Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
IN A GOOD MODE WITH MY HONDA
Let there be singing and dancing in the street. Let joy be unconfined, fatted calves garlanded with flowers and virgins slaughtered for the feast. On second thoughts, hold the virgins and slaughter the calves.
The reason for my jollity is that I have just discovered that the Sport mode on my Honda Africa Twin has three mini modes which up to now have been cleverly hiding, the little devils.
As you may remember, the bike is the DCT version with two automatic modes, Drive and Sport, controlled by a sliding button on the right handlebar.
However, I soon abandoned Drive mode. Out on the road, it could not wait to change gear to the point where it was sometimes in sixth as low as 35mph, which no bike rider in his right mind would do.
So Sport it was, which let the revs build a lot higher before changing gear, in much the same way I imagine most riders would.
Then, a few weeks ago, I was at a track day at Rockingham to celebrate 25 years of the Honda Fireblade, and got chatting to fellow Africa Twin owner Michael Mann.
“You’re right about Drive mode, but the bit I enjoyed most was trying out the three Sport modes,” he said.
“There are three Sport modes?” I said, almost spilling my coffee.
“Sure thing. You just press and hold the…”
Sadly, what he was just about to say was drowned out by former MCN editor Marc Potter hurtling past on a raceprepared Fireblade at just below the speed of sound, the hooligan, so when I got home I decided to investigate the matter further using the traditional bloke method – you know, press buttons at random until something happens.
And lo and behold, when the bike was in Sport mode and I pressed and held the sliding magic button on the right handlebar, it toggled between the three Sport modes, which are indicated by one, two or three bars on the dash.
Grabbing my helmet, I set out on the road to investigate this further, and found that one was not quite sporty enough and three was slightly too busy, so like Goldilocks, I settled on the one in between.
Lovely. I’m now enjoying the bike even more, so watch this space in case I discover another secret button. It might even be the one between my ears. Honda Africa Twin
Price: £12,179
Engine: 998cc liquidcooled parallel-twin
Power: 94bhp @ 7,500rpm
Torque: 72lbft @ 6,000rpm
Colours: black, silver, red, red/white/blue