ROYAL ENFIELD

Royal Enfield Bear 650...The good vibes of the sixties are back!

Eddie Mulder, just 16 years old, won the famous and grueling Big Bear Run in California's Mojave Desert in 1960. A race in which participants were not allowed to scout the terrain beforehand, he did so ahead of 765 experienced bikers atop a Royal Enfield bearing the number 249, hence the Bear 650's designation on the side.

When you look at it, especially this '249' version (which starts at €7,587 compared to €7,387 for the entry-level models), the Bear 650 doesn't hide its true worth: a robust machine ready to take on the most challenging and twisty mountain roads and, if the opportunity arises, get covered in road dust thanks to its disconnectable rear ABS.

Its engine is the proven 648cc twin-cylinder engine from the Interceptor, with slightly more power (47.4 hp) and slightly more torque (56.5 Nm at 5,150 rpm), which improves its performance at low revs.

With the family's upright, reinforced chassis, its two shock absorbers have 115 mm of travel, its swingarm has gained some verticality to accommodate the 17" rear wheel (it's 19" up front), and up front, a real success, it boasts a 43 mm Showa (Big Piston) inverted front fork with 130 mm of travel.

This now allows you to "play" with changes of direction and reliably enter corners, taking advantage of the opportunity to enjoy yourself in true British style with its 1,460 mm wheelbase and 214 kilos of weight: body out and leg in if necessary. It handles those turns well, as expected; it's not a sports car, it's not a naked car, it's not even a trail car; it's a scrambler variant, and it behaves as such.

Its playground is secondary roads, those with lots of numbers in their nomenclature, rolling happily on the flat and almost involuntarily glancing and smiling out of the corner of my eye at the fences that border the properties on the sides of the road. "I'm not Steve McQueen," I tell myself. "No, I'm not, and I don't want to jump over one of them like he did in The Great Escape and open the throttle wide up a hill."

Another good choice are the tires, the surprising wide-profile MRF Nylorex mixed tires that left a great impression on us during our test drive. The Bear also features a Tripper Dash TFT display, with an elegant interface and easy operation thanks to the aluminum joystick on the left console, which integrates Google Maps and is, of course, also compatible with the brand's app.

Mundoquatrorodas