Royal Nomads

Royal Nomads is a blog about travels on Royal Enfield motorcycles through the Americas.  

120th anniversary of John Paul Burney's win

Where in Redditch? Part XI

If you have not checked this blog in a while, one of the original motivations was to locate what was left of Royal Enfield in the UK, you can see my progress in the series "Royal Enfield factories, then and today" in the right sidebar of the blog.

It turns out Historic England has an archive of aerial pictures, including these two great shots of the Royal Enfield factory in Hewell Road, taken in 1925,

The fall and rise of Royal Enfield

Interesting tidbits in this video. It claims in 2023 Royal Enfield sold TRIPLE the number of motorcycles Harley, Ducati and Triumph sold, combined, 920,000 bikes. The company has grown 9 fold since 2012. 

It also claims incorrectly that Royal Enfield produced rifles (it produced parts for rifles) and has sold motorcycles non-stop since 1901 (in reality it stopped between 1905 and 1909, just don't tell anyone :-). 

It also says the 650 motor has been over-engineered to be bored out to 800. 

I like one of the closing musings: "Good looking, solidly built, reliable and affordable motorcycles with a legendary badge and legit heritage will attract customers. Go figure."

For the aerial services

I wonder what they meant by "electrically equipped"?