Skyrocketed to top position
After the crowning of the Meteor 350 to MCN “2021 – Retro Bike of Year”, Ironwood Motorcycles, have launched “The Starship Meteor” – a custom version of the affordable urban cruiser.
Earlier this year BikeBrewers had a fun day on this bike when it was introduced. Read about our experience in this post.

Since its launch at the end of 2020, the Meteor 350 has quickly built up a cult status worldwide and won multiple awards and accolades around the world. Praised for its build quality, retro styling and refined design – and the remarkable price point for a motorcycle that offers so much more than the sum of its parts – it offers a rather remarkable blank canvas to then stamp your own personality on.

Build your own
The in-house Custom Team of Royal Enfield’s English technical centre challenged Ironwood Motorcycles and its creative director and founder Arjan van den Boom to design and build their own ideal Easy Cruiser.

Arjan van den Boom of Ironwood Motorcycles: “The Meteor meets a lot of requirements, and it was our job to spice it up a bit. As a basic package, the Meteor is hard to beat for the budget-concious rider. Ultimately, we wanted this important element of accessibility and entry into the world of motorcycling and customizing motorcycles, which the Meteor offers, retained – but of course add our unique ‘Ironwood creative touch’ to this particular build.

Hitting the streets of Amsterdam
We received a Meteor Fireball Yellow from the team at Royal Enfield and immediately rode it through the streets of Amsterdam as much as possible to get used to the feel and ergonomics of the bike before taking it apart.
Because the seating position is super comfortable and the balance refined, we wanted to preserve as much of the original Meteor DNA as possible. Motorcycles with a smaller displacement engines are too often classified as ‘entry-level engines’, which is really unfortunate. Our goal was to give the Meteor a sprinkle of the Ironwood sauce and an overall more powerful look by upgrading a number of parts, while ensuring that the Meteor’s core identity would remain intact.”

Clear vision
Continuing: “We had a very clear visual identity what we wanted to develop. This was largely inspired by our love for all things Star Wars! We decided to blacken many of the parts so that the fantastic “Meteor Rain” paint from Royal Kustom Works on the tank would really stand out from the rest. The black fork protectors, the black supercross handlebars, custom fenders, the fat thick rubbers from Continental and the piggyback shock absorbers from YSS compliment what we consider to be a very exciting look
The CNC manufactured saddle support, our signature floating bobber saddle, further adds to the true custom look of the motorcycle. The diamond pattern on the saddle is all hand finished by our good friend Marcel Miller of Miller Kustom Upholstery.

The Biltwell grips, Motogadget turn signals in the front and the Kellermann 1000DF taillights, combined with the custom piping that breathes through an Akrapovic muffler, result in a beautiful little Urban Cruiser that exceeds expectation.
Each time you start this air-cooled one cylinder engine, a nice growl comes out of the racing exhaust and you feel like hitting the road.

Mission accomplished!”

Royal Enfield’s view
Adrian Sellers, Head of Royal Enfield’s Custom Programme, reacts: “Ironwood’s creative minds have followed the assignment we gave them more than perfectly and we are very happy with the end result. Importantly, the core identity of the Meteor 350 – a motorcycle we know provides a fantastic basic platform for creative expression – has been retained and embraced.

This project reinforces how important accessibility is for us as a brand, and how much can be achieved with a little imagination. All credit to Arjan and the Ironwood team – this is the first custom build we have done with the Meteor, and it marks an important and exciting milestone for this 350 engine platform”

The Ironwood Custom Meteor 350 will be on display at the EICMA 2021 in Milan at the end of November.

The post ‘Starship Meteor’ – Royal Enfield meteor by Ironwood Customs appeared first on BikeBrewers.com.

The Meteor has landed

Based on a heritage from decades ago, the newly designed 350cc platform inherits the name from an iconic Royal Enfield motor in the early 1950’s. Launched at the end of 1952 the Royal Enfield Meteor was a magnificent touring motorcycle with a reputation that stood the test of time.
In those days the segment for touring bikes was not yet dominated by those bulky 1000CC+ engines like the ones we seem to need today. Let’s be honest, life was easier and quite a bit slower in those days.

British heritage
The Indian manufacturer has a strong British heritage, and portrays the Meteor 350 as an “easy cruiser which carries Royal Enfield’s signature styling, but with many firsts and is set to be an equally outstanding machine for our times.”
We could not agree more. The BikeBrewers test team had the pleasure of riding this little thumpers for a full day in both urban circumstances and on lovely twisty country roads.
The weather was spectacular and the smiles on our faces could not be wiped away no matter how hard you would try to polish them off.
The Royal Enfield technicians have managed to produce a single 350cc engine which will run without hardly any vibrations whatsoever. They have done a truly remarkable job at balancing the crankshaft.

New engine
At the heart of the Meteor is a ‘J series’ air-cooled 349cc SOHC engine. It has a characteristic long stroke, producing smooth tractable power (20 BHP) and a bottom-end torque of 27Nm. Now this may not sound very impressive when we are surrounded by torque packed machines which launch you from one traffic light to another, but that’s not what this bike is about.
The Meteor is about finding yourself enjoying the ride and the world around you. No need for speed, no adrenaline rush, just pure riding fun like they used to have seventy years ago.

It’s the perfect bike for some laid back cruising. It hums like a sewing machine and handles smoothly. The fuel consumption is amazingly low at a whopping 100mpg or 40 km/l! The maximum speed of around 120 km/h is manageable.
With an enhanced chassis setup, sporting a new double-cradle frame, accessible riding position (this was much appreciated by our lady rider!), advanced braking ability, high specification suspension and responsive power delivery, the Meteor is potent enough to provide you with a smooth ride around town or on a winding country road. It is fast enough to feel secure on the highway too, but when you are on a bike like this you are likely to take the ‘long way home’ on any given day of the week.

It is a truly agile machine with very light handling and no compromises on rider comfort. Royal Enfield produced a machine that is expected to be massively popular in Asia, where small displacement motorcycles are far more popular than in Western countries. But also in new markets such as Argentina, Colombia and Brazil.

New fans
Still, we are convinced that this new 350cc platform will attract a whole new crowd of fans in European countries too. From young professionals who need to zoom around town from one meeting to another, to young riders who are looking for a carefree bike to take out on weekend trips, exactly as can be seen in the tasty sepia coloured video on the manufacturer’s YouTube channel.

To get you from A to B efficiently, Royal Enfield have added the new Tripper Navigation system to the Meteor also. Quite a treat to have a machine in a price range which is just below the € 5K mark which comes with this feature in its standard package!

It is a system powered by Google Maps and the Royal Enfield designed App. It faultlessly connects any smartphone with the motorcycle through Bluetooth. It then becomes a sophisticated navigation solution, rich in features and specially developed for motorcyclists that indicates directions through an intuitive display system.
Increasing the fun is a USB charging port to make sure your phone can continue to direct the Tripper system until you reach your destination. We had ample time to test this device and we love its simplicity. It does exactly what you want it to do, without unnecessary frills or other complicated stuff that are initially invented to make life easier, but in fact fail to do so in real-life.

Final verdict
Little discussion was required to reach consensus. This is a funky little bike that will definitely attract a whole new audience in Europe too.
Looking at the success Royal Enfield have had over the last couple of years with their new 650cc models, we are pretty sure that the Meteor will follow in those footsteps without missing a single (cylinder) beat.

Photography by @itsmenubbs and @pienmeppelink

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The post FIRST RIDE: 2021 Royal Enfield Meteor 350 appeared first on BikeBrewers.com.