I was a courier in the mid and late eighties and the Royale II was one of the preferred rides...reliability and adaptabilty being its' best features. Of course we stripped the bike down loc-tited a cog and rode them fixed...(no one had bucks for a track hub and rebuilt wheel). These bikes were really popular until Fuji came out with the Tiara and early Cannondales (gigantic downtubes, superstiff, crit geometry)
became the bikes du jour.