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RSD x Royal Enfield Super Meteor 650 Chopper

Sep 7th 2023

The Royal Enfield Super Meteor is a fine machine and has its sights set on dominating the sub-750cc cruiser market. The Super Meteor's vintage look, coupled with quality main components and an affordable price tag, makes for an excellent machine at an attractive price point. Smaller riders, women, newcomers, or those looking for a grocery getter and a local bike would be beyond happy with a 650 Super Meteor. While it's not considered a long-distance bike, its comfortable ergonomics and decent range mean you can stack up the miles if the desire is there.

So Royal has built a great bike; what's next? With a history of building cool customs attached to their brand, the next obvious step was to move towards obtainable customizing. It's just that path the team at RSD gets the most excited about. Yes, we get to build a cool custom, a one-off bike. And yes, that bike is in the genre of a concept, as opposed to something you'd see in production. It's the realm we at RSD thrive in, creating products that will be released to the market in collaboration with a concept build. Enter the Royal x RSD Chopper.

Bringing chopper vibes to the project was of the utmost importance. The bike needed to fit in with a punk rock chopper attitude and parts to match. We started by chopping the frame from the backbone down to the front motor mount. This allowed us to simplify and eliminate the front motor mount and clear out the area under the fuel tank. A smaller Wassel fuel tank was used and we had to French in the stock fuel pump in what proved to be a very complicated dance of fuel volume and fuel pick up placement without fucking up the look. The stock neck and geometry were cleaned and prepped for a new dimple died neck brace.

While we were furiously chopping and grinding the chassis and getting bodywork placed, the design and engineering crew was busy sketching, modeling, and 3D printing parts in preparation for prototyping. Our aim was to bring a new aesthetic to the stock Royal motor with primary, cam cover, and counter-shaft covers. We also addressed both battery covers, risers, swing arm adjusters, and more.

We also replaced the stock wheels with RSD Morris wheels - a 16 x 3.0 rear and a narrow 21 x 1.850 front, with tires to match. A pair of ultra-narrow triple clamps and extended gold nitride-revalved Sportster forks were used to further slim up the front end in an effort to make the Royal twin 650 really stand out.

The rear end of the bike also got cleaned up in line with the neck. We removed the standard rear fender, seat, and shocks, and chopped the stock shock mounts, replacing them with mounts that would flow with the Chopper vibes. Shocks were replaced with a taller Ohlins shock, and the rear fender was fitted with just enough clearance for the tire. The 16 x 3.0 Morris rear wheel carries the only stopping power on the bike with a Galfer wave rotor and a Nickel Brembo radial mount racing brake caliper.
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