The 2022 Royal Enfield Hunter 350 features the J-Series engine and is hoped to attract a more youthful type of rider to the brand
IT’S not far off 40-degrees, the humidity is around 75-percent, and it’s 11:30pm. I’m in central Bangkok and riding the new 2022 Royal Enfield Hunter 350 through Chinatown which is in full Saturday night swing.
I’m doing my best to dodge the tuk-tuks, questionable-looking ‘ladies’ and entire families as they ride 4-up on shitbox PCX 125 clones. Sid Lal, owner and MD of Royal Enfield is riding next to me and we still have two hours of this ahead of us. The waft of street food fills my lid and stings my eyes. I'm amazed that I’ve not ran over a stray dog yet.
As launch experiences go, this has to be the most insane press rides I’ve ever taken part in.
And you might be wondering why Royal Enfield had shipped us halfway across the world to Bangkok to try out what is likely to be a £4,000 motorcycle – and to be honest, so was I. The Hunter 350 though is a slightly different proposition to the rest of the brands offerings. It’s not looking to tap into the pipe smoking, tweed wearing customer base like the Classic 350 is. The Hunter is a youthful bike that belongs in the city, and there is no city more complex or vibrant as Bangkok!
To find out more about the new bike’s specs features and details, cast your eyes down the page for a full rundown. To find out what the new bike is like to ride, read on.
With around 20bhp on tap, the Hunter is not the fastest machine I’ve ever swung a leg over. It is though a fairly gutsy motor, with around 19lb-ft of torque on offer. Every green light we vacate requires a ‘full gas’ launch, and the bike pounces off the line, briskly enough to keep ahead of the throng of chasing traffic. Basically, it’s a bike you can ride pretty much flat out, everywhere and anywhere without too much stress.
The fuelling of the bike has a woolly feel to it, something that points to how many hoops the team have had to jump through to get the two-valve engine through the latest Euro emissions regulations. The ride-by-wire throttle can be a little clumsy when picking up the power mid-corner, but overall it’s an easy-going and accessible thing to get on and ride.
For riders already out in the world of two-wheels riding big bikes, the Hunter’s low power output and modest performance will likely leave you wanting more fairly quickly. For newer riders though, and those moving up from 125cc machines, it’s an easy step-up in performance that wouldn’t take too much adjusting to.
Cruising at 65 to 70mph with bike feels fairly buzzy with the mirrors being basically useless above 40mph. Drop the speed back to between 50 and 55 and it gets slightly better, as long as you don’t mind not being able to see what’s going on behind you.
With some subtle tweaks over both the Classic and Meteor 350 machines, the Hunter is the most focused of the current J-Series bikes. It runs 17-inch wheels front and rear meaning its handling is direct and the steering is light. Scything through the streets of Bangkok was a perfect way to test out the capabilities of the machine, fighting our way through the mass of tuk-tuks and scooters was an enthralling experience. With acres of steering lock on offer, last-minute direction changes in the traffic are easy, and the bike's low seat and narrow profile do make it a perfect bike to hack around the urban jungle.
The suspension system only features adjustable preload on the rear shock absorbers, so you’ll either need to like or lump the settings. It’s a fairly firm but not overly harsh set-up, riding the myriad of lumps and bumps on the road fairly well. It’s slightly firmer on the rear than it really needs to be for UK roads, although in Asian markets (where bikes are regularly loaded up with three or four people) it should be fine.
The braking system on the bike comprises a two-piston caliper at the front, and a single item at the rear. The front brake has an extremely plush feel to it, although a good squeeze will provide you with enough braking power to have the front wheel chirping away to the tune of the ABS. The rear brake on the other hand is very direct, with loads of power. It’s perfect for a bike designed to live in the city, and slow speed control and accuracy really are two of this bike’s best traits.
Away from the inner city, the launch event took us to the Impact Speedpark in the Pakkret suburb of the city. Here Royal Enfield had lined up a few sessions on a go-kart track to get grips with the bike's handling when pushed a little harder. It’s a fairly sizable track, getting on for 1,000m in length and the layout selected for us was quite complex, with lots of switchbacks and direction changes with some fast, sweeping corners thrown in.
After a quick safety briefing (go fast don’t die) we were flagged away for a four-lap session to get to grips with the layout, and it definitely wasn’t a race. Handily I completely forgot that final point, jumped the started and headed into turn one in the lead. As the laps ticked by, we all started to push the Hunter harder and most of us hit the biggest limitation of the new model – its tyres. The CEAT hoops fitted as standard don’t really heat up much, and with a stiff construction and hard compound there were plenty of slips, slides, and front-end tucks.
Another issue with the handling at high lean angles is the exhaust. Through left-handers, I could get the pegs decked out easily, although on the right hand side it was the exhaust that would touch down before anything else. Push it over any further than that and the bike would lift itself up on the exhaust, elevating the front tyre off the track and causing quite a significant ‘moment’! For most riders on most roads, this kind of thing will never be a problem, and to be fair to the bike, we were pushing it well outside of its urbanite comfort zone!
With a total of around 7-hours seat time on the bike, I was impressed by the comfort level of the little Royal Enfield. Everything about it feels easy going and neutral. With an 800mm seat height, narrow step-over and wide bars, my five-foot seven-inch frame never felt cramped or constricted. The same dimensions also make the bike extremely easy to manage, be it manual handling off the stand or paddling the bike into a parking spot, it genuinely is one of the easiest bikes to get along with on that front.
One of the biggest plus points to the new bike is the styling. It’s a chunky looking thing, with an edgy and youthful vibe to it that I really like. I’m also mightily impressed with the small design touches the bike features. On a budget bike like this, brake and clutch levers can so easily be generic parts bin stuff, but on the Hunter, they are actually lovely looking things.
The switchgear too is very well made with a nice retro style to it. I raise this as on some retro bikes, it’s small things like the switchgear that can all to often let a good looking bike down.
For me the new Hunter is an alternative to bikes like the KTM Duke 390, Yamaha MT-03, and BMW G 310. Granted it is considerably down on power compared to them, but it has something none of them has – it’s a stylish-looking retro that is genuinely pleasing on the eye. It’s comfortable, very easy to ride and as simple as motorcycling gets. The soundtrack is great and with that retro single-cylinder throbbing away beneath you, it gives a totally different vibe when you are out on the streets. It’s a bike that doesn’t need to have insane levels of power and torque and the more seat time you get with it the more it gets under your skin.
I’m not saying it is perfect though, with some issues that mainly relate to the tyres and ground clearance, although as I mentioned further up the page, these might not be such critical points for many riders.
It's tricky to benchmark the bike against its rivals till we get the UK price later this year, although, with the Indian figure pointing to a price tag of around £4,000, it might be very good value too.
For more information on the new 2022 Royal Enfield Hunter 350, head to: www.royalenfield.com
THE 2022 Royal Enfield Hunter 350 is a bike that the Indian giant is aiming firmly at more youthful riders than most of its other models.
Think edgy urbanites, wafting from one side of the city to another, as they update their Instagram and TikTok profiles on the go. It’s similar to the Meteor and Classic 350 models, although even to look at it, you can tell it’s a very different proposition. Like the two bikes mentioned above, it uses the firm’s tidy-looking J-Series engine, and the frame is an adapted version of the one found on those models.
We’ll be publishing a full riding review of the bike on this page once the embargo lifts, until then, here’s everything we know about the new 2022 Royal Enfield Hunter 350.
As yet, the full UK price for the hunter 350 is unknown, although we can get an idea of how much based on the already released Indian price. The Hunter will hit the showrooms costing 1,63,900 INR, around £1700 at today's rates. The Meteor 350 in India comes in at 2,05,763 INR or around £2,100. We pay £3,749 for the Meteor in the UK, meaning the Hunter might be a slightly cheaper proposition when it lands here in autumn/winter 2022.
The Hunter will be available in six colours, Rebel Blue, Rebel Red, Rebel Black, Dapper Ash, Dapper White, and Dapper Grey. Each features its own decal design on the tank, wheel rims and airbox cover. The frame, wheels, suspension, and mudguards are the same across the range.
With the recently developed J-Series engine at its heart, the Hunter 350 isn’t the fastest and most powerful machine in Royal Enfield’s range, it is though a bike that Royal Enfield is hoping will win people over thanks to its accessible delivery and easy-going character.
The engine is a 349cc single-cylinder, SOHC featuring a 75x85.8mm bore and stroke. The engine is classed as air-cooled, although there are oil-cooling passages in the head of the motor – although no external oil-cooler is used on the bike. The engine is mated to a five-speed gearbox and wet multi-plate clutch.
Peak power is 20.2 BHP delivered at 6,100rpm, while peak torque is 19.9lb-ft at 4,000rpm. The engine redlines at 7,000rpm and it has a claimed top speed of 70mph.
With its 13l fuel tank, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the new bike isn’t a long-distance machine. That might not be the case though, as its claimed economy using the WMTC standard is quoted at 36km per litre. Some quick maths tells us that equates to a range of some 290 miles. If true, that’s an extremely good return, especially in these times of high-cost fuel.
The Hunter features a new frame design compared to the other J-Series bikes, and revised suspension and wheels to match. It runs on 17” rims front and rear, with a 140 section rear and 110 front. The forks are 41mm telescopic items with no adjustability, while the twin emulsion tube rear shocks feature 6-steps of adjustable preload.
The braking system comprises a twin-pot, floating caliper and 300mm disc at the front, and a single-piston caliper and 270mm disc at the rear. A 2-channel ABS comes fitted to the bike as standard.
Fuelled and ready to ride the machine tips the scales at 181kg, 10kg lighter than the Meteor and 14kg lighter than the Classic 350.
Alloy wheel- 110/70-17 54P (tubeless tyre)
Alloy Wheel - 140/70 – 17 66P (tubeless tyre)
Twin Downtube Spine Frame
Twin tube Emulsion shock absorbers with 6-step adjustable preload
300mm disc with twin piston foating caliper
270mm disc, single piston floating caliper