The Classic 350 needs no introduction. Royal Enfield’s retro roadster has been around since 2009, and received its most comprehensive upgrade in 2021, a lion’s chunk of which is the new J-series engine. Since its introduction, it has topped the sales charts consistently and remains the Chennai-based manufacturer’s best-seller. The other consistent fact about the Classic is that it has had either alloy wheels or tubed spoke wheels, but that could change soon.
- Wheel design looks similar to the Meteor 350 Sundowner Orange limited edition
- Could be offered as an accessory to all variants at first
- No other mechanical or feature changes expected
Royal Enfield Classic 350 to get tubeless spoke wheels?
Two other RE’s currently get a different tubeless wheel design
One of the downsides of owning a Classic 350 with wire spoke wheels is that if a puncture ever happens it’s a much more tedious process to fix and get back on the road. This isn’t an issue with the tubeless alloy wheels, but that setup takes away from the retro aesthetic of the motorcycle. The brand appears to have recognised this and seems intent to offer a solution soon.
Besides the Himalayan 450, Royal Enfield currently offers tubeless, cross spoke wheels only on the Goan Classic 350. There was also the Meteor 350 Sundowner Orange (limited edition) which was revealed at Motoverse 2025, with tubeless wheels. We believe the Classic 350’s wheels we see in the image to be closer to that Meteor than the other two motorcycles. The major difference is in the spoke attachment itself; on the aforementioned duo, the spokes go cross-wise and are latched onto the outside flange of the wheel (hence the name, cross spoke). However, on the Meteor 350 and the Classic 350 we see in the pictures has a flange in the middle to which the spokes are latched.
Why offer tubeless spoke wheels now?
Either a reaction to the Honda CB500, or the new design is finally scalable
The Classic 350’s distant rival, the Honda CB350, received a facelift with new colours and a cleaned up variant spread. Honda also introduced a CB500, in which tubeless wheels are offered as standard on the top two variants. Hence, Royal Enfield could just be reacting to that move. However, it’s also likely that Royal Enfield tested this design with the Meteor 350, and is now confident enough to extend that to its best-seller. If that ends up being the case, the company will not have a restriction on how many of these wheels it can make; currently, cross spoke tubeless wheels are imported to India, and as such carry a restriction on the number of units for each size.
We do not yet have clarity on if these wheels will be offered as an accessory for all the variants (like the alloy wheels were at first), or whether they will be limited to a specific few variants. We hope it’s the former; to wit, the colour we see in the image is the Medallion Bronze and it’s currently the third variant from base. It’s only available with tubed spoke wheels at the moment, so Royal Enfield could offer the tubeless wheels as an accessory, at least at first.
Besides this significant change, we don’t expect Royal Enfield to change the Classic 350 in any major way. As such, it should continue with the 349cc, single-cylinder, air-cooled unit with 20.2hp at 6,100rpm and 27Nm at 4,000rpm. It got two new colours recently, Signature White and Gorkha Green. It has six variants at a price range of Rs 1.89 lakh to Rs 2.26 lakh (ex-showroom, Chennai). It remains to be seen how much of a premium Royal Enfield charges for the tubeless spoke wheels, either as an accessory or for the variant sporting them.
Lead Image: Rushlane
Suraj Sreekumar
Vishal Venugopal
Dinshaw Magol
