Is This a Royal Enfield 450 Rally Edition

Royal Enfield might have just given us a sneak peek of an incoming upgrade to the much-loved 450 adventure bike, as a Royal Enfield Himalayan 450 ‘Rally’ is reported to have been seen.

The news comes not from India, but from Spain, where a Himalayan 450 was entered in the Cuenca Rally 2024. The bike was ridden by Indian off-road rally racer, and national treasure, CS Santosh, who piloted the bike in the Trail class of the 400km two-day event.

While there is no confirmation from Royal Enfield as to what the bike actually was, many commentators are highlighting a number of changes from the standard Himalayan, all of which turn it into a more extreme and focused off-road machine.

The bike, which looks to still be in the development stage, is a more stripped-back version of the existing 450, with the most prominent feature being the tall rally tower (presumably carrying the sat-nav/road book) which is capped off with a trademark round headlight. The bodywork of the bike is also heavily modified, with the tail unit looking much slimmer and topped off with a proper enduro seat.

The chassis of the bike also seems to be upgraded, with the apparent inclusion of a more high-spec and longer travel suspension system. It’s not clear which brand has supplied the equipment for the bike, no branding can be seen sadly, but the gold anodised items are most definitely very different to the ones fitted to the existing bike. The front brake of the bike also seems to be different than the stock Himalayan 450, with the image above showing what looks like a higher-spec radially-mounted caliper.

Another tweak for the bike Santosh rode in the rally is an Akrapovic exhaust system. The inclusion of the more trick exhaust perhaps points to some other engine modifications, these could boost the bike’s output marginally from the 40bhp of the stock machine.

Motorcycle manufacturers have, in recent years, increasingly used motorcycle rally events to highlight their road-going adventure machines, sometimes posting strong results against much more focused and lighter enduro models. The Himmy Santosh rode in this rally event didn’t quite sweep the field, although the Indian team did manage to bring it home in one piece, albeit in 30th place out of 31 finishers. While that sounds like a poor result, the other bikes in the Trail category included things like KTM 500 EXC-Fs and Sherco 500s, which are much lighter, more focused and highly developed off-road bikes.

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