New African Twin Maybe 1200cc

[nhbubba]

Don't be a dumbass. Keep that DRZ forever for round town hooning...

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

[Chippertheripper]

Maybe. You won't be combining bikes then. Just getting rid of the dl for the at.

[e30addict]

Maybe. You won't be combining bikes then. Just getting rid of the dl for the at.

Still a win

[nt650hawk]

17K for the travel edition ???

Don't watch it unless you like a computer voice





What Throttle Control. Blipping the throttle with DCT. what gives DOOD??

SO 132 MPH

[nhbubba]

I think that's a manual bike. The DCT controls are missing from the pods.

[breakdirt916]

haulin in my book!

kinda want it

this guy had fun in the desert and canyons like I would



so does that mean a DCT doesn't wheelie?!?

[markbvt]

Honda has an opportunity to make something newer, more comfortable, and more usable than the XR650...

They've had that opportunity for many years now. In fact, they had the perfect bike for it: the XR650R. They could have just made some minor mods to it and had an awesome new XR650L, but instead they stopped making it while continuing to churn out the same old XR650L they'd already been making for a decade and a half.

If Honda really wanted to do something interesting, they'd take that 500 twin and put it in an XR650R-inspired aluminum frame with quality suspension, 21/18 wheels, minimal bodywork, and hopefully a wet weight of under 350lbs. I'm pretty sure they'd sell a shitload of them.

--mark

[nhbubba]

Honda’s high-tech answer to the Rekluse clutch

[reks95]

Honda Africa Twin test ride - YouTub

Having watched so many of his vids, this is the most compelling review I've seen so far.

[boosten lebaron]

At 4:00 he is only a couple miles from my London apartment. That car dealership on his left is amazing. It's all old million dollar plus cars like Ferraris and astons.
Oh, and if you think he is riding like a tool that's how they all ride. Everything he did is perfectly . He was actual tame compared to everyone that rides, probably because he was on a borrowed bike.

[nhbubba]

Twisted throttle aftermarket support : The Africa Twin Is Coming To Twisted Throttle! / Twists & Turns | TwistedThrottle.co

Also a review I found somewhat interesting. I don't watch a lot of this guys' videos, but the AT doesn't seem like his normal thing.

[MoXzilla]

Ends 2/16/2016
CONTEST TO WIN ONE AND RACE

[markbvt]

Got an email Monday from the dealer I put down my deposit with -- Honda has finally opened the order portal, so the order for my bike is officially in, and it should be here sometime in May.

--mark

[nhbubba]

[zombie]

Here's a write up on a test ride in Ireland last weekend.




99.9% of my bike is done on tarmac. Did a couple of bog lanes and fields when I was a bauld pup too many whiskeys ago to remember. I haven’t ridden an off road styled bike in years either. Last one was the old Africa Twin up the Glendine Gap in Laois / Offaly.
I can only compare the Africa Twin on the road with my current Triumph 1050 sport.

The Africa Twin competition is prolly the KTM 1050, Tiger 800 etc, but the Super Ten, GS1200, Cross Tourer, Tiger 1200 would be a league above in terms of price, power, torque, perhaps weight.

Got the Africa Twin for a spin for an hour, it’s a dangerous thing to do coz this is a class bike. The test route took me out of Belfast for Ballygowan onto Shrigley & Killyleagh Castle (impressive spot) on the A23 and looped back via the A22, a mix of busy town traffic, traffic lights, main road and 2 lane bumpy, mucky, greasy back road. Some of it badly maintained. No different to an R road down south with a poor road surface.
To put it into context it was like the N11 mixed with the Balbriggan to Skerries road, mixed with the back road of the Killalane circuit or some of the back roads around the airport.

1st impressions
There is a dandible heap of buttons on the left handle bar, less on the right bar, a heap of information on the small square screen in front. All doing various different things I hadn’t a clue nor the time for so I left them alone apart from the basics.
Sitting on the bike, I had no issue with seat height or width, both feet on the ground, seat can be lowered. (I’m 5’10”)

Immediately when pulling out of the dealer in D Mode, the gearbox was up to 6th gear within a few hundred metres. Turning onto the road with busy traffic I noticed this bike is extremely well balanced. You can inch along among 20 confused cages, sitting perfectly still with no correction of the bars, a very easy bike to filter on.
Getting out of Belfast onto the A23 the road narrows from two lanes to one lane, a few cages, and a truck were overtaken easily.
(Didn’t get a wave of the GS rider on the way out of Belfast either) maybe he got done

Out into the open, a couple of things, 60 mph about 3500 revs, 75 mph about 4000 revs, the redline is 8000 revs. It will sit at 75 / 80 mph all day long it seems to suit the bike.

The A23 was getting narrower and road condition worse, I look down at the clock to check the speed, 85 mph, felt like 60 mph. The suspension was doing a class job of smoothing out the poor road surface.

Entering a few 30 / 40 mph zones, behind cages, etc, the bike would dawdle along in top gear all day at 2000 rpm but pick up was a little slow, better off in 5th or less.

Comfort,
It is hard to judge on a short spin, but after the hour it felt I could a few hundred miles in a day no bother.
Front Screen / Fairing
There was a high screen option fitted to the test bike I didn’t like it, there was too much head shaking. Sometimes you could be better off with the standard screen. To be honest it was a pain in the hole / head.

Mirrors were good, plenty of rear view and no vibes.

Weather protection was great, very surprised. ‘Twas a lovely day when I started out, believe it or not the sun was shining. But on the way back the rain started coming down. A light shower but constant for about 15 miles back to the dealer. I didn’t get wet, all I had was a bike jacket and a pair of jeans.

Handling
I couldn’t fault it. The road got tight and twisty for a bit, I had loads of confidence with it especially on the bumpy roads on standard settings I didn’t feel the need to change anything.

Brakes
They had loads of feel and power, a silly cow on a phone, pulled out from behind a parked cage into the path of the cage in front of me, causing me to test them.

Engine power / torque and ride ability
Power and torque is probably felt similar to that of my 1050 sport, the Tiger Sport felt livelier because the max torque is at 4500 rpm. The Africa Twin a bit further up the rev range. However the Africa Twin was just as smooth and gets going fairly well. It is very user friendly. There was no jerkiness whilst going from on to off throttle. It has traction control but in truth with barely 100 hp it doesn’t really need it.
There were no vibes through the bars or pegs.

DCT
This Africa Twin was fitted with the DCT gearbox. It is a newer version of the DCT’s I rode on the VFR 1200 and NC 700 X. It does a heap of stuff including change gear, fancy that
Having the experience of this gearbox in the past, I wanted to test a few things.

In D Mode when going slow the bike would change up at 2000 rpm and be in 6th gear within a hundred meters at 40 mph, same as before. (like you might do when going down a housing estate)
But also in D mode when you open the throttle a more e.g when pulling away from standstill or a junction it will change up at 4000 rpm. This suited the bike really well, making good progress and getting up to cruising speed quickly.

I also found when dawdling in town traffic, in D mode, at say 30 to 40 mph the gearbox did a lot of changes between 5th up to 6th and back to 5th like the box was confused. I found it better to be in Sport mode or Manual mode in this situation. This was the same on the older DCT on the VFR 1200.

There are 3 sport modes. I put it into sport mode (dunno which one) when overtaking. The bike really livens up and hangs onto the gears until the red line. Overtaking is easy peasy.

The manual mode combined with the D mode were the ones that worked for me, allowing changes up or down as necessary with the trigger switches, really handy when overtaking slow traffic
A new thing with this version of the DCT is when going downhill, if you were in one of the lower gears, it would hold this gear to maintain engine braking. I noticed this when I pulled away from a few sets of traffic lights in D Mode and slowing traffic in front. The gearbox would hold 2nd or 3rd gear, instead of going up to the higher gears like the older version.

Price
I didn't do any research into this or compare with other bikes. Only you can decide if the price is right.
The price is roughly £10500 for standard bike, £700 extra for the DCT, for me it would be money well spent. Belfast Honda tell me they have sold 10 Africa Twins to date, 7 were DCT models.
Standard bike is available within 2 week. DCT version is a customer order with a 6 week delivery time.
I dunno how any of this compares with other bikes in the same class range, also pinch of salt taken

There are 20 pages of optional extras in the options book including centre stand, crash bars, spot lamps, luggage, heated grips topping at a sweet mother of an arse polling £2500 sterling + Vat

Overall
This test ride was a bit short for me. I would like longer and would normally have the bike for a few hours if my own bike was in for a service. There were so many buttons and options to press it would impossible to assess them on a short test ride, and in truth I don’t think I’d ever use the half of them.

As a bike to ride I couldn’t fault it, it was an easy bike to get on and ride. The Africa Twin was very nimble in traffic, helped by the DCT.
U turns were easily done. It has a tight turning circle.
A tip for anybody doing feet up U turn on a DCT is to trail the back brake as you would on any other bike. It tightens the turning circle and prevents the bike from changing up from 1st to 2nd gear mid turn.

The engine was smooth and had a reasonable power all through the rev range, but anybody expecting sports bike performance may be disappointed. Same goes for the handling through the bends, but it was excellent on the poor roads, I couldn’t fault it there.

For me, the Africa Twin is one of those bikes that takes a bit of time to adjust to, but once you get it, you would have nothing else.

any questions?

crutch
..

[Chippertheripper]

Can Degsy translate that for us??

[Paul_E_D]

Interesting marketing vid there. Ride "like" and expert. lol

[carsick]

Ride "like" an expert. lol

Maybe they should have been in the novice motocross "C" class. Like you.

[Paul_E_D]

Maybe they should have been in the novice motocross "C" class. Like you.

Exactly

[Paul_E_D]

But on the africa twin I'm an A rider...

[nhbubba]

But then so am I!

[Chippertheripper]

But then so am I!

Lies. Since it's essentially the same size as a 990...

[nhbubba]

touche

[nhbubba]

A bad review : Ride Review: Assessing Honda's Africa Twin On the Road | RideApart

[carsick]

No prob, you'll never take it off pavement. If you pay now, can you get one by say May 28th??