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| Meteor 350 SuperNova |
Royal Enfield Meteor 350
Royal Enfield Meteor 350 is successor to Thunderbird 350. Thunderbird was the cruiser motorcycle by Royal Enfield and so the Meteor is. Royal Enfield dropped the name because they cannot sell it with Thunderbird across the Globe. As the name is all new, so does the Motorcycle is but the motive is kept unchanged, that is to cruise comfortably. Meteor gets all new engine, a new chassis and almost everything is new here. Meteor 350 competes with newly launched Honda H'ness CB350, Jawa 42 and Benelli Imperiale 400. Let's see what Royal Enfield has to offer us.
Engine & Gearbox
Meteor 350 gets an all new 346cc air-cooled, twin spark, single cylinder engine. This engine is of course BS-VI compliant. This new mill has given off the pushrod and hydraulic tapped system to a chain driven overhead camshaft, it gets a SOHC unit with two valves. And now they have added balancer shafts which helps in damping out vibrations and this Royal Enfield is pretty smooth. This new engine produce 20 bhp at 6100 rpm and 27 Nm at 4000 rpm. The refined engine has allowed to shift the redline 1000 rpm more the UCE engine. The power outputs are similar but the unwanted by product (vibration) has reduced which makes it much more usable. For the gearbox it gets a 5 speed transmission and fueling is done by electronic fuel injection system.
Chassis & Suspension
Royal Enfield given away old Single downtube frame and now developed Double cradle chassis and the chassis is mounted directly on engine using it as a part of chassis. This new chassis have increased the ground clearance by 35 mm to 170mm.
Suspension duties are taken care by conventional forks at front and twin gas charged shockers at rear. these are remained untouched. The wheel sizes are also identical at 19 inch front and 17 inch rear with beefier 100/90 front and 140/70 rear tires. Braking is done by 300 mm front disc and a 270 mm rear disc assisted by dual channel ABS. These size is also gone up which will result in better braking.
Aesthetics
Starting off front, Meteor 350 sports a classic cruiser design. It has typical round clear lens halogen fog lamp. It is downgrade from projector unit which Thunderbird had. Around the headlamp is very subtle ring LED DRL. Then we have round amber lens turn indicators which has round patterns to it. Above the headlamp sits two pod instrument cluster, about which we'll talk later. The handlebars are wide and tall perfect to give a relaxing riding stance. The motorcycle is designed around the round theme. The switch gears are new and features round switched. The rotary switch is available for integrated kill switch and self start button and for low beam high beam switch. Moving further we spot a big round teardrop tank with a capacity of 15litres which has reduced by 5 liters that of the Thunderbird. The tank also features Royal Enfield's new wing 3d emblem. Then on the side, panels are typical triangle shape but has a round finish to it. It has Meteor badging like the case with RE motorcycles. The exhaust is finished and chrome and has a beautiful round theme to it which blends it with the motorcycle. The chrome heat bash plate is large and protects rider as well as pillion legs avoiding contact with hot exhaust can.
On the rear we have a retro themed round tail lamp and lower down we have turn indicators and license plate mounting along with a reflector. The gap between tail lamp and plate is little more but it gives a retro theme to it.
Features
As the feature list goes, We have analog digital twin pod cluster. The one on the left is bigger and has an analog speedometer along with digital odometer, twin tripmeters, fuel gauge and clock. The speeds are marked in kmph as well as miles per hour. Below the screen lies the tell tale lights for low oil indicator, low fuel indicator, ABS, high beam, low battery voltage. On the right we have a small round LCD display. It is used for turn by turn navigations when connected via Bluetooth to our smartphone, else it shows the clock. Next, Royal Enfield has also added a Hazard indicator button as well which lits up both the indicators. We have dual channel ABS, LED tail lamp, split seat with rear backrest and round mirrors.
Meteor 350 Colours & Price
Meteor 350 is available in three variants: Fireball, Stellar and SuperNova.
Fireball is basically Thunderbird 350X, it has black handlebars, black levers, body colour rim stickers, solid colour options, and Royal Enfield sticker on tank, it is more suited to urban areas.
Stellar is mid variant and equipment list also features common features. It has got solid colour and single tone alloy wheels.
SuperNova is top variant which gets dual tone colours, a tall clear windscreen and dual tone alloys.
Colour options are as follows:
- Fireball Yellow
- Fireball Red
- Stellar Blue Metallic
- Stellar Black Matte
- Stellar Red Metallic
- SuperNova Brown
- SuperNova Blue Dual-Tone
For the Pricing, Meteor 350 is priced from:
1,75,826 for Fireball
1,81,343 for Stellar
1,90,536 for SuperNova
Do tell us what you liked and disliked about the Royal Enfield Meteor 350.
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