Royal Enfield Bullet Electra X

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15th May 2009

It's a few years since we had a bike on the road, but we still talked about it now and then. One bike kept cropping up; the Indian made Royal Enfield Bullet.
Sharon had always wanted a British bike, but all we could afford 20 odd years ago were a BSA C10 and a C15. Neither were very inspiring, I think my bicycle has more power and certainly had better brakes than the C10!

Anyway, recently we got to talking again; I did a bit of research, and the result was the purchase today of a year old 3600 mile Bullet Electra X from Oxfordshire Royal Enfield
Bruce and his wife were delightful people to deal with, and a nice run back from Didcot to Bath via Hungerford, avoiding the motorway, confirmed we had made the right decision.

First impressions: The exhaust is way too quiet and interferes with one's feel for how the engine is responding to throttle and load. Handling seems fine and the front brake is excellent . Suspension is VERY firm and I soon learnt to avoid pot holes and keep my teeth apart! The mirrors are more or less useless.
Oh, and the side stand cut out is damn annoying. And no, disconnecting the wire under the side panel doesn't stop it working.

I noted the snail cam chain adjusters when we first looked at the bike: Neat, chain adjusting will be a piece of cake. How wrong can you be. Adjusting the chain was easy enough, but every time I tried to tighten the spindle nut, the cam on that side moved. After a lot of cursing I finally noticed that there wasn't a washer under the nut. A quick search through my junk box turned up a washer and the problem was cured. Being a sad git I will make a nice stainless one when I have a minute. In fact I guess I will be making a lot of stainless bits, as the general quality of plating on fasteners is on a par with most modern bikes - poor.

8th June 2009

On the right are a couple of photos after I fitted an exhaust system from Hitchcock's Motorcycles
This is the 50's style system; part numbers 91021 (pipe) and 91030 (silencer). I also picked up their recommended main jet, an 117.5 and a PAV blanking plug (not yet fitted) It's well worth a visit to Hitchcock's if you are an RE fan, nice place and nice helpful folks.
However I was a bit disappointed with the fit of the silencer. To be quite honest it didn't fit and I had to slot the front mounting hole as on the RE silencer and bend it a bit to make it anywhere near right. The detachable baffle is a very, very loose fit and I think will be replaced by something more appropriate when I have time.

OK off for a test run: Wow it did seem loud after the standard system, plus a lot of popping on the over run at low revs. Unscrewing the slow running screw (richer) about 1 turn improved this, though when I have a bit of time it will be off to the Tim Blakemore Racing dyno for a proper set up. It certainly seems to have much more get up and go now, and given a hand full in the mid range, fairly surges forward (well relatively speaking!).

Check out Kunal, my drag racing friend in Mumbai who is building a wicked Bullet drag bike: KUNAL

Our Bullet Electra X above the Western portal of Box Tunnel. The West Country main line can just be seen leading diagonally to the left from the filler cap in the above photo.

24th September

We haven't had as much time to ride the bike as we would have liked but, 1000 miles on the only problem has been the number plate disappearing on one run. The new one is secured with stainless nylock nuts so hopefully will stay put.

The constant popping down the exhaust on the over run was really getting on my nerves, so today we went over to Tim Blakemore Racing to get it sorted.
It turned out that the engine was running really weak all through the range, but really badly at the top end. Tim sorted this in no time and we ended up with a 122 main jet and all the other settings standard. As predicted by Hitchcock's, power was up to 19+hp and the difference on the road was wonderful: No more popping at last, and the bike just feels so much more responsive. Remarkably, it also feels much smoother and less stressed when cruising at around 60mph.

Tim told me that he has had an amazing variety of bikes in for setting up. Examples range from a 1920's New Imperial and a number of 1930's bikes, including a rare BSA J12 500cc V Twin. Their owners were similarly impressed with what he did, even though they had initially doubted the settings.

Money well spent!