‘Searching for the soul’
Superbly accomplished, but the Africa Twin fails to connect emotionally
There are five bikes in my garage, all bought for one overarching reason: I love how they make me feel. That’s not down to a singular facet, it’s more a combination of design, character, handling and practicality. But I’ve not fallen in love with the Africa Twin. So what’s wrong with it? Not a lot, to be honest. It’s bordering on superb. The riding position is fantastic, the comfort good from the big flat seat, the tank range is excellent, it handles with lovely neutrality, is fun to push hard on lanes and extremely efficient as a motorway tool. It’ll handle off-road duties with predictable drive and goat-like agility, the electronics are decent, and the spec is an exhausting tick-list of inclusivity. I really like the CarPlay functionality, the 1100 engine is a genuine improvement, the electronic suspension is good (without being exceptional) and it looks rather pretty, especially in the tricolour HRC-esque colours. The luggage is so close to brilliant that moaning about minor annoyances would be unfair, and when you sit back and think hard about it – and I really have – there aren’t many things I’d change in terms of aftermarket mods. So I didn’t.
Could do better…
So, what lets the Africa Twin down? Let’s deal with the functional gripes first. The switchgear is wildly complicated, impossible to use at night, and the way in which the dash processes commands and displays your settings is inconsistent. The start-up of the dash and ‘press to accept’ disclaimer are tediously slow, and connecting to phones/ headsets isn’t always as robust as it could be – especially annoying on stop-start journeys. The official accessory quickshifter/ blipper isn’t the slickest, either. The other major moan is the quality of just a couple of parts – but they’re glaringly visible ones. There’s rust on the front downtube and around the headstock. That’s really not impressive. Some of it is where paint has flaked off, some is just showing through the white. Not good. The rusty, crusty exhaust looks a decade old after one year and is a very visible ugliness. The bashplate is a pig to clean and the aluminium tarnishes badly (as it has in places on the panniers). If this were an £11k bike, you’d perhaps forgive it some of these sins – but at over £20k in this trim, I’m struggling to. They’re not the reasons I’ve failed to fall in love, but they don’t help. When I really boil it all down, the AT is just too ‘vanilla’. There’s not enough of a character to inspire serious emotional attachment. Mind you, my wife says the same about me.