Honda Africa Twin Adventure Sports ES
The new CRF1100L is big and it’s clever – so just try not to turn beetroot and start ranting…
Seems Honda have got the new CRF1100L Africa Twin fabulously right and frustratingly wrong at the same time. Feel the torque of its pumped-up engine and you’re impressed. Optional semi-active suspension on this Adventure Sports version (£1400 please) is luxurious, and it bristles with more tech than Maplins. Yet the motor is still a toffee hammer next to BMW’S sledge, and the dash and switchgear are more annoying than Amanda Holden. This evening the Africa Twin ferried me across three wet counties with breath-taking ease. It soothingly dispensed with A1 tedium, wafting in a user-set mode with flawless fuelling, plush ride, and 75mph at just 4000rpm. Comfort was superb (seat in the high position for my 6ft frame), effective screen and heated grips kept the chill at bay. Onto B-roads, in full-power Tour mode with bouncy bits firmed up, and the Honda vaulted across the landscape. The headlight’s exceptional. Suspension is pleasingly supple with a long-travel feel, yet always composed; forks dive a bit under braking but push the tyre through the slop and give plenty of feel. Then there’s the engine. Its longer stroke punches capacity from 998 to 1084cc, and with tweaks to various oily bits Honda say there’s 4.4 more lumps of torque than the CRF1000L, with a 100.6bhp peak. Our dyno found 93.6bhp at 7600rpm and 71.4 lb.ft, to the old model’s 87bhp and 67.5 lb.ft. The curves show more whump everywhere, which is exactly how it feels. On a childish level, I like how the new IMU knows the difference between wheelie and wheelspin, so lets the beefed-up twin stand erect off the throttle.
‘It’s fitter, livelier and sounds great,’ agrees Bike contributor Martin Fitz-gibbons. ‘Electric ride quality feels good, and I love the colours and gold wheels – great it’s got spokey tubeless wheels now, too.’ Which is all ace. The AT is classy, built by people with huge brains with a generous blob of Hondaness. You see why this spec is £16,049. Yet some features make you want to grab the designer by both ears and scream in their face. Controlling the dash and fathoming settings and functions is a pig. Whatever the opposite of intuitive is, that’s the AT. Adjusting suspension is nigh-on impossible, rider aid levels use differing scales (one minimum and four max, or the other way round?), switchgear is messy, and why have a touchscreen yet barely allow touch control? Give us a button per widget like BMW used to have. There’d be no more buttons than there are now, and it’d do away with trawling menus and sub-menus. It’d stop you catching the wrong switch while reaching for the almost-hidden indicators, too.
I was worried my fondness for simplicity meant I wasn’t giving the Honda a chance. But everyone agrees. ‘The dash is a pain in the arse,’ moans Martin, ‘and the switchgear is offensively complicated. Quit the acronyms and make it easy to read and adjust – I want one grip control, not a button to open a sub-menu and a different toggle to adjust it.’ Sound nit-picky? Think how many times you refer to the dash, use the indicators or need to select full beam. This all matters. Making the interface so unnecessarily complex simply beggars belief.
The huge switch blocks add visual mass, so the AT feels bigger and heavier than 242kg wet on our scales despite a lower seat (now 850/870mm, same as the base AT). The stand doesn’t help: it leans too far, so it’s a heave to get upright. And the motor still feels a bit flat after the GS. You’ll effortlessly keep up with a Bmw-riding friend (unless it’s P. Hickman), but the AT doesn’t surge out of 30mph limits in a tall gear like the GS. Feed the BMW fuel at any speed, in any gear, and it bludgeons onward. The Honda isn’t as rompy. All this should make me dismiss the 1100… yet it still appeals. Of the three I want the Yamaha, but between the BMW and Honda I’d buy the AT; sounds lame, but it feels nicer. I prefer its more enduro-ish riding stance too – if I’m riding an adventure bike I want it to feel like one. Martin’s not convinced: ‘If you want a roady tourer, the GS is comfier, faster, steers better and has a shaft. If you want to go off-road the Yam feels like a dirt bike. The new Honda feels caught between two stools.’
‘The Africa Twin vaults across counties with breath-taking ease’