The all-new Royal Enfield twins – the Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650 are now in showrooms for customers to test out and riders are finding out just why reviewers were left shaking their head in disbelief at just how much better these new bikes are compared to the ones already on sale.
The biggest change in the new Royal Enfield twins when compared to their smaller single-cylinder engines is the refinement of the powerplants. Youtuber Ride With Rahul decided to test out the refinement of the new Interceptor 650 compared to his own bike, the Yamaha R3 with the help of a Thums Up bottle.
The Youtuber first tests out the new Interceptor 650 by setting a half-open bottle of Thums Up on the fuel tank. He then starts up the bike and shows off how smooth the new engine is at idle. He then revvs the bike quite high to see how much the vibrations build up. The bottle of the soft drink moves about a bit but that is mostly due to the shape of the tank.
The youtuber then switches to his Yamaha R3 and with another half-finished bottle of Thums Up, he proceeds to redo the experiment on his very own bike. The bottle moves about around a bit more and the youtuber claims that at the same rpm level, The Royal Enfield is the much smoother bike. However, the soft drink inside starts frothing up at the top quite a bit more compared to the Interceptor 650, which shows you just how smooth the new engine is.
So what are the reasons why the new Royal Enfield Interceptor is so much smoother than before? There are two major reasons.
The first major reason is the use of a balancer shaft for the twin-cylinder 648 cc engine. The use of the balancer shaft on the twin-cylinder engine balances out offsets vibrations caused by engine designs that are not inherently balanced. This balancer shaft cancels out most of the excess vibrations from the engine which means there are quite a lot fewer vibes being transferred into the body of the bike, resulting in a much smoother experience while riding.
Secondly, the fact that the new Royal Enfiled engine is a twin-cylinder unit is one of the reasons why the bikes produce fewer vibrations. The addition of an extra cylinder means that there are a lot fewer vibrations like the engine itself is more balanced compared to a single cylinder unit, which is inherently unbalanced. The inherently unbalanced nature of a single cylinder engine is one of the major reasons why regular 350 and 500 cc RE are known to buzz about all the time.
Also Read: Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 vibrates LESS than a Yamaha R3, reveals 'cool drink test' [Video]