The Chrome Halcyon Green Meanie

I was recommended to use Aberffraw Garage for the repainting of my tank, about a 30 minute drive away to the other side of the island.

Wow, did they do a good job! A brilliant colour match; deep, lustrous finish; barely noticeable masking line against the pinstripe and a very reasonable price.

These are the before photos showing the more modern tank design and badges. Not horrible, but it doesn’t quite capture the “retro” essence for me. (The bike's design is apparently heavily influenced by '50s Bullets.)

I siphoned out about half the fuel to make the tank easier to remove. You have to take off the seat (just 2 bolts) and then one bolt from the back of the tank. It's a bit awkward, with 2 breather / drain hoses; the electrical connector and the fuel line to remove; mostly by feel. The original owner documented on YouTube having broken a connector when trying to remove the fuel line. Anyway, it was fiddly but manageable and will be a lot easier next time now that I know what I'm doing. With the tank off, I removed the fuel cap and drained the rest of the fuel into a bucket temporarily.

I fitted the fuel cap to the new tank, then turned to the underside to swap over the fuel pump/fuel level sender assembly. 

It was very obvious that my painters had painted the bottom of the tank properly, whereas the original RE finish barely covered the primer!

I was a bit perturbed to find that one of the mounting holes for the fuel pump assembly appears to have the remains of a snapped bolt in it. I tried to get it out but couldn't and it's a blind hole and I don't have the right sort of tap to cut a new thread. I wonder if this is the reason the tank was replaced under warranty? The pump assembly has a thick rubber gasket, so I decided to chance it with the one bolt missing but also applied a fairly generous dollop of hylomar blue on the surface. If it leaks, I'll remove the tank and sort it out. (It's not showing any sign of leaking after reassembly, but I'll keep an eye on it.)

With everything swapped over, it was a faily straightforward exercise to put it all back together again. I think it looks great - just enough chrome but not overwhelming. It looks black in these photos, but when the sun comes out the Halcyon Green really pops and sparkles!

I love the new view from the saddle.

Starting to make the Classic 350 mine

I am trying to adopt a more straightforward life and get rid of "stuff" that I've accumulated but has no place in my life any longer; and/or is unlikely to feature in it in the future.

So I decided that I wasn't going to start getting anything for the new Classic 350 until I'd got rid of an equal value of stuff on EBay. I've been slowly selling stuff over the last few weeks and surprisingly have raised over £450, with more to go. This has mostly been surplus guitar and motorcycle bits and pieces.

So I definitely have enough to order the canvas panniers and RE racks from Hitchcocks now and was ready to order them when I had a bit of a change of mind. I definitely will get those, but I know I'll be able to order them anytime I want.

In a previous post I mentioned that I really liked the chrome tank with the original style of Royal Enfield tank badge on my old bronze Classic 350 and that it might be quite cool to get hold of a s/h chrome tank and get it sprayed in the halcyon green colour.

Well, I'd been keeping an eye on EBay and not a lot of suitable tanks were coming up second hand - one in quite poor condition and then one that was off a nearly new bike that had been replaced as a warranty job due to a minor paint defect.  I decided that I REALLY did want to do the chrome tank thing, so took the plunge. I got it for £150, which is pretty good compared to £500 for a new one.

It's turned up and is in really good condition - I can't see the paint defect. So now I'm on the look out for a paint shop to respray it in the Halcyon Green colour. I think it will look amazing once this is done.

I've also been trying to make it easier to get the bike down the entry to the house. I repositioned the handlebar controls inboard by about 25mm each side and hacksawed off the ends, to gain 2" of clearance, which should make quite a difference. I thought the heated grips might be a bit of an issue as they should be glued on, but they just slid along nicely. I may get some short adjustable bar levers as well which will help a lot.

A gorgeous ride out on the Crusader 250

I had spent a couple of days catching up on the winter maintenance tasks on the Crusader. I needed to road test her and thought it would be a good idea to borrow a GoPro and record the  ride.

A delightful ride in the sun ensued...

Old and New

 I thought it would be interesting to compare my previous and current Classic 350s so fired up ChatGPT and this was the result 😁

I do like the chrome tank on the old bronze one, I think a lot of the attraction is that it has the original style of Royal Enfield tank badge. That’s started a thought in my head that it might be quite cool to get hold of a s/h chrome tank and get it sprayed in the halcyon green colour. I reckon that’s a £300 project that would look pretty cool. Maybe when I’ve sold both of the other bikes?

New Bike Adventure

Finally, weeks after “doing the deal”, the time has come to go and collect the new Classic 350 from her temporary storage at Rob’s in Tamworth. The weather this month has been appalling but there’s finally a window of a couple of days when it should be reasonable for a ride home. (i.e. not torrential rain all the way 🤣)

So my bag is loaded up with bike gear and the first step is a bus from Amlwch to Bangor Station. Using my bus pass for the first time, which is just adding to the excitement!

I saw my first spring lambs on the way!

And on to Bangor Station for the big train to Crewe and then a little train to Tamworth 🙂

Almost inevitably, the train to Crewe was delayed by 25 minutes, which meant my 23 minute transfer time was somewhat compromised 🙂. The good news with that was that I got onto the next train that only got me in 10 minutes later than planned. The even gooder news was that I can claim a refund on part of the ticket 🙂

So, at Rob's I could finally see my new bike after a month of waiting! First impressions were that she is in pretty much mint condition apart from the damage to the mudguard and clutch lever that I was already aware of. The damage isn't actually particularly noticeable. I even decided that I like the brown seats - they are darker than I thought they'd be.

After some pub grub, we had an early night and the following morning I set off for Dee's, via Beeline's "fun" route. 

I wasn't expecting there to be so much flooding of the country lanes or to see so much rain. I stopped for a coffee and warm up at Stone after 1.5 hours and then a wee and coffee stop at Liz and Phil's in Whitchurch.

After I set off again, the weather improved considerably and I even had some sunshine!

After a lovely stopover at Dee's, I left on Sunday afternoon for the journey along the North Wales coast to Anglesey. It wasn't half windy along the coast road and for the second part I was really fighting a big headwind. That's when it becomes obvious it's a low power bike, but she managed perfectly well, just not fast.

As we crossed the Menai Bridge onto Anglesey the wind improved, or maybe it was just more sheltered, and it stopped raining. We had a lovely last 30 minutes across the winding roads home. I welcomed her to the island and chatted to her about all the adventures we're going to have!!

The big test when I arrived home was to see if I could get her around the back of the house. I popped the bar end mirrors off for extra clearance and used my castor wheels contraption and we got her in (just!) I think with a bit of finessing, we can get that as a reasonably smooth operation, maybe using the centre stand trolley instead?

A bizarre coincidence!

So here’s a weird thing.

I’ve been loosely following this guy on and off on YouTube since I was thinking about getting my original Classic 350 in 2023. He can go on a bit, but does lots of ride outs around beautiful Yorkshire countryside on his own Classic 350.

Anyway, I was watching one of his old videos the other night, (getting a fix 🤣) and thought “just a minute, I’m sure I recognise that number plate”. It would appear I’ve bought his old bike 🤪. This is very pleasing, because he goes into quite a lot of detail about how carefully he runs it in when it’s new 🙂 I think he had it for just over 12 months, then moved it on for a new “channel bike”, but missed it so much that he bought another one . The first 15 minutes or so of this one is a bit of a rant before he actually talks about the bike. 

Small world eh?

New Bike Time

Some time ago (well, 3 years) in a land far away (well, England) I made a wise decision to buy a new Royal Enfield Classic 350. I had fallen in love with these very wonderful bikes as soon as they first started importing them to the UK and was smitten the minute I sat on one. Eventually, I took the plunge and bought my first ever new bike in 2023. We did about 2000 miles together over 6 months, touring Belgium, the Lake District and Snowdonia. Every mile put a smile on my face. I had found my perfect bike.

Fast forward a few months. My relationship had broken down; I was living in a caravan and the new home I found to start my new life in had a tiny access to the back of the house that I just couldn't fit the Classic down. Sadly, I came to the conclusion that I'd have to move her on.

Fast forward another year and a bit. I have had fun using my 1962 Crusader 250 to tour on (in a limited fashion) but I'm really missing the joy of jumping on a new bike and knowing that reliability probably isn't an issue. My Crusader has never let me down to be honest, but there is always that anxiety lurking when you ride an old bike for a long distance.

For unrelated reasons, I needed to hire a storage container locally, and it struck me like a lightning bolt that I could keep a Classic 350 in it as well 😀😀😀

I also came to a realisation recently that bike restorations have been my "escape" to a happy place when relationships turn sour. Now that I am always in a happy place, the restorations have no particular appeal and so I decided that I could move the Crusader 250 along to a new home, as well as the Moto Guzzi 500 project, and put the money into a new bike instead. Just the small matter of sorting out a couple of outstanding maintenance issues on the Crusader and finishing the Guzzi before Spring then.....

Of course, being me, I couldn't resist some "market research" just so I'd know what was right when it came along. My heart was telling me that I needed a red and chrome model, because they just look SO beautiful and classic. They could literally have walked straight out of the 50's or 60's. But my head was telling me that the "Halcyon" models with painted tanks and mudguards are far more practical in terms of cleaning and polishing. And I really liked the look of either the Black/Red or Green/Black versions.

Anyway, after a month or so of quietly getting to understand where the market was, this morning a little peach (I hope!) was advertised on EBay. Halcyon Green; 2022 model; just under 3000 miles; some very useful extras (bar end mirrors, heated grips, heel and toe gear lever & rack). Otherwise she's totally standard and with full complement of service history, keys, tools etc. I found that my previous bike was just starting to loosen up at 2000 miles so was happy with 3000 miles. The best bit was that she was priced at about £6-700 (about 20%) less than all the other similar age/mileage bikes. Why? She has been a Cat N write off. i.e. 

" ‘non-structural damage’ to the body or chassis. This means the core safety structure of the vehicle has not been damaged but the insurer has deemed the vehicle beyond an economical repair."

I've always shied away from this in the past, but decided to investigate a bit more. The owner was a lovely guy and it appears that the bike fell over, damaging minor things like clutch lever, gear lever, headlight rim, mirror and putting a dent in the mudguard. Replacing that lot was deemed to be beyond an economical repair, so it was written off and sold to a salvage company. The next owner bought it and replaced all of the damaged bits except the mudguard, which still has a dent in it. That's it. But it's now tarred with a Cat N brush which affects it's value. 

To cut a long story short, I decided that it was so cheap that I didn't care if it had the Cat N stigma; made a lower offer and we settled on a very reasonable amount (less than £2000!). I can't believe what good value it is. If the dent in the mudguard bothers me, I can buy a genuine new one, painted in the correct colour, for around £80. So here she is:

A bad point is that she currently lives in Cornwall, nearly 400 miles away. However, by coincidence, Louis (of 2025 Manx GP Adventure fame!) lives 3 minutes drive away and he is conveniently bringing another bike up to the Midlands sometime soon in his van, so can drop it at Rob's place. Then I can collect it from there when there is a decent weather window. How lucky is that!?

I did look at getting the train down and riding her back, and I would really prefer that, but the weather forecast for the next couple of weeks is shocking, so I think I'll probably go with the delivery option. It will still be a nice long first ride back from Rob's once the weather is better.

Immediate future plans? Well, nothing till one of the other bikes is sold, but then I'm not a big fan of the brown seats so will probably change them for black Royal Enfield "touring seats" - like most RE accessories they are very reasonably priced at about £65 each and have very good reviews. Plus they look nice with quilted bands on them :-) And then I'll probably get some of the pannier racks and canvas panniers that I had on the other one - the panniers aren't the most secure or practical things in the world but they just look gorgeous!!

So now the long wait begins......

UPDATE 28/1/26: Louis has checked the bike over and it's all as stated, so it's moving to his place for now till he can do the delivery to Rob's 😃 His quote: "Youre gonna be happy with this."!