Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 Apex first ride review: Is this what the Guerrilla was always meant to be?

There are some motorcycles that you want to really love. They have a lot going on for it, but there’s something that seems to hold it back. The Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450, for me, was one such motorcycle. With its chunky, almost dual-purpose tyre setup, it was misunderstood as a scrambler in roadster clothes and the tyres themselves weren’t the most adept at handling what the chassis had to offer. To rectify that and to add a bit more variety and definition to the range, Royal Enfield has updated it for 2026 along with adding a new Guerrilla 450 Apex variant. What the Apex is, is a sportier, more committed iteration of the Guerrilla 450 and we got a chance to ride it on some of the best roads of Guwahati to find out if Royal Enfield has achieved what it set out to.

Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 Apex: What’s new?

Design-wise, the Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 Apex differentiates itself from the rest of the range with new colour and graphics. There are three colours – Apex Red, Apex Green and Apex Black. Pictured here is the Apex Black colourway which melds black and grey with red graphics. The colours on the Apex lend the Guerrilla a nice premium and understated look. Then there’s a colour-matched removable seat cowl and a headlight cowl both of which add to the bike’s sporty appeal. Apart from the cosmetic addition, there’s also a cosmetic subtraction and that is the removal of the fork gaiters. This makes the front-end look a lot skinnier than it actually is, despite Royal Enfield making use of the same 43mm telescopic fork on the Apex. Speaking to some senior designers and engineers of the product revealed that deploying a USD fork would have made the bike more expensive and given the new GST norms are already doing that, more expensive is not necessarily the best idea.

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Aside from that, Royal Enfield is quite happy with the current tune and setup of the suspension setup and with good reason. More on that later. The next big change is the tyres. For the Apex, Royal Enfield has fitted the bike with Vredestein Centauro ST+ tyres and along with that has replaced the steel handlebar with an aluminium unit that is 56mm lower and 57mm further away from the rider.

It's been kitted out with Vredestein Centauro ST+ tyres, which drastically impact its riding manners from the older block-pattern variety – Shot by Rohan Sonwane for evo India

Then there are the ride modes that have been updated to offer better rideability along with having a retention feature for the mode such that it will remember which mode you were in even in the next ignition cycle. The final update is to the navigation system which has been refined further and designed to be kinder on your phone. If you’re using an Android phone you can finally lock your phone screen and still get full screen navigation on the instrument cluster. The maps themselves have become more contextual and intuitive, remembering your route and not needing you to reset the navigation if you stop somewhere and automatically resuming from where you left off. The final addition is the app now being able to load GPX files, something that most hardcore adventure riders will appreciate.

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Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 Apex: Ride, handling and performance

The underpinnings of the 2026 Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 remain unchanged. Meaning you have the same 452cc Sherpa engine that puts 39.4bhp of power and 40.02Nm of torque. The frame, suspension, brakes and all remain unchanged as well. What is new are the Vredestein Centauro ST+ tyres and the recalibrated ride modes. We rode at a go kart track and then for nearly 150km on some of Guwahati’s finest twisties. The tyres make a big difference to the way the motorcycle handles. The earlier Guerrilla was always a fun motorcycle, but the tyres were the one thing holding it back from being a truly capable motorcycle ’round the corners. The block-pattern type tyres felt a little clunky plus didn’t provide the best grip, the Centauro ST+ tyres have a rounder profile and its 100 per cent road-biased construction help you truly harness a lot of the potential of the bike’s chassis that you just couldn’t earlier. The steering also feels notably lighter given the rounder profile. Tipping it into, and picking it out of a corner requires a lot less effort as does transitioning from left to right on those tighter corners and chicanes. Braking feels solid as well. And while I didn’t get to A-B the standard and the Apex models, it feels like the Apex brakes a smidge better, especially on good tarmac.

Same peak output, but the new tyres finally lend it the chops to attack corners along with making the steering feel lighter – Shot by Rohan Sonwane for evo India

The updated ergonomics too go a long way in harnessing all of the potential of the chassis. While 56 and 57mm might not sound like a lot, the handlebar going lower and that much further away from you means that you can load the front a lot better and make full use of the new stickier tyres. Thankfully. This doesn’t come at the cost of comfort. The change is subtle but one that has big rewards. The next change worth talking about is the ride modes. The throttle map has been recalibrated to give a smoother and more measured response. The previous Guerrilla did feel a little snatchy and that has been rectified here. While it feels as punchy as ever, the throttle response is more direct and not nearly as abrupt as it used to be. This makes for easier mid-corner modulation and correction without unsettling the bike. That coupled with the new tyres and ergonomics make for a very capable roadster.

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The suspension tune remains the same and this is something that will bother most people. We did ask Royal Enfield about this and their response was that it would have been easy for them to make a plush riding motorcycle, but that would've come at the cost of its rock solid handling and that is a trade-off they didn’t want to commit to.

Royal Enfield hasn't fiddled with the suspension setup for the sake of curbing costs and retaining the sporty character the chassis always carried – Shot by Rohan Sonwane for evo India

Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 Apex: Verdict

Prices for the new Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 Apex start at ₹2.49 lakh for the Apex Red colourway and cost ₹2.56 lakh for the Apex Black and Apex Green colourway. Bear in mind that these are ex-showroom introductory, rather celebratory prices as Royal Enfield is celebrating 125 years and 1.25 lakh units produced of the Sherpa engine worldover. Prices will eventually go up. That being said, with the Apex, the Guerilla 450 is finally what it should have been right from the start. It has a very clear sporty roadster identity now, one that is not only backed by its looks but also its ability to carve corners. Yes, you could argue that the changes are minor, but the impact that these changes have on the motorcycle certainly have convinced me to look at the Guerrilla 450 Apex in the same light as a more modern roadster like the KTM 390 Duke or the TVS Apache RTR 310.