Review: 2024 Royal Enfield Himalayan 450

Royal Enfield motorcycles are a peculiar lot. After folding in the U.K. in the 1970s and transferring tooling, IP, and so forth to its partner factory in India, the company operated for decades in static seclusion within India’s massive domestic motorcycle market.

Annual sales volumes ran to hundreds of thousands of what were essentially post-war bike designs. It was only when the Indian transportation conglomerate Eicher took over in the 1990s that the company was modernized.

In 2016, with a new state-of-the-art factory in Chennai and an aspiration to sell at volume beyond India’s borders, Royal Enfield brought the Himalayan 411 ADV bike to world markets. The plucky “Himmie” 411 found a fan base outside of India—never mind that it could barely do the speed limit while flat out on most modern freeways.

Now, Royal Enfield has debuted the Himalayan 450, featuring the company’s first-ever liquid-cooled motor, alongside an upgraded, modern Showa suspension, a competent tech suite, and a $5,799 price tag—just a few hundred dollars more than the 411. I recently journeyed to the Utah mountains to sample the new Himalayan 450 on what appeared to be a typical fun day ride.

It turned out to be much, much more challenging.