‘Surge out with a smile on your face and a bellow in your ears’

corners with a smile on your face, a bellow in your ears and a V-twin-alike rumble in your jungle.

For a bike with an off-roadfocused 21in wheel up front, the Transalp handles superbly on tarmac. You’d think it was a 19-incher, which is a big tick.

Showa forks and rear shock are only adjustable for preload, and chassis components aren’t anything special on paper, but they’ve been developed to work in perfect harmony, whether you want to ride like Miss Daisy or a crazed supermoto-ist. That shouldn’t come as a surprise when you discover most of the Honda engineers in charge of developing the Hornet and Transalp have worked on Fireblades, RCVs and motocrossers in the past.

Of course, you could tie the Honda in knots if you wanted to, but at a swift pace it’s stable, turns with little effort and has decent ground clearance. Metzeler Karoo Street tyres are tubed (it also comes on Dunlop Mixtour), but they’re sticky and shower you with confidence on wet or dry tarmac. Ride quality is controlled. Its wheels and lanky suspension (200mm travel up front, 190mm at the rear) glide over the kind of bumps that would get a pure roadster in a tangle. That’s one of the big advantages of an adventure bike on modern roads.

How is the Transalp off-road?

I’m no Billy Bolt, but then neither will the average Transalp owner be. For those with the taste for the dirt, it’s as friendly on light trails as a largish-capacity, 200kg-plus road bike can hope to be. A new ‘Gravel’ riding mode minimises traction control and ABS intervention, but the electronics are too intrusive. Happily, you can turn the rider aids off in ‘User’ mode to let the Honda slip and slide a little (and pull wheelies), which is more useful than not off-road. If you’re tall, you’ll find the bars are set too low for a standing riding position.

We’ll find out how it stacks up against its rivals in the coming months but expect it to be at the least off-roady end of the scale.

What’s the competition?

Talking of challengers, the middleweight adventure class is one of the most crowded. The new £10,655 Suzuki V-Strom 800DE and current, class-leading £10,100 Yamaha Ténéré 700 are the Honda’s main rivals, but there is a gaggle of others to spoil you for choice: the £9999 KTM 790 and £11,999 890 Adventures, £10,750 BMW F850GS, £9850 Aprilia Tuareg 660, £11,099 CF Moto 800 MT, £10,095 Triumph Tiger 850 Sport and £12,975 Tiger 900 Rally. The Transalp beats them all on price.

In-house fighting

It also competes with its own parallel twin Honda stablemates. You could think of the Transalp as a more powerful, playful CB500X, and with accessory luggage fitted it’s a lighter, more entertaining NT1100. Then there’s the 1084cc Africa Twin, which costs another three and half grand, is 18kg heavier and makes just 9bhp more, which matches the Transalp’s power-toweight ratio. For carrying pillions and heavy luggage, the Africa Twin’s extra cubes and spaciousness make sense. For the rest of the time the Transalp is the more usable.

Great value

Build quality is superb, and standard equipment includes a multi-function 5in Bluetooth colour dash, traction, wheelie and engine braking control, switchable ABS, wavy brake discs, LED lights and even stick-on tank grips. There’s no cruise control, which is a shame for a bike built to do distance, and if the comments on our You Tube Transalp review video are anything to go by, it’s a bit of an oversight by Honda. That said, it’s great value for money and only £99/month over three years on a PCP deal.

Accessories galore

Comfort, performance and cosmetic accessories are available in packs (Adventure, Comfort, Rally, Tour, Urban) or individually. They include a 100-litre hard luggage set, centrestand, bull bars, spotlights, hand guards, bash plate, heated grips and a taller screen.

Trail ability is decent for a bike of this size

Road handling is accomplished

Long-travel suspension makes light work of any road imperfections

Multi-function 5in Bluetooth colour dash is same as the CB750 Hornet’s and equally easy to use. You can control music, calls and satnav via voice activation.

Designed to deflect air around the rider but compact enough not to get in the way off-road, the non-adjustable screen is effective, but noisy at high speed.

Stepped rider and pillion seat is generously proportioned, but quite thinly padded. It’s comfy for five or six hours, then starts to get painful.

All the switches and buttons you need are conveniently located on the left switchgear block, including buttons to navigate the dash functions.

Unlike the ’87 original’s single disc set-up, the new bike has twin wavy discs and ABS-controlled Nissin twin-piston calipers. They’re full of power and feel.