Do you remember the Cooperb Motorcycles Interlayan 650? It’s basically a Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 with a Himalayan front end, with a few additional custom elements thrown into the mix for good measure. Upgraded suspension, custom wheels (built around stock Interceptor hubs), and so on. All in all, it was a fine accomplishment that the shop brought to Motorcycle Live 2021 to show off.
The shop also did a video about it a couple of months later, which gave anyone curious about the project a little more insight into the build. Now that it’s December, 2022, YouTube channel nathanthepostman had the chance to take this one-of-a-kind machine for a test ride—and he brought his action cam along for the ride.
What’s the Interlayan 650 like to ride? As you’ll hear from this video, it sounds quite good. Although it’s a twin and not a cheeky, large-bore single, the two-into-one exhaust that’s been installed has a nicely tuned note that sounds very spirited. Imagine the two-wheeled equivalent of a very excited puppy that just wants to go out for a walk and you’ll have the right idea.
That doesn’t tell you much about the actual ride, though, which is also pretty good. The wide handlebars, Nathan says, make you feel in absolute control as you’re riding. The much-improved suspension is very welcome, even though the roads were pretty greasy on the day he took it out, so he tried to take it easy and avoid dumping someone else’s custom bike while taking it out for a test ride.
Long story short, while he didn’t think this bike was necessarily ready to do a whole lot of serious off-roading, Nathan did feel that this made a very nice road bike. To be clear, he did only take the thing out for a 10-minute ride around local roads near the shop, and did not attempt even the mildest of trail use with it—but since it’s mostly a modified Interceptor, he also said that he didn’t think that’s what this bike is for, anyway.
The profile appears like a larger Himalayan, which was of course the goal. Speaking to Ian at Cooperb about this build, Nathan learned that they actually phoned up Royal Enfield prior to putting this bike together, just to see if there were any plans to build a Himalayan 650-ish bike of their own any time soon. At the time, Enfield told them that there was not—so, Cooperb built this one.
One of the most interesting details mentioned in this discussion is the bespoke fuel tank, which has a much greater capacity than the stock Himalayan—23 liters, as compared to 15. While Cooperb sent out to a specialist to build it, parts from a Continental GT 650 tank and a Himalayan tank ended up being used, along with a bunch of custom fabrication to get them to fit together.
The fuel pumps are completely different between the Himalayan and the INT 650, so there was no way to simply plop a Himalayan tank on and call it a day. At the same time, they found that the stock INT fuel tank didn’t play as nicely with the top of the Himalayan fuel tank as the Continental one did, so they ended up using that in their Frankentank build instead.
The end result, Ian said, has a whole lot of welding that’s neatly hidden away by the paint—and while Cooperb is happy to build interested enthusiasts a very similar bike now, the shop that fabricated this tank has neither the desire nor the plans to make any more. It was apparently a massive pain to complete—but they did get the job done, and the end result suits this bike down to the ground.
