Forum

[Graham43]

The latest catalogue has re-kindled my thoughts about converting my road bike into a trail bike using some of the Hitchcocks' parts.
Has anyone done this and how did it ride?

[John M]

I have a couple of Enfields, both in a trials style, one more so than the other.

The ride-ability of the bike very much depends on how "off road" you want it, as the better it is off road the less pleasant it is on tarmac.

Do you intend taking it off road / green laning or are you just after the off road style? Either way, the biggest styling change is the fitment of trials tyres and ideally you need to fit a 21" front wheel, as generally speaking trials tyres only come in 18" rears and 21" fronts.

You can get 350 x 19" trials tyres, which will fit both ends of the standard Bullet wheels, but personally I think that they look a little naff on the front.

I generally use Pirelli MT43 tyres, which are regarded as the road biased trials tyre of choice for long distance trials and these tyres perform well on the road and in the wet. (Other super soft 1-day trials tyres may not be road legal and don't last at all on tarmac.) I run mine at between 10-15 psi and don't have any grip or predictability issues on tarmac.

You also need to fit wider trials handlebars, which necessitates longer control cables, however this makes the bike a lot more controllable at low speed.

If you do intend taking your Bullet off road, you would ideally want the foot pegs a few inches further back, as this enables the bike to be ridden standing up and and enables you to take a bit of weight off the front end when bouncing over obstacles.

You may also want to gear the bike down to make it more controllable off road, you can get smaller gear box sprockets, but if you want to tackle anything challenging you would need to gear it down further.

[PeteF]

I've not done this to an Enfield but I have to other bikes.
Don't fit trials tyres unless you are going off road at all seriously.
Don't alter the gearing, again, unless you are doing anything serious.
The same applies to 19" front wheel. If you're just trailing it's not really necessary.
If you do any of the above it will spoil the road riding to some extent.
Up to you of course , it all depends on what you want to do with the bike. It will knock the resale value as well, so you could spend lots of cash to make the bike worth less (depending on it's current condition of course)

[stinkwheel]

I'm regularly impressed at how well my standard bullet on standard tyres copes with fairly chunky green laning when I take it into my head to go off the beaten track in search of wild camping sites. It certainly eats up unmetalled roads. With vaguely knobbly tyres, I'd imagine it would move into the realms of a pretty handy bike.



My main considerations if I was going to do more offroading would be tyres, handlebars (could be higher and straighter than standard, especially if they are the lightly custom style swept back ones) and ground clearance. The latter would be particularly what happens if you drop over something more substantial. The exhaust is gong to be first thing to hit a rock, the crankcase will be next so I'd give some consideration to moving the first and protecting the second. Gearing, as above less of a concern but if you're doing a lot, you might want to gear it down some. Remembering of course that you still need to get there. I have found the clutch can get pretty hot and starts binding if you land up slipping it a lot, that would be your call to drop the gearing I suspect. All in all, even on standard gearing, it'll chug along happily at walking place and pick itself up on the throttle.



It's still a pretty heavy bike mind so making sure theres something easy to get hold of at the back end to lift it by is a good plan for when you plonk the back wheel into a deep rut and find the bike balanced on the footpegs with the rear wheel spinning in the air.

[papasmurf]

I have been up and down 1 in 3 three mussy slopes with my "oilfield" with no problems:-

[papasmurf]

mussy=muddy

[papasmurf]

click on image and it will enlarge.

[enfield_trials]

The good thing about enfields ,you can convert them into Trials/Bobber/CafeRacers etc and road bike again , just by playing with wheels/exhaust/handlebars/petrol tanks. they looks equally good

Good luck with your thoughts ..