Africa Twin Musings

[DJP]

I recently had one of these as a loan bike, so I thought I'd do a short review. First impressions: The Africa Twin is one tall motorcycle. I'm 6'1” and with its 870mm seat height it's a challenge even for me to get my leg over (f'narr, f'narr). But once in the saddle, it's a different story: The seat is plush, the riding position spacious for taller riders and I can still easily get both feet down flat.

https://i.ibb.co/VC60pgF/AT960.jpg

I was also surprised to read that the Africa Twin has a claimed weight of 232kg because it feels nowhere near that. And it's a nice looking beast.

From the cockpit, there's no surprises. The controls and switchgear are as you'd expect on a modern Honda, although the digital dash is a bit busy for my tastes (but then most are). The gearbox is slick and the slipper clutch nice and light. Being a modern bike of course the Africa Twin has various traction control and safety modes, and being an old fart of course I turned them all off.

The engine is the opposite of what I'd expected: Gutless and vibratory low down, it requires a surprising amount of revs to pull away cleanly. It's brisk enough around 4,000rpm and the refinement improves with speed but even at motorway speeds in top gear it's never exactly what I'd call smooth. And that's a shame because the Africa Twin would be a good bike for mile munching, except that I can't see many people wanting to cover long distances on this engine.

That's not to say it's bad, it's just that if you approach this motor as you might expect it to be it's a bit rubbish. But grab it by the scruff of the neck, rev it towards the red line and suddenly there it is... The top third of the rev-range is where the magic happens, the motor smooths out and the bike at last feels like it wants to play. And the noise... Proper motorbike noise. Brrrrmmm! Brrrrmmm! And, as you roll off the throttle a hugely satisfying pop, pop, bang, bang on the overrun. Seriously, this is the best sounding standard motorcycle engine I've heard in decades.

Now I should point out that I don't go off-road (although the Africa Twin looks pretty capable) so I'm viewing this purely as a road bike. And I have to admit that I really don't get it: A chassis that's perfect for relaxed touring and an engine that wants you to rev the tits off it. It seems fundamentally conflicted, as if the engine and chassis are permanently at odds.

After a few hundred miles on the Africa Twin I kind of found the sweet spot. While it'll never be inline-four smooth, it can be made to thrum along quite happily. And it's quick enough if you wind it up. But wow, it's expensive: The Yamaha Tracer 900 and Triumph Tiger 1050 both offer more performance and refinement, in a similar package for less money. Indeed, the Tracer is some £3,500 less than even the base model Africa Twin. And while I've no doubt that the Africa Twin is more off-road capable, I'm not sure how many adventure bike owners actually take their bikes off road.

So I still don't get this bike. Looked at objectively, it makes no sense. But adventure bikes are fashionable right now and I guess that's the real reason these things sell.

The end of my time with this bike saw several weeks of commuting and it really started to grate on me. The engine simply does not want to do town speeds: Only really happy at higher revs, if you drop out of its happy zone (inevitable in town traffic) it quickly becomes a juddering mess. Okay, I may have been spoilt by too many super smooth inline fours, but I really expected a 1000cc motor to have more flexibility.

And the irritations didn't end there. The unnecessarily high and wide bars made my shoulders ache at town speeds and the footrests were in exactly the right place to catch my shins when paddling the bike into parking slots. Minor points in isolation but added up made it feel as as if every aspect of the bike had been carefully designed to annoy the living shit out of me. In the end I couldn't wait to hand it back. So sorry Honda but I'm really not a fan.
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Suzuki Bandit 1250
https://deejayp999.atwebpages.com/index.html
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[Easy-X]

What's that front wheel? Looks skinny...
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[DJP]

It is - 21" super skinny. Totally pointless on road.
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Suzuki Bandit 1250
https://deejayp999.atwebpages.com/index.html
That's http not https

[flyingcbf]

I was going for one but the price was far off my budget
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2019 Suzuki V-Strom 250
2020 Cb125F @ 5k miles and going up!