AFRICA RISES

It was a pretty decent start to the year for Honda and all things two wheels far away from civilisation. As you may have heard, they broke the ridiculous streak KTM had going in the Dakar Rally. They’ve been trying hard for some time and it finally all came together thanks to Ricky Brabec’s trouble-free run through Saudi.

So as far as good timing goes, 2020 is the best year imaginable to release a new Africa Twin. A big win in the desert, in a race that many years ago inspired the very name Africa Twin. That’s surely a marketing department’s dream scenario.

Honda has been fairly proactive with the Africa Twin range since its re-introduction in 2016 with offerings of differing models, tank sizes, gearbox types, suspension, electronic aids, etc. Contrast that with Yamaha, which has sat on the Super Ténéré 1200 for far too long; with Suzuki, which still straddles the tourer/adventure line with the V-Strom 1050; and with Kawasaki, which has nothing modern to offer the adventure market. You don’t have to look from afar to appreciate that Honda is well ahead of its traditional Japanese foes in embracing modern offroad adventure. There simply isn’t a similar-capacity Japanese bike that can compare.

Let’s go back for a brief moment to those heady days of 2016 when Honda first rebirthed the Africa Twin. It was teased for a while and then it kind of just arrived with little to no fanfare. The first one I rode was the stock model that wasn’t prepped for the bush and I found myself needing to be restrained so as not to break any vulnerable bits and pieces, but on a bike that wanted to bolt. I loved how the bike felt on the dirt and as such rode it more like a dirtbike than any other 1000cc bike before it. It was smooth, vibration-free, comfortable, stable and so much fun. The suspension was a little soft