RE Himalayan vs Triumph Tiger Comparison Review

RE Himalayan vs Triumph Tiger Comparison Review

Power to Weight Ratio (PS/ton):  RE Himalayan – 135, Tiger 800 XRX – 455 (Δ336%)
Torque to Weight Ratio (Nm/ton): RE Himalayan – 176, Tiger 800 XRX – 378 (Δ214%)

Power (PS@rpm): RE Himalayan – 24.5@6500, Tiger 800 XRX – 95@9250
Torque (Nm@rpm): RE Himalayan – 32@4000-4500, Tiger 800 XRX – 79@8250

Kerb Weight (kg): RE Himalayan – 182, Tiger 800 XRX – 209


Engine specifications:

Royal Enfield Himalayan


The Himalayan is powered by a single cylinder 411 cc oil cooled engine, this is the first attempt from Royal Enfield to fit the engine with an overhead cam shaft. Although, RE has managed to put in only 2 valves per cylinder. The engine manages to churn out about 24.5 bhp @ 6500 rpm along with a little bit of vibrations!

Triumph Tiger 800 XRX
Triumph has been making the Tiger dual sport series of motorcycles since 1993. The Tiger XRX 800 is powered by an inline 3 cylinder, liquid cooled engine. The engine manages to punch out a whopping 94 bhp @ 9250 rpm. The cutting edge engine is equipped with 4 valves per cylinder and a balancer shaft to manage the uneven firing of the cylinders.


Features:

Royal Enfield Himalayan
The Himalayan comes equipped with a digital compass and a hazard indicator switch as unique features. And for the first time for an Indian motorcycle, the front wheel is a massive 21 inches in size. ABS is expected to make its way to the Himalayan in 2017, thanks to the regulations.


The beast

Triumph Tiger 800 XRX
On the other hand, the Tiger is equipped with a hell lot of features like combined ABS, traction control modes, heated grips, hazard indicator switch, day running dual headlamp, ride-by-wire, cruise control, front 308 mm dual floating disc and 43 mm USD forks with 180 mm of travel.


Tiger 800 Speedo console with all tell-tales

Off-Road ability review:

Royal Enfield Himalayan is quite easy to handle, even at high speed in mud, due to its compact fuel tank and overall dimensions, even if you are lean and less than 6 feet high, you will not find difficulty in maneuvering the motorcycle. The suspension setup of the RE Himalayan is on softer side than expected for front as well as rear. On rough patches, it feels quite pliants, but it affects the composure around the corners. 



But on the Triumph Tiger XRX it is a completely different story, the bike weighs quite a lot more than the RE Himalayan and the rider sits higher as well. One major difference is that the bike's tank is quite wide compared to the Himalayan's, which makes a lot of difference, as even 6 feet high riders with bulkier thighs will find difficult to get good grip. With stock tires on the Tiger getting a grip on the muddy patches is a gamble, you need to be very quick to control the throttle. The traction control on the Tiger 800 kicks-in as soon as you to push the throttle harder in muddy and loose sand and keeping the Tiger on track needs a lot of concentration, due to its heavy character. But once you become friendly with the bikes behavior it becomes a walk in the park!


Performance and tractability:

Both bikes are meant to do long journeys with great comfort and also offer off-roading capabilities. The Himalayan due to its small and newly developed power-train the engine feels out of breath sometime while accelerating on tarmac, the engine make lot of annoying noise from the camshaft and the valve system. Himalayan low speed tractability is acceptable but gear shift quality is very poor and become difficult as some events. For Himalayan to Accelerate from 0-100 it takes about 10 seconds to do so. Himalayan can reach to a top speed of 130 kmph with lot of efforts. On the other hand the Triumph Tiger 800 XRX is a beast, due to it well engineered multi cylinder power-train performance is at peak. The Tiger 800 accelerates from 0-100 in under 4 seconds, if you wish to push hard the bike can hit the 110 kph marker in first gear it self. The Tiger can go beyond 200 kph if you wish to. The Tiger can literally be driven in any gear without feeling the loss of tractability which is due to its 79 Nm torque at just 7850 rpm.





Dimensions:

Royal Enfield Himalayan
The chassis of the Himalayan is a semi-double cradle steel structure with a 41 mm by 200 mm travel telescopic front fork. And it also has a steel tube rear swing arm with a multi-link mono-shock absorber. Bikes overall length is about 2190 mm under which lies the wheelbase of 1465 mm. On the Himalayan the lowest point of the bike is measured at about 200 mm. The rider sits at 800 mm from the ground on the Himalayan and it weighs about 182 kg with 90% fuel filled in the 15 liters of fuel tank.

Triumph Tiger 800 XRX
The Tiger features a steel tube trellis frame with cast aluminum rear swing arm which has 170 mm travel at rear. The bike has overall dimension of about 2215 mm with a wheelbase of 1530 mm. The rider sits at a minimum height of 810 mm. The Triumph Tiger weighs about 209 kg with 90% fuel out of 19 liter of fuel tank.


Price:

To own the Triumph Tiger 800 XRX you will have to pay around 13.13 lakhs with is almost 8 times higher than the Royal Enfield Himalayan which is priced at 1.65 lakhs on road Delhi.

















Verdict:

The RE Himalayan is a bike for first time riders who don't wish to spend too much of money for a adventure tourer, but the Tiger 800 is a bike for serious riders who really wish to conquer complete world on their motorcycle without any pain. But to own a Tiger just to own is not a good option, as it involves huge initial investment and high cost of ownership as well. If you are looking for off-road fun and touring as well for regular usage with minimal investment RE Himalayan is the only choice currently available in India.

I wish those were Tigers :P


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