Yezdi Adventure is a strong challenge to Royal Enfield Himalayan
The classic and adventure motorcycle segment is currently all the rage in India. A segment that was dominated by Royal Enfield is being raided by all the other companies given the demand for classic/ retro motorcycles. The segment is still dominated by Royal Enfield but at least all the others are trying to get in. To stomp a foothold in this segment, another motorcycle brand has risen up from its ashes. That brand is none other than Yezdi which launched a trio of motorcycles to challenge the might of Royal Enfield on all fronts. The three motorcycles launched by Yezdi are Yezdi Scrambler, Yezdi Roadster and Yezdi Adventure. We have been mightily impressed by all three motorcycles and have particular talked about things we liked about the Yezdi Scrambler in another post. Here we are going to talk about things we liked about the Yezdi Adventure and compare it with Royal Enfield Himalayan.
1. Power
Royal Enfield is a great motorcycle with great torque, long suspension, adequate seat heigh and Royal Enfield’s service network it is perfectly built for Indian roads. It’s an all-around great package which is why it’s so famous in our country. The Himalayan is so good at what it does that it has now become a default for people who want to travel far.
There is however one niggle that riders keep on bringing up every time they get on the highway. It is the lack of top-end power, something that is very important while riding on a highway. You see the Himalayan only produces 24.31PS of power which is enough for slow offroading but is a massive disadvantage when on a fast highway.
This is where Yezdi shines. With a 30.2 PS of power and 6-speed gearbox, not only is it good for offroading but also much better at mile crunching. The Yezdi Adventures seems to solve one of Himalayan’s major problems. On paper, the Yezdi Adventure looks like an even more refined Himalayan. If this motorcycle was launched by Royal Enfield with the name Himalayan 2.0 we’d totally understand.
2. Looks
I like the way Royal Enfield Himalayan looks so naturally, I’d also like the Yezdi Adventure. Some say Yezdi Adventure’s design has been copied from the Royal Enfield Himalayan. Yes, it is copied in the same way that a Splendor has been copied from a Ducati Panigale 969. Both have two wheels, a headlight, taillights and many other similar parts.
What I wanted to say that is the Himalayan and Yezdi Adventure seem similar is because both follow the same template. If you start creating a classic-looking adventure motorcycle you’d also end up making something like the Himalayan or the Yezdi Adventure.
Personally, I do not have any issue with the way Yezdi looks. It is rugged, functional and eye-catching to some extent, if that is not what you want from your motorcycle I don’t know what else there is to it. The Yezdi has many elements that make it different from the Himalayan. LED headlights for example differentiate it massively from the Himalayan that has Halogen lights at the front and in turn signals.
3. Price
Sure It would have been better if the Yezdi Adventure massively undercut the Himalayan. Not only would it have created hype but also brought in many new customers. The Yezdi Adventured does not undercut the Royal Enfield Himalayan massively but it still undercuts it.
The Yezdi Adventure starts at Rs 2.09 Lakh as opposed to Rs 2.14 for Royal Enfield Himalayan. That is still a decent price, that gets you LED lights, more power, higher quality rear rack etc. If Yezdi has decent build quality it would be a big threat to Himalayan’s sales, since the Royal Enfield does not have very good build quality either.
4. Lights
One thing that the Royal Enfield has steered clear from is LED lights. None of its motorcycles have LED lights at the front and only the Royal Enfield Himalayan has LED taillights. Even the twin-cylinder 650CC Interceptor does not have LED lights.
This is where the Yezdi has an upper edge. While there are advantages of both LED as well as Halogens in certain situations, it is, without doubt, the former that looks better. Since looks constitute a big part of these retro classic adventure motorcycles, Yezdi with its LED lights certainly has an edge.
These are the 4 things that I liked about the Yezdi Adventure over Himalayan. With the launch of Yezdi Adventure, the market for somewhat budget adventure motorcycles have hotted up. It is still to be seen how the Yezdi Adventure fares up in front of Himalayan in long term but on paper, it certainly has the Royal Enfield counterpart beat.
Royal Enfield vs Yezdi Adventure is a question that is here to stay. We would have to test out the Yezdi Adventure and see how it fares in the long term to draw any conclusion, but the first impressions are mightily in favour of the Yezdi Adventure.
