With Royal Enfield’s newer 650 twins hogging the spotlight lately, the company quietly discontinued their Bullet 500 and Classic 500 models last year. And that’s a huge shame. The venerable 499 cc singles have never been known for their performance?but they lured riders in with their simplicity, affordability and vintage looks.
As it turns out, the Classic 500 is also a pretty good starting point for a pared-down custom bobber. This one comes from FrontWheel Motors?a workshop in Bogor, just south of Jakarta in Indonesia’s West Java province. And despite its understated appearance, it’s sporting some pretty smart mods.

?A colleague came to me with a Classic 500, and gave me full authority over the changes made to the bike,? says shop boss, Chandra. ?I was beyond excited to embrace that challenge and opportunity. The question that crossed my mind was: what kind of changes will make this bike an outstanding piece of engineering art"? FrontWheel took inspiration from Japanese custom culture; ?the always simple, yet always captivating look.? So they named the project ‘Raijin,’ after the Japanese god of thunder.

The most important task on the checklist was altering the Royal Enfield’s stance, to make it longer and lower. FrontWheel achieved this by altering the bike’s steering angle, and extending the swingarm. Then they added a set of custom yokes, to push the OEM forks wider and make room for chunkier wheels.
With that ...