On pukka enduro rubber
The second day’s ride was all off-road. Our bikes had been kitted out with Continental TKC enduro tyres, but nothing else had changed. The idea was to ride the manual and DCT models around the same 16km dirt track, taking on steep and rocky climbs, deep sand, jumps and boulders. I kicked things off on the manual model and already felt confident, knowing full well how exceptionally the bike had performed on road tyres the day before.
The challenge of the day was to grasp how differently the models performed around the circuit, to which I was pretty adamant I’d come back favouring the manual over the DCT version. Set off one at a time, I had my bike’s traction switched off and torque level on one. The big Honda felt quite the opposite, obligingly taking on any harsh surface that came its way and switching direction as if it weighed much less than it did. Deep sand is a nightmare on any bike and it was the thing I feared most for the Africa Twin.
Not knowing the route, the first stint of sand really caught me out and I felt the front wheel start to fold. Rolling off the throttle only made things worse, but a handful of throttle got everything back in line and the bike righted itself without too much concern. This is where the narrow front wheel really came into its own, navigating the deep sand and abundance of other obstacles that came my way. Before long I was quite literally flying on the bike, hitting random mounds of soil and turning them into jumps.
The Honda had a tendency to nose dive, unless you really accelerated hard at obstacles, but even when it did land on its nose it wasn’t overly hard to get back in control. By the time I’d completed the circuit I was well and truly sold on the idea that this was a genuine off-road capable machine. The question was, could DCT improve the experience? Forgetting to switch off the torque control, my first impression of DCT wasn’t all that great, but then I realised my error and turned everything off, with the drive mode selected to S3 and G-button activated.
The first part of the trail was downhill and it was impressive to experience the severity of engine braking that came as part of the G-button function. It was as if I had a geared bike beneath me. Not having a clutch did feel weird, but the farther I went, the less I began to think about it. I also thought much less about my gear selection – as the DCT sorted the best option for me. Quite unlike the road experience, I never once considered changing the gears manually as the system was always sharp and punchy, allowing for instant throttle and big slides out of every corner. Before I knew what was happening, DCT was quickly becoming my favoured choice, simply because it freed up so much of my time and helped me to think purely about the ride and nothing else. There were no flaws to the system and I came back to the starting point convinced that if I had to choose, I’d go for DCT.
Throughout the course of the launch, DCT had stood out as the premium option for touring and town work and it had now done the same on the dirt. The only area where it lost out was on the fast-paced mountain pass, where a manual transmission made more sense. Again, that’s not what this bike’s about, whereas the other areas define it.