Royal Enfield Hunter 350
Royal Enfield have just launched their new Hunter 350 model in Bangkok, Thailand, offering another flavour to their 350 line-up, with a slightly more modern roadster feel, compared to the Classic 350’s retro theme, and the Meteor 350’s more cruiser orientated style.
Royal Enfield have also explained that a number of geometry tweaks will help the Hunter 350 stand out, with a sharper handling characteristic than the very relaxed offerings in the existing 350 range. That includes a shorter wheelbase, revised rake and trail to the chassis developed by Harris Performance.
Powered by a 349 cc, single-cylinder four-stroke with EFI, the Hunter 350 is still air-cooled and produces 20.2 hp and 27 Nm of torque, with a quoted top speed of 114 km/h making the bike just barely highway viable here in Australia, as long as you don’t need to overtake. Hopefully their figure is an overly-cautious maximum, with just a five-speed gearbox run.
There can be little doubt the Hunter 350 is aimed squarely at the rider segment where performance isn’t much of a concern, with a greater focus on style and the more urban environment, which aligns with the existing 350 and now defunct 500 models. For performance riders need to look instead to the 650s.
The Hunter 350 is more akin to the Meteor 350, boasting a blacked out engine, chassis and wheel loadout, simple dual seat, single headlight and muffler, with colour options swapping between tank colours and graphics for a hint of individuality.
The bike weighs in at 181 kg wet, with 790 mm seat height and 13 L fuel tank, while disc brakes feature at each end. That’s a 300 mm front rotor with dual-piston caliper, and 270 mm rear mated to a single-piston unit, and dual-channel ABS is standard, as we’d expect with it now being mandatory.
Forks are 41 mm units with 130 mm of travel and no adjustability, however there’s six stops of preload adjustment on the dual rear emulsion shocks, which offer 102 mm of travel.
Royal Enfield also reckon the 13 L tank should be good for just over 450 km based on their fuel economy rating of 36.2 km/L, which is pretty impressive, particularly if that holds true for constant WoT use, which is likely to be the norm for keeping up with traffic.
Wheels are also 17-inch alloy units, with a 110/70 front tyre and 140/70 rear and are tubeless.
There’s a digital-analogue dash, with a main dash that appears to read up to 160 km/h on the traditional speedo that surrounds a digital readout, with a smaller secondary digital dash also visible on the bike. Dash readouts include odo, trip, gear, fuel graph, low fuel warning, clock and service reminder.
There’s also a USB charging port as standard fitment, with the taillight an LED unit. You’ll have to fork out for the LED indicators as an accessory though and the headlight is a traditional halogen unit, which probably does offer easy swaps of the bulb, if at the expense of light.
Accessorising the bike is also taken into account, with engine and sump guards available, pannier and luggage mounts, custom seats, touring mirrors, tinted flyscreen, tail tidy and more available.
Pictures provided of the Hunter 350 also suggest good build quality, with the bike to arrive in Australia with a three-year warranty and three-year roadside assist included.
There’s no pricing released as of yet, however the Meteor 350 range starts at $8,190 ride-away, and the Classic 350 starts at $7,990 ride-away. It seems likely the Hunter 350 would sit in a similar region to the Meteor, perhaps carrying a slight premium.
Demand for retro and neo-retro motorcycles certainly seems to be remaining strong, which has been an area Royal Enfield have been able to take advantage of, although performance certainly lags behind most of the other 300-400 cc beginner bikes by a decent margin, especially if you’re considering bang for buck.
That said, the Royal Enfield Hunter 350 offers similar performance to the SR400 relaunched by Yamaha in 2014, and that bike was about $10,000 on the road, while Husqvarna’s neo-retro Svartpilen 401 can be picked up for closer to $7k ride-away for an MY21 model.
There’s no doubt the Royal Enfield is the most retro of the current options available, even if it has adopted EFI, with the earlier Rumbler 350 offering some fun for the urban rat-run.
Royal Enfield Hunter 350 Specifications
| Royal Enfield Hunter 350 Specifications | |
| Capacity | 349 cc |
| Type | Single cylinder, four-stroke |
| Fuel Supply | Electronic Fuel Injection |
| Cam drive | SOHCÂ |
| Cooling | Air-Oil cooled |
| Bore x Stroke | 75 x 85.8 mm |
| Compression Ratio | 9.5:1Â |
| Valves | 2 |
| Power (BHP) | 20.2 @ 6100 rpm |
| Torque (Nm) | 27 @ 4000 rpm |
| Max Speed | 114 Km/h |
| Fuel economy | (Kmpl) 36.2*Â |
| Clutch Type | Wet multiplate |
| Gears | Five |
| Mass Wet | 181 kg |
| Payload | 179 kg |
| Fuel Capacity | Â 13 LÂ |
| Seat Height | 790 |
| Ground clearance | 150.5 |
| Rake | 25 ° |
| Trail | 96.4 mm |
| Steering Lock | 43 ° |
| Wheelbase | 1370 mm |
| Tyre, Front | Alloy wheel- 110/70-17 54P |
| Tyre, Rear | Alloy Wheel – 140/70 – 17 – 66P |
| Frame | Twin Downtube Spine Frame |
| Suspension, Front | Telescopic, 41mm forks 130 mm travel |
| Suspension, Rear | Twin tube Emulsion shock absorbers with six-step adjustable preload, 102 mm travel |
| Brakes, Front | 300 mm fixed disc with twin piston floating caliper |
| Brakes, Rear | 270 mm disc, single piston caliper |
| ABS Type | Dual Channel |
