Royal Enfield FT450 flat tracker: first ride review

FT450 Experience

Motoverse Slide School began with Johnny explaining to us the changes RE had made to the FT450. This was followed by a quick inspection of the track and sideways technique. Johnny didn’t take much time here because I attended the same class with him last year.

At first I wasn’t sure how I would handle the FT450 in the dirt. After driving the Guerrilla on public roads, I found it to be a lively and friendly pocket rocket. But go off-road and turn left? I wasn’t very excited! But after just one lap I realized that the FT450 was instantly fun!

The combination of an agile chassis, 40bhp engine and wide handlebars made me realize that coming to Goa was a great occasion. It was very nice to have the steering wheel locked completely to the right and the rear extending out. Surrounded by other riders, I had to constantly think about whether I should go into the corner quickly. I always prefer front brakes in any braking application, but with the FT450 this was not possible. So I maintained a decent pace and paid a lot of attention to having the right vision. This allowed me to achieve really good slides. As you can see from the photos, it is clear that my body position was almost exact.

The 450cc engine in the FT450 has a really strong midrange; We all know that, but the low end is missing – something we loved about the LS411 engine. To solve this problem, Royal Enfield has installed the Fuel X system on all motorcycles and tuned it to increase torque at low revs. This led to better exits. There were a few instances where I thought I’d lose control, but the FT450’s intuitive chassis allowed me to correct that halfway through.