The December issue of Classic Bike has a Royal Enfield Meteor on the cover. This is a 500 Meteor Minor that was "restored", or more precisely upgraded by Rupert Paul. According to the text "...I had no intention on making it look like new. Mainly because a new Meteor Minor was a horrendous-looking bike. The engineering was pretty horrendous, too: tiller-like steering, no ground clearance, a hugely cumbersome seat/mudguard arrangement, a puny engine breather, a hulking great distributor behind the cylinders, and brackets on brackets all over the place"... "Leaving aside the handsome but feeble engine, the main issue with the Meteor was its bizarre frame design, where the rear suspension looked like an afterthought, and the awkward controls. The bars lagged two inches behind the steering axis, and the footrests were way too forward because that was the only place they would fit". But after hundreds of hours of work "it's wonderful". Unfortunately, the article does not appear to be online.
No comments:
Post a Comment