The wee 350cc single cylinder motor in the Classic is turbine smoothe at any of the revs I have used so far. I think I read somewhere that this is down to it having two balancer shafts but I may have been reading about another bike – my auld heid doesn’t always retain the minutiae for long these days.

Whatever – there isn’t even a tremor through the seat – footpegs – narrow bars and mirrors. This would be great if I wanted a closeup view of my barn door shoulders which were useful for knocking people down as a flying wing forward on the rugby field. Not so easy to tuck out of the way when I raced motorbikes during a mid-life crisis in my later years.

No worries – help is at hand in a box down in my shed where I have a pair of Yamaha V-Max mirrors that last saw the light of day over twenty years ago on my first XJR 1300SP. The chrome is still as good as new and luckily Royal Enfield have used the same right and lefthand thread on their mirrors too —

Sorted! I found them a life-saver during the initial slow-paced ‘running in’ – with every second vehicle in these country districts being a tunnel visioned White Van Man running to a computer programmed delivery schedule.

So what’s next? Probably a tidy set of pannier bags if I can find ’em – so I don’t have to swing my gammy leg over that tailpack full of tools and ‘just-in-case’ stuff that I insist on running with. One of the drawbacks of being ‘old school’ 🤠