Royal Enfield Interceptor 650

The Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 was one of the first modern made-in-India multi-cylinder motorcycles that was launched in the country back in 2018, along with its sibling the Royal Enfield Continental GT650. While the Interceptor may be modern in terms of when it was launched, it is basically a twin-cylinder retro bike that pays homage to the original Royal Enfield Interceptor from the 1960s. 

I was among the first few lucky Indian automobile journalists who got to ride the Interceptor 650 back in September 2018 in California, USA. After that I’ve used the Interceptor 650 as my personal long term test bike for almost a year, clocking over 10,000km on it - riding it on my daily commute as well as taking it for long and short rides around Pune. And I’ve even spent quite a bit of time on the recently updated Interceptor which got an LED headlight and alloy wheels with tubeless tyres.

Interceptor 650 Design

The Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 is a beautiful retro-style motorcycle. With its round headlight, tear-drop shaped fuel tank, twin-pod instrument console, flat seat and dual exhaust pipes, the Interceptor looks like a proper vintage bike. And while recently the Interceptor got an updated LED headlight, it still has a bulb-type tail light and turn indicators, which still helps the bike retain its retro charm.

Interceptor 650 Colours

The Interceptor 650 is available in 6 colour options - Black Ray, Barcelona Blue, Sunset Strip, Canyon Red, Cali Green and Mark 2. From these, only the Black Ray and Barcelona Blue come with alloy wheels with tubeless tyres as well as blacked out treatment for the engine and twin exhausts. All other colour variants get wire spoke wheels and a brushed metal finish for the engine and exhausts. Personally, I quite like the Barcelona Blue with its orange and yellow stickers on the tank, and blacked out engine, alloy wheels and exhausts. And generally I would also recommend the Interceptor 650’s alloy wheel variants to most buyers, as fixing punctures on the Interceptor’s wire-spoke wheels is a royal pain. But my favourite colour scheme is Sunset strip - the red and black tank looks super clean and the wire-spoke wheels add a retro charm that the alloy wheels simply don’t have. 

Interceptor 650 Build Quality

While the Interceptor 650 may not have the same road presence as the Royal Enfield Classic 350, I really do think it looks beautiful. The paint quality is excellent, especially the chrome finish on the Mark 2 colour option, and the welds are clean with consistent panel gaps all across. The Interceptor is built like a tank and in my time with it, almost nothing went wrong with it, barring a small fuel leak from the fuel tank caused by the rubber seal for the fuel pipe hardening and cracking because it was left out in the sun far too many times. But as far as I know, this issue only occurred on that one bike. In fact, I once had a small crash on the Interceptor, and the only damage was a bent brake lever and a couple of scuffs on the engine case. In the monsoon though, I did observe a lot of condensation inside the instrument console pods.

The Interceptor 650 is meant to be a proper retro bike, and as such doesn’t have too many modern features.

Interceptor 650 Safety Features

In terms of safety, the Interceptor only gets dual channel ABS as standard, which makes it safer when panic braking over a slippery surface.

Interceptor 650 Convenience Features

The Interceptor 650 gets a twin pod instrument console with an analogue speedometer and analogue tachometer in either pod. These pods look really cool and old school, and watching the analogue tachometer needle jump as you go through the gears is a pleasure to watch. Apart from that, there’s a digital inset in the left pod which shows the fuel gauge, odometer, trip meters, etc. There’s also a USB charging port located behind the clutch lever, and even the clutch and brake levers are also span-adjustable, so riders with different hand sizes will be able to find a comfortable hand position. Along with these features, Royal Enfield also gave the Interceptor an LED headlight, which honestly works just about okay.

Interceptor 650 Rider Comfort

The Interceptor 650 has a long bench-type seat, which is set up quite soft. This makes it comfortable for short commutes, but on longer rides, I tended to sink into the seat too much (for reference, I weigh around 80kg), and that caused me a lot of back pain when touring. Thankfully, Royal Enfield offers a touring seat as an option, which is much firmer and far better for touring. The seat height is 804mm, and thanks to the bike’s narrow design, it was very easy for me to plant both my feet flat on the ground (I’m 5’9” by the way). Even my shorter colleagues, those who are around 5’6”-5' 7” could get both feet on the ground, but they couldn’t completely flatfoot the bike.

The rider’s seating position of the Interceptor is a bit stretched out and wide. The wide handlebar did have me sitting in a wide, chest open position, with a very slight lean forward towards the handlebar. But my shorter colleagues have complained that the handlebar feels too far away from them and they really need to stretch forward to reach the controls. This can be fixed to a certain extent by rotating the handlebar towards the rider. The footpegs are rearset, but not aggressively so. So while I did sit in a slightly aggressive riding position, it never felt overly aggressive for my height of 5’9”. But my biggest complaint with the footpegs is that they really get in the way of your legs when you’re trying to move the bike with your feet. The footpegs tended to slam against my shins when doing this, and it was very painful unless I was wearing full length motorcycle boots.

Interceptor 650 Pillion Comfort

The pillion experience on the Interceptor is not the best. The standard seat is so soft that pillions tend to sink in it very easily, and the tapered rear section compresses a lot, making the pillion feel that they’re falling backwards. Making matters worse are the high set pillion footpegs, thanks to the upswept dual exhausts. This puts the pillion in a very knees up seating position which is quite comfortable. The overall backseat experience does get slightly better with the optional touring seat, but honestly, in my experience, pillions will only be able to manage short trips on the Interceptor.

Interceptor 650 Engine

The Interceptor 650 is deceptively fast thanks to its smooth and powerful engine. But at its heart, this 648cc parallel engine is quite simple - it’s air-cooled and uses a two-valve per cylinder setup. It produced 47.45PS of peak power and 52.3Nm of peak torque, which are respectable output figures for a retro motorcycle. I had done some performance tests using a VBOX, and here’s how the Interceptor 650’s performance compares to its nearest rivals.

Interceptor 650 City Performance

The Interceptor’s 648cc engine is quite refined and free-revving, with loads of torque and has a great throttle response. This makes the engine very usable in city conditions. I could easily ride in fairly high gears at slow speeds, without the bike juddering at all. In fact, I could keep the bike in sixth gear at speeds as slow as 40kmph without any problems. And thanks to the slipper clutch, I didn’t have to work my left hand too hard when I was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. 

Interceptor 650 Heating Issues

Now at slow speeds, the Interceptor’s air-cooled engine does run a bit warm. But because there’s no radiator blowing hot air towards your legs, you don’t feel this heat, unless your feet are touching the engine case, and you’re not wearing proper riding boots. But if you’ve got proper boots on, there is no heating issue on the Interceptor.

Interceptor 650 Highway Performance

On the highway, the Interceptor can sit at speeds of 100-110kmph all day long without any problem. And thanks to the ample mid-range torque that the engine has, overtaking is fairly effortless. That said, sixth gear is an overdrive gear, so it doesn’t have too much punch for quick overtakes. But if I downshifted to fifth gear while cruising, I could overtake traffic quickly and smoothly. The engine is very smooth at highway speeds too. It’s only during overtakes when I would go much faster than 100-110kmph, I could feel a buzz in the footpegs. But it never got annoying at any point.

Interceptor 650 Mileage

In my daily commutes in Pune city, I got a mileage of 25.35kmpl when I did a full tank to full tank test, and generally it would always give me between 25 and 26kmpl in the city. On the highway though, I got a mileage of 33.17kmpl. With its 13.4-litre fuel tank, I would easily get a range of about 350-400km on a tankful.

Interceptor 650 Underpinnings

The Royal Enfield Interceptor 650’s chassis, developed by Harris Performance, traces its roots back to the sweet-handling Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 and has great body weight balance. It’s basically a tubular steel double-cradle frame with a telescopic fork at the front and twin gas-charged, preload-adjustable shocks at the rear.

Interceptor 650 City Handling

With a kerb weight of 218kg, the Interceptor 650 is a fairly heavy bike. And when you’re moving at slow speeds, you can feel this weight. It’s not the easiest bike to maneuver through chockablock traffic and required me to muscle it around in such conditions. The wide handlebars did give me enough leverage to change direction easily enough when I picked up some speeds. But at really slow speeds, I had to be quite mindful of the weight. And even the twin exhausts stick out quite a bit on each side, so I had to be extra careful when squeezing through narrow gaps in traffic.

Interceptor 650 Highway Handling

Once the Interceptor starts moving at slightly higher speeds, it’s a lot easier to manage. On the highway, I was easily able to change lanes and even around corners, the Interceptor inspired a lot of confidence. It did take a little effort to tip into corners, but once leaned over, it did quite stable. That said, the CEAT Zoom Cruz tyres didn’t offer great grip when I tried to push the bike harder.

Interceptor 650 Braking

The Interceptor 650 gets a 320mm disc brake at the front and a 240mm disc at the rear, with dual-channel ABS as standard. The brakes are quite powerful and bring this heavy beast to a stop quickly when required. But I did find that I had to squeeze the front brake lever quite a bit for the brakes to really engage. Thankfully, the dual-channel ABS ensured no skidding, even when braking hard on slippery surfaces. Here’s how my braking test on the Interceptor compares to its main rival

Interceptor 650 Ride Quality

The Interceptor’s soft suspension and large tyres allow it to handle uneven surfaces smoothly at high speeds. But the moment I hit sharp edges on the road or large potholes, the suspension tended to bottom out, and sent a slightly painful jolt up my back. But surprisingly, despite its tendency to bottom out, the Interceptor didn’t scrape its underbelly on speed breakers, even with a heavy pillion rider on board.

The Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 is a wonderful retro bike which looks really classy, is fun to ride and has a smooth and powerful engine that sounds wonderful too. It’s reliable and quite solidly built too. But it is quite a heavy bike to manage everyday, and not everyone might enjoy this aspect of the Interceptor. Plus its stock seat is a major issue for traveling long distances, so buying the optional touring seat becomes a must if you’re into touring. But for the price, there are almost no other bikes in the Indian market that will give you such an authentic retro experience with a good blend of performance as well.

BSA Gold Star 650

The BSA Gold Star 650 is also a properly retro motorcycle that pays homage to the bikes from the 1960s. It’s lighter than the Interceptor 650, making it much easier to manage in urban conditions. It offers comparable performance as well, and in fact is a little quicker than the Interceptor because of its lighter weight. But the Interceptor’s twin-cylinder engine is much smoother than the Gold Star’s single-cylinder engine. And the Gold Star’s soft suspension setup makes it feel unsettled on our uneven highways. The Interceptor offers much better ride quality in general.