RE Himalayan: 6 positives 6 negatives

There are many positives about the Royal Enfield Himalayan apart from the pricing:

1. Bash-plate as standard, makes sense for something that’s supposed to stay mostly off-road
2. 15 liter fuel tank, not too big like the Benelli 650GT’s 27 liter unit that fucks with handling, not too small like the 11 liter joke in the Duke that’s always running empty
3. Information-rich console, the compass is a nice touch, so is the temperature gauge
4. 10,000 kms service interval, great for lazy cunts like me who don’t want to care about their motorcycle at all
5. 220 mm of ground clearance, I know how important that is after repeatedly scraping my Duke’s bottom that’s got 170mm of it
6. A decent pillion seat. I don’t think it’s going to be overly comfortable, but my wife will take literally anything over the Duke

And there are some obvious negatives too:

1. Carburetor on a so-called “adventure” bike is proper stupidity. Sure carbs can be fixed by hand against the specialist tools required for an EFI system, but it’s very rare for the fuel injection system to go kaput, which is why all the bloody cars have them. RE themselves claim the carb is setup to go only till 12,000 feet, and most of the interesting places in the Himalayas are way higher than that
2. Lack of ABS is a downer, but I don’t mind it at that price point. What would be truly awesome is an ABS version at a slight premium, plus maybe EFI too?
3. The general consensus about off-road wheels seems tilted towards spokes rather than alloys, but I don’t really understand that. Alloys have come a long way, and the advantage spokes used to have in terms of weight is no longer there. With the spokes that the Himalayan has, you get tube tires, and they suck, because punctures are a huge pain in the ass. The ease of use of an alloy and the extra safety nets it offers over a spoked rim are just too much to ignore
4. 24.5 bhp is just not enough, and it appears that everyone agrees with it. Hopefully this is just an experiment by RE, and a bigger engine will come in the future
5. The sweet spot for the Himalayan seems to be similar to that of a Bullet 350, which is something around the 80-90 kmph mark. Even if you ship your bike from Mumbai to Chandigarh, you still have to do roughly 1000 kms of highways in a standard Ladakh circuit, and the Himalayan won’t be much fun over there
6. Why wasn’t the brilliant projector lamp from the Thunderbird series used in the Himalayan? The light from that thing is just so much better than any standard bulb, and you already have it in one of your bikes!