You can accomplish a lot in a little over 24 hours. You can put in a full 9 to 5 or run a marathon with plenty of time to spare. You can even have a ton of fun. But riding 1000km on a cafe racer in that time span, that’s gotta be an exercise in pain, right?
Normally when it comes to planning a road trip I spend weeks, if not months, planning out the ride. From what bike to take, to the planned route to make the most of the bike, I try to cover every detail.
But one phone call sent my usual planning out the window and instead necessitated a last-minute trip to Masterton. Having just picked up Royal Enfield’s Continental GT that morning, and the only other option being to take New Zealand’s favourite stolen car, the choice was obvious and I hit the road on Royal Enfield’s cafe racer.
Despite GT standing for Grand Tourer in most circles, the Continental GT isn’t what you’d normally call a touring motorcycle. Taking one look at its rather beautiful 1970s cafe racer design, you’d think I was a bit wrong in the head to ride a 1000km round trip on the low-slung, stripped-back Enfield.
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But as they say, the best motorcycle for the job is the one you’ve got and as uncomfortable as it may look, the Continental GT was a vastly more attractive option than stealing my wife’s Mazda Demio.
In factory trim the Continental GT sports a humped seat to lock the rider in that race-ready position. However, this particular Continental GT had a couple of tasteful additions from the official accessories catalogue to add extra enjoyment to the proceedings.
The factory seat had been swapped for Enfield’s official touring seat which allows greater freedom of movement to the rider, while the exhaust silencers had been replaced with S&S items with a throaty growl. I’m not normally a fan of loud pipes, but the Conti’ straddled the line between enjoyable and obnoxious.
With 35kW of peak power on tap and pushing around 200kg around the Enfield is a classic under-stressed overall package. Don’t let the LAMS classification fool you, the Enfield 650 is a joy to ride on the open road and not lacking in real-world performance.
Throttle action is smooth and power comes on in a linear fashion. There isn’t a heck of a lot going on at higher rpm, but with the S&S pipes, I still found myself bouncing off the rev limiter often as I snaked my way over Vinegar Hill.
Handling is equally solid. The small diameter forks and twin rear shocks don’t scream “high-performance”, but the Conti GT manages to surprise you with a thoroughly enjoyable chassis setup. It is planted and composed with little to complain about. Okay, I’d look for some higher-performance tyres for peace of mind, but that is about it.
Unlike the Classic 350, the Continental GT and its Interceptor sibling don’t make use of metal for all their bodywork. The mudguards, in particular, are plastic and feature removable lips for added protection, which helps prevent the parallel twin from getting too dirty between washes.
The clip-on style handlebars aren’t mounted too low and the overall rider triangle of the bike is surprisingly comfortable. Normally a bike with low bars would put a lot of pressure on the rider’s wrists, but I didn’t start feeling any discomfort until nearly 800km in the saddle.
With a 12-litre fuel tank, the Continental GT’s touring range is limited depending on how heavy you are on the throttle. I found myself brimming the tank around every 200km or so with the necessary stop allowing me to stretch and regain a bit of energy myself. It also allowed people to pop out of nowhere and ask me about the oh-so-sweet-sounding Enfield.
With no windscreen, the Conti GT does put the rider fully in the elements and my neck, in particular, was feeling the strain of the long ride.
After completing the 24-hour whirlwind tour of much of the North Island, I found myself back home and trying to place the Continental GT.
While it isn’t really a tourer, it did everything I asked of it and more. The styling is bang-on and it is still one of the only modern classics you can buy in the LAMS category, making it very accessible.
Is it a Grand Tourer though? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
BREAK IT DOWN
ROYAL ENFIELD CONTINENTAL GT 650
Price: From $11,390
Engine: 648cc 4 Stroke, single overhead cam, air-cooled, parallel twin
Power: 35kW at 7150rpm, 52.3 Nm at 5250rpm
