Royal Enfield Himalayan 440 launched at Rs 2.29 lakh

Four months after we exclusively broke the news, Royal Enfield has finally launched the Himalayan 440 at their Himalayan Basecamp event in Ladakh. As expected, the Himalayan 440 uses the same engine as the Scram 440, but offers three, completely different colour options and different wheel and suspension setup.

1. Gets three new colours and 21-inch front wheel
2. Shares the engine and transmission with the Scram 440
3. Single variant with all three colours cost the same Rs 2.29 lakh

Royal Enfield Himalayan 440: What’s new from the 411

More powerful engine, new instrument cluster, and new colours

The Himalayan 411 had gained a fan following over the course of its existence and with the 440, Royal Enfield aims to kill two birds with one stone: give the fans what they wanted and offer a cost-effective alternative to the pricier Himalayan 450. Compared to the original Himalayan, the new 440 gets an upgraded engine from the Scram 440, making 25.4hp of power and 34Nm of torque; an improvement of 1.4hp and 2Nm over the 411’s unit. Royal Enfield has achieved this with a 3mm larger bore. Both power and torque are delivered earlier in the rev range now too, with 90 percent of the torque being available starting at 2800rpm. For context, the Himalayan 440 idles at 1300rpm.

The new ADV shares the new 6-speed transmission and the 15-litre fuel tank with the Scram as well, making highway stints less effortful, but there's no slipper clutch on either bikes; a feature that’s becoming increasingly common across Royal Enfield’s line-up. Brakes are also the same as, a 300mm front disc with two piston floating calipers, and 240mm rear disc with a single piston floating caliper. Dual-channel ABS is standard, and the rear ABS can be turned off at will.

To distinguish the Himalayan 440 further from the 411, Royal Enfield has given it a new instrument cluster with a simpler twin-pod layout compared to the four-pod layout. On the left side, there’s a speedometer and on the right the familiar tripper pod for Google Maps-powered navigation. Other peripherals like the LED headlights, switch gear are shared with the Scram 440. But the USB type-C charger on the Himalayan 440 is an upgrade to the Scram’s USB type-A charger, and we could see that reach the Scram soon too.

Different wheels, weight, and suspension than the Scram 440

21-inch front wheel, no tubeless tyres, and 10mm longer suspension travel

Though the power unit is shared with the Scram, the Himalayan 440 stands out in two main ways (other than the design and colours, of course): wheels and suspension. Like we had reported in early August, the Himalayan 440 gets a 21-inch front wheel (compared to the 19-inch on the road-focussed Scram) and sticks to the 17-inch rear wheel. Royal Enfield also offered alloy wheels on the Scram 440, but those have not been extended to the Himalayan 440; owing to the latter being an off-road centric motorcycle. It’s currently unclear if the Himalayan 450’s tubeless spoke wheels can be retrofitted onto it.

The next major difference is in the front suspension travel. The Scram 440’s front suspension had 190mm of travel, but the Himalayan 440 increases that to 200mm, same as the Himalayan 411. Rear travel remains the same as the Scram 440 at 180mm with an identical linkage monoshock. Despite that, the Himalayan 440’s seat height has only increased by 5mm compared to the Scram 440. Kerb weight, though, has gone up noticeably to 199kg, by 12kg.

As a sign of increased confidence, Royal Enfield now offers up to 7 years of extended warranty across their entire line-up, starting with the Himalayan 440. Standard warranty is 3 years/30,000km (40,000km for the 650s), meaning the extension adds an additional 4 years/10,000km of coverage.

Over and above these upgrades, the Himalayan 440 gets different colour options from the Scram 440: Mustang Brown, Nela White, and Sela Black. There’s no price difference between the colours; they all share the same Rs 2.29 lakh price (ex-showroom, Chennai). Royal Enfield has announced that bookings to start today in showrooms across the country and on its website. Considering the units have started reaching dealerships already, we would also expect deliveries to start soon.