Royal Enfield Marks 125 Years With a 2,400-Mile Route 66 Relay Ride Across America
Royal Enfield is currently mid-way through one of motorcycling’s more ambitious anniversary stunts: a full 2,400-mile relay ride along Route 66, running from Chicago to Santa Monica under the banner “125 Years in Motion.” The ride departed Chicago on August 27 and is scheduled to reach the Pacific Ocean on September 7, threading through eight states on the 2026 Classic 650 125th Anniversary Edition — a bike built specifically to mark the brand’s 125th year of continuous production.
The timing is deliberate on two fronts. Royal Enfield was founded in 1901, making it the oldest motorcycle brand still in uninterrupted production. Route 66, meanwhile, turns 100 this year. Putting those two milestones on the same road at the same time is a statement — and a pointed one, coming from a Chennai-based manufacturer that has quietly grown to roughly 150 North American dealers while some legacy American cruiser brands have been cutting back.
How the Relay Is Structured Across Eight States
The ride is organized as a four-leg relay, with each rider covering approximately 500 to 600 miles at a touring pace before handing off to the next. The route runs east to west through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California — the full historic corridor of Route 66 as it was originally designated in 1926.
Each rider is a content creator documenting their leg through short-form video and social posts on Royal Enfield North America’s Instagram channel. The brand has framed this less as an influencer campaign and more as a rolling travelogue: four distinct personalities, four distinct stretches of American road, one continuous thread. The ride is live as of this writing, with the Santa Monica finish still days away.
The 2026 Classic 650 125th Anniversary Edition Is the Star of the Ride
The motorcycle doing the work is the 2026 Classic 650 125th Anniversary Edition — a limited variant of Royal Enfield’s twin-cylinder 650cc retro cruiser, built to mark the centenary-plus-quarter milestone. The Classic 650 sits at the core of Royal Enfield’s North American lineup, which now spans from the accessible 350cc singles (Hunter 350, Meteor 350, Bullet 350) up through a full range of parallel-twin 650cc models including the INT 650, Continental GT 650, Shotgun 650, Bear 650, and Super Meteor 650.
The brand has also drawn real attention with its newer liquid-cooled 450cc platform — the Himalayan 450 and Guerrilla 450 — which pushed Royal Enfield into adventure-bike territory and broadened its appeal well beyond the retro-classic crowd. Choosing the Classic 650 for this ride rather than the adventure lineup is a conscious heritage play: Route 66 calls for something that looks like it belongs there.
What 125 Years and 150 North American Dealers Actually Means
Royal Enfield’s claim to being the world’s oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production is not marketing shorthand — the company traces its manufacturing lineage to 1901, predating most of the brands that American riders grew up treating as institutions. Globally, it now operates through nearly 4,000 stores across more than 80 countries, a retail footprint that reflects its dominant position in the Indian middleweight market and its accelerating push into Western markets.
In North America specifically, that footprint has grown to approximately 150 dealers — a number that would have seemed unlikely a decade ago for a brand that many American riders still associate primarily with the subcontinent. The Route 66 relay is partly a celebration and partly a signal: Royal Enfield is here, it is expanding, and it is comfortable claiming one of American motorcycling’s most symbolic roads as its own anniversary backdrop. For riders watching how the middleweight segment is shifting, that context matters as much as the ride itself.
The relay concludes in Santa Monica on September 7. Riders following along can track the journey on Royal Enfield North America’s Instagram channel, where each leg is being documented as it happens.
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