel boost the Himalayan up to much more competitive figures that make it much much more engaging to ride I’ve seen a lot of rumors and guesses swirling around the internet but it seems like 40ish horsepower and about 40-ish newton meters of peak torque would be a reasonable estimate and I’d say also a good Target for Enfield because it put it right on the heels of the KTM now the other thing I mentioned is that it’s a little underpowered for its weight and so hopefully we’ll see some improvements there as well the current Himalayan feels you know it feels solidly built there’s a lot of metal hardware as opposed to the more plasticky construction of the KTM but the downside is it does tip the scales at a pretty hefty 199 kilograms wet and on the face of it it’s not a horrendous figure for a motorcycle there are plenty of bikes out there that weigh about the 200 kilogram Mark but it’s just in
New 2023 Royal Enfield 450 Himalayan Spy Shots!
combination with that 24 horsepower Peak that it you know it doesn’t really help matters the other thing as well is it’s a quite substantial amount of weight to cope with if you do want to ride it off-road and of course in that situation less weight is always going to be better now the 390 Adventure isn’t necessarily like a hard caught off-roader but it’s still massively lighter at 158 kilograms dry so probably around the 175 Mark wet 25 kilograms is a huge margin and so hopefully Enfield can improve here and from the looks of the pictures this bike does generally have a bit more of a svelte appearance certainly the more modern and angular styling at the front and around the tank does help but here’s hoping the materials used and the design of the chassis lead to something that feels a little bit more Nimble the good news for the rest of the chassis is it does look like there’ll be some spec upgrades here and there and again
that’s something the existing Himalayan could definitely do with the suspension specifically feels a bit budget so the ride quality isn’t particularly great and take the KTM again as an example of what can be achieved on a bike of this stature and that gets their in-house Brands WP Apex suspension which offers a nice level of adjustability now that that’s not to say that the brand name on the hardware will automatically make them better but from my experience of riding both of these bikes this slightly up spec componentry on the KTM really does help when it comes to how the bike handles and performs but also how pleasant the riding experience can be so yeah in these spy shots we can see that there is indeed a new upside down Fork which is said to be from shower and that should really help things at the front end and it’s also said to be adjustable to some extent which will also help with dialing in the bike’s ride to your exact preference no clear view of the shock at the rear on these pictures but one would hope there’s some better spec stuff there too to match now again the brakes on the current Himalayan aren’t exactly spectacular there’s not a great deal of power or feel at the front and that’s
despite the fact that the two pot caliper on a single disc comes from vibrate which is a more affordable sub brand of Brembo now these spy shots show something that looks pretty similar if not the same as I’d expect more of the same from the braking performance unfortunately although cutting down on the weight of course would help a little if that does happen now again for reference the KTM also gets by Bray breaks but these ones are radially mounted with a full piston front caliper and in my experience it has a much better initial bite and then power through the lever stroke now Wheels again look similar to the existing Himalayan so a Spoke 21 inch front and a 17 rear which is good news if you do fancy taking it for a bit of off-roading on the road the big 21-inch front can feel a little bit vague and the seat tires that come as standard aren’t necessarily the best but with a tie swap once you’ve worn them out this is probably still the optimal wheel setup for this style of bike elsewhere we’ve got a couple of little tweaks on the rest of the bike that help to make it look a little bit more up to date so it looks like LED lighting all round with some neat looking indicators and actually at the back they’ve gone for integrated tail lights and indicators which look pretty similar to those that you find on a BMW a nice premium
looking touch at the rear there and they look nice and Punchy and visible as well now from some other spy shots I’ve seen it looks like it’s going to get a massively updated Dash with the current Himalayan getting a very basic analog Speedo which looks significantly dated if you put it next to the TFT on the KTM but this new 450 looks like it’ll get a round TFT display which you can see here over at Power drift and then when it’s fired up it’s got something that looks traditional in its layout these are picks from bike Deco and yet presumably opens up a lot more menus and features being a TFT display so perhaps to control some riding modes and Rider raids as well as potentially Bluetooth and phone Integrations like call and message handling and navigation now this is a great point I wish to give a massive shout out and a massive thanks to today’s video sponsor and that’s Speedo Angels fancy TFT displays and to be honest just regular analog Speedos can cost hundreds if not thousands to replace if they get scratched or damaged but speeder Angels could save you all the hassle and the money with their Dash protectors that cost just a few quid and they have a full range of products for the current Royal Enfield lineup as well as most new bikes from all the major manufacturers so head to the link down in the description to find yours and you’ll also find a 20 discount code down there as well
specifically for my viewers now the only concern I guess with this huge update and it is huge it’s basically a complete ground up redesign is that with all this extra stuff it might kill off the himalayan’s huge selling point which is that exceptionally low price at the moment you can pick one up new for just under five grand in the most basic paint option and even if it’s not exactly a Multistrada V4 when you hit the road it’s still a lot of bike for your money now the KTM that’s 6299 if you go for the cast Wheels 6699 with the spoke wheels and so really to remain competitive this new 450 Himalayan won’t want to go beyond that and ideally if it’s aligned with the sort of brand values of Royal Enfield which is generally the most aggressively priced bikes in each of their Market sectors then you’ll probably be hoping it’ll come in around more like the six grand Mark as always though I’d love to know what you think of it so do let us know down in the comments below and also if you haven’t seen it already I’ll leave on the screen here my recent review of their super meteor 650 I think is the best bike they’ve ever made potentially this new 450 Himalayan may take that Crown but for now this is pretty good so give it a click give it a watch many thanks for watching today and I’ll see you in the next one
