There's a certain enticing lure of the forbidden when you do something you're told that your bike wasn't meant to do. Just ask Matt Spears and his lengthy YouTube history of Gold Wing enduro riding, Hayabusa-ing at Moab, and more. Honestly, it's an entire genre unto itself.
But some bikes are lighter than others, right from the factory. Others are, let's say, heavy for their size. Lots of people love the Kawasaki KLR 650 for a number of reasons, but absolutely none of them are because it's a featherweight machine.
The original Royal Enfield Himalayan 411 had (and has) plenty of fans around the world, though it's now been somewhat overshadowed by the much-improved Himalayan 450 that came after. Still, that means it's easier than ever to get your hands on a wrecked Himmy 411 and do what you want with it, provided you live in a place that lets you buy wrecked bikes to turn into something new. Luckily, the guys at 999 Lazer do, so they did.
What did they do, exactly? They wanted to compete at the infamous Weston Beach Race 2025, so they set themselves a challenge. After purchasing a broken Himmy 411 for under 1,000 British pounds (850, actually), they set out to make it lighter, have better suspension, be more reliable, and also drop at least 10 seconds from the lap time of the stock Himmy 411 around their test track once they finished building it.
Did they succeed? Oh, wouldn't you like to know?
The thumbnail they used for this image is a frozen video still from a bit that you will, in fact, see in this video. It's not a bit of Photoshop trickery; that's a flying Himmy MX bike. By the way, they've christened this build as the Silver Surfer, which I think is a most fitting name for it. Someone in the YouTube comments mentions that it looks a bit more like a scrambler than an MX bike, and that's also kind of true. I think it looks a bit like a vintage Husky dirtbike, only in different colors.
In any case, though, this is the shakedown before this year's Weston Beach Race, which takes place from October 3 through 6, 2025. So, how does it do? Did they succeed in making it do well enough at shaving the time down from the stock bike?
And then some, but you'll have to watch the video to see the full results. Trust me, it's worth it. It's a lot of fun to see this Himmy doing things that probably very few others have done. While people have taken Himalayans to the ends of the earth, it's probably a safe bet that very few have tried to fly them down MX tracks. With skill, parts, and a bit of time, though, it sure looks like fun if you know what you're doing.
