I suspect there’s been a marketing goof at Royal Enfield. I don’t think we’re supposed to know about the new Bear 650 scrambler for another week. But, hey-ho, the news is out and I want one.
I first found out about this new model on the Instagram feed of one of my moto-journalist friends who attended the bike’s launch last week. This was followed soon after by a few Instagram shots from one of Royal Enfield’s test riders.
But when I ran to the internets to learn more, I observed that Royal Enfield’s UK website simply has a countdown clock set to hit zero on 5 November, ie, the second of the two media days for EICMA 2024. Pair this with the fact that no press release has shown up in my inbox, and it seems to me that the intended reveal date for this bike hasn’t come yet.
But now it’s too late. The Bear is out of the bag. Whatever message the European marketing teams were given doesn’t appear to have reached the Americans. Specs and prices are available on Royal Enfield’s US website and already there are video reviews of the bike popping up online. The modern world moves fast, yo. The old market designations no longer make sense.
Anyhoo, let’s move on to the bike. It looks great.
Rocking a 1960s aesthetic, the bike gets its name from the story of Eddie Mulder, an AMA Hall of Fame racer who burst onto the scene in 1960 when he showed up to compete at the Big Bear Run. He was just 16 years old at the time, riding a Royal Enfield.
The Big Bear Run was a chaotic thing that year. A total of 765 participants were at the starting line, many of the world’s best desert riders among them. That included Bud Ekins, a rider that Triumph honored about four years ago with one of its ‘we’ve run out of ideas‘ limited-edition Bonneville models.
The race meandered through 150 miles of California desert and was punishing enough that only 207 riders actually managed to finish. Despite losing a peg and falling behind, Eddie Mulders was the first of those finishers; to the astonishment of everyone that day, he won the race.
The Bear 650 relies heavily on the Interceptor 650 for its chassis. Shocks and forks have a little more travel, and the wheel sizes are different (19-inch front, 17-inch rear), but it doesn’t appear there have been any really major changes.
The engine, too, is familiar. It’s the same 648cc parallel twin that drives all of Royal Enfield’s 650 models (eg, Interceptor, Continental GT, Super Meteor, and Shotgun), but its output has been tweaked oh so slightly. Power is the same ─ 34.9 kW (47 hp) at 7150 rpm ─ but torque is increased to 56 Nm at 5150, or about 41.3 lb-ft. That’s 3.7 Nm more (or 2.7 lb-ft), and 500 rpm less than with other 650s.
That’s such a small difference that I feel it falls within the margin of error for testing. That is, it may be that the Bear 650’s engine is not at all different from that of other 650s but that it was tested differently/at a different time/under different conditions/etc.
I have some experience with Royal Enfield’s 650 powerplant and can attest to the fact that it is a lot of fun within the right context. It loses puff at law-breaking speeds but offers plenty of grunt and joy in Normal People Land. To that end, I’d definitely place the Bear 650 on par or above the old 54hp Triumph Street Scrambler (2017-2019). And I’m pretty confident that it is also in the same place in terms of quality/reliability.
The more powerful Scrambler 900 (which replaced the Street Scrambler) might be a better machine but I wonder if it’s so much better that it vindicates the massive difference in pricing. Royal Enfield’s US website lists a starting price of $6,849 for the Bear 650. That is exactly the same price as the Intercepter 650 in the United States.
If the same sort of scenario applies in the United Kingdom, that means the new Bear 650 will cost £6,599. The starting price for a Triumph Scrambler 900 is £9,975. I’m personally not sure I would pay more than £3,000 for the sake of 15 hp.
In fairness, the Scrambler 900 has a little more technowhizzbangery. But do you actually need riding modes on, really, any bike with less than 80 hp? The Bear 650 does, at least come with a USB charger and Royal Enfield’s Tripper dash, which is a 4-inch TFT display that you can connect to your phone, through an app, to be able to use Google Maps.
Outside of the Scrambler 900, I suppose other competition could be the underrated Honda CL500, which produces the same amount of power but has slightly less torque; it’s starting price is £6,159. I suppose you could also throw the Triumph Scrambler 400 X in there; at £5,795, it has been one of the UK’s best selling motorcycles this year. Its claimed power output (29.4 kW) is notably less, though, and there have been rumblings of quality issues. Undercutting them all at the moment is the Benelli Leoncino 500 Trail. It’s not as refined and there’s the whole China-made issue, but you can pick one up for just under £5,000 these days.
Personally, if I had the money (which, sadly, I do not), I would still be opting for the Bear 650.
I wonder what Mulders would think of it. He’s still alive and these days is best known for riding Triumphs, and, by extension, his association with Bud Ekins.
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