This is Enzo. Enzo the Enfield! Enzo is a 2007 Royal Enfield, Limited Edition, Bullet Machismo 500cc. We found him in Chennai after 5 days of searching. As soon as we saw him we knew he was the one for us!
The Enfield is the quintessential bike to travel India on. They're still manufactured to the original 1950's specifications and each bike is hand made and comes direct from the factory. Because of its 1950's construction the bike is very simple and any bush mechanic knows how to fix it, including me!
We purchsed Enzo for 70,000 rupees ($1,600). This is a good price considering a brand new 2010 Enfield costs $115,000 rupees ($2,000). In the end a second hand bike was the only option for us because, as a foreigner, you can't register a bike in your name. When you buy a second hand bike though you leave everything in the previous owners name. It may sound risky but it's not. It's just how it's done here.
Before we were ready to head off we had to get some minor modifications done. We had luggage racks put on, a back rest for Chelle, two new tires and a full service. We also had to perform some modifications to our backpacks. This involved purging excess stuff that we've been carrying around for the past 11 months in order to reduce the weight and bulk on the bike for traveling!
We set off from Chennai two weeks ago and so far we've traveled 1,005 kms and that's brought us all the way to the southern most tip of India. On an average day we might ride for 4 - 5 hours, traveling at speeds of only 30 - 50kms/hr! It's extremely slow going because the roads are bad and there's cows, people, buses, trucks and anything and everything else you can imagine littering the road. Enzo's got a super loud horn though and, in keeping with Indian road etiquette, we use it all the time. If we used the horn like this in Sydney or Vancouver we'd be getting the finger a lot! Over the past two weeks we've traveled the entire length of Tamil Nadu from north to south. It's been a great start to our grand adventure but today we say goodbye and cross into the state of Kerala where better food hopefully awaits us!
