350cc Triumph Speed T4 vs Royal Enfield Bullet 350: 350cc Retro Bikes’ Detailed Comparison

We’ve been quite fond of the Triumph Speed T4 ever since it came out. Now, in its 349cc avatar, the bike is still lovely to ride. It feels more retro than before now. So we thought of putting it against the segment heavyweight – the Royal Enfield Bullet 350 – for they’re both 350cc retro bikes. 

Price & Variants

• Royal Enfield bikes are known to be excellent value for the money you’re paying and the Bullet 350 is no different. The base variant is almost Rs 31,000 than the Speed T4. We think the Standard Maroon paint scheme looks the best on the Bullet 350 and even that costs less than the T4. 

• While the Bullet 350’s base variant has only single-channel ABS, the dual-channel ABS variants are still priced very competitively. 

• These things said, the Speed T4 in itself is still a well-priced motorcycle. It has the Triumph badge and a more sophisticated engine, while still costing under Rs 2 lakh. 

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Dimensions & Design 

• The Speed T4 is longer than the Classic 350, but narrower, making it feel more compact. 

• While that makes it very agile in the city, it’s not exactly a motorcycle that grabs a lot of attention immediately. 

• The Bullet 350, meanwhile, is the complete opposite. It’s a big, muscular motorcycle that still turns heads, decades after it was first launched, despite its overall silhouette not drastically changing. 

• The bike feels bigger and more of a task when filtering through traffic. Even the 15kg weight difference is something you will feel at low speeds or when walking the bike in a parking lot. 

• If you’re fine with the T4’s compact build, it’s an easy and fun bike to ride in the city. It feels lighter than 180kg and you can filter through traffic quite rapidly. 

Features & Safety

• Both bikes don’t have much to flaunt about in the features department, for they’re retro bikes and that’s okay. Retro bikes are meant to charm you with an old school appeal, not have big TFTs with all the modern tech. 

• That said, we would’ve liked to see at least a basic form of navigation on the Speed T4. Touring on motorcycles has really picked up in India and having even a basic turn-by-turn navigation can be a very useful thing to have for tours. 

• Another thing we would’ve loved to see in both bikes is traction control. Both the Triumph Speed T4 and the Royal Enfield Bullet 350 have torquey engines and our roads are infamous for having sand and gravel at the most random places. So having a basic safety feature that prevents wheel spin would keep you at peace. 

Engines

• Both the Speed T4 and the Bullet 350’s engine characteristics are similar. Both engines have a lot of torque, meaning a lot of grunt from the word go. It doesn’t matter if you are one or two gears higher than you should be, the engine is tractable and grunty enough to pull through cleanly without any juddering. 

• That said, the T4’s engine is liquid-cooled, adding an extra layer of sophistication. So it makes more power and torque and can rev quite a bit more than the Bullet. While the Bullet doesn’t have a lot of grunt post say 5,000rpm, the Speed T4 will happily rev beyond that figure. 

• On the whole though, both bikes are nice to ride in the city and very capable out on the highways. Both of them can hold a steady 90-100kmph and you can tour on both without breaking a sweat. 

• But very serious tourers should note that the T4 is a physically small motorcycle, meaning you don’t have a lot of space to actually mount luggage. 

Verdict 

The Triumph Speed T4 and the Royal Enfield Bullet 350 are lovely bikes to ride – 2 of our favourites in the 350cc retro bike space, meaning it is a bit hard to choose between them. 

The Speed T4 looks retro but it does feel a lot more modern underneath, be it the compact dimensions or the agile handling. It seems to be paying equal attention to the ‘neo’ and ‘retro’ in its neo-retro tag. So under the retro looks, if you want a bike that’s genuinely fun and borderline exciting to ride, you should definitely get the Speed T4. 

But if you want something that’s out and out classic. A bike that looks, feels and rides like an old bike (in all the nice ways), the Royal Enfield Bullet 350 is the bike to get. That J-series engine is charming and there’s a reason the bike has been at the top of the retro bike segment in India for all these years. 

Rivals: 

If you’re on a strict budget, go for the affordable Hunter 350. If you don’t mind paying extra for the premium badge, the Speed T4 is a great bike to ride. 

The Speed T4 feels like a more sophisticated, well-rounded product than Jawa 42.

The Speed T4 looks better and is more capable than the Ronin out on the highway, making it our pick of the 2. 

If you have the budget to stretch for the T4, it’s the bike we recommend, for it’s easier to ride, looks better and is more exciting than Honda H’ness CB350.