THE BRADLEY REPORT
THE BRADLEY REPORT
Himalayan Twin
By Ben Purvis
A big, twin-cylinder version of Royal Enfield ' s Himalayan has been part of the brand ' s product plan for years- appearing in silhouette form as early as 2022 in a shareholder presentation- and now it ' s nearly ready for launch with RE publishing images of top staff including CEO B. Govindarajan aboard the bike. Widely rumoured in the Indian press to be the debut platform for a new generation, 750 cc version of Royal Enfield ' s air and oil-cooled twincylinder engine, the Himalayan twin moves away from the retro styling of other bikes to use the company ' s twin- the Interceptor 650, Super Meteor 650, Continental GT, Bear 650, Classic 650 and Shotgun 650- in favour of an up-to-date look and construction, with kit including a monoshock rear suspension system, upside-down forks and a completely new frame.
The idea is to create a machine with genuine dirt road ability rather than one that is only for Royal Enfield ' s traditional retro-bike customers. Royal Enfield ' s 750 cc generation of the twin, currently available only in 35 kW, 650 cc form, is known to be under development, but it could yet retain the existing 650 cc twin- we ' ll have to wait until its launch, expected around EICMA, to find out for sure.
CFMOTO 750SRS By Ben Purvis
China ' s motorcycle industry is continuing its breakneck pace of evolution with CFMOTO joining the growing ranks of brands offering a high-performance four-cylinder machine in the form of the new 750SR-S. Only the company ' s second fourcylinder, following on from the appealing 500SR Voom retro sports bike that ' s sold in Asian markets and Australia, the 750SR-S is a much more serious sports bike, with performance that promises to put it into competition with a number of middleweight European and Japanese rivals. Sharing the same 72 mm bore as CFMOTO ' s existing three-cylinder 675SR-S, but adding another cylinder and pairing it with a shorter 46 mm stroke instead of the triple ' s 55.2 mm, amounts to a 749 cc four with a similar bore / stroke ratio to classic 750 cc racereps like the 1990s Suzuki GSX-R750
SRAD and Yamaha ' s YZF750R of the same era. However, CFMOTO is starting out with a conservative 110 hp from the 750SR-S, arriving at a relatively low 10,250 rpm. The four-cylinder engine has Continental ' s two-mode cornering traction control. The six-axis inertial measurement unit also enables leansensitive Continental ABS brakes paired to Brembo 4.32 monobloc radial callipers on 320 mm front discs and a 220 mm rear rotor with a twopiston Brembo calliper. There ' s also a pair of aero cowls around the front brake discs, directing airflow to the callipers, and the bike is claimed to be wind tunnel-developed- with photos showing it in the Pininfarina wind tunnel that, famously, was used to sculpt BMW ' s R 100 RS in the 1970s, creating the world ' s first fully-faired production bike in the process.