PERFORMANCETESTING
º DCT doesn’t slow acceleration. Twist and go, and it’s at 60mph as quick as some superbikes. Narrow, knobbly front tyre and
ABS result in long stopping distance.’
out. For me (6ft) there was slightly more buffeting with the screen at its highest setting (easily adjusted at a standstill, trickier on the go) so I only used that when temperatures dropped below freezing and I wanted all air to go away.
Practicality
Almost everything about the Africa Twin is practical. The centrestand makes hoiking 248kg aloft easypeasy, the LED cornering lights are a winter revelation and the huge handguards take the edge off crisp mornings even without the toastyhot heated grips. You can get a useful amount of seat height adjustment by piddling about relocating the saddle on different lugs, and I actually considered transporting a bedside table on the ginormous rear rack. My carparkdctincompetence hiccup proved that the Africa Twin is practical even when falling over. The wing mirror lens smashed, but the rest of the impacts were absorbed by the handguard and the black plastics dotted around the expensively painted stuff. You can hardly see the scuffs. Daytoday, the most practical aspect – all round comfort aside – is the 24.8 litre fuel tank. My maximum range was 280 miles but 300plus would be easy if you kept your motorway cruising speed below 85mph. Averaging 46mpg over my mix of commutes, tours and thrashes, fuel economy isn’t outstanding, probably because it’s such a big old unit.
The only niggles are there’s not much room under the pillion seat, no shaft drive, the spoked wheels (tubeless tyres though) are a faff to clean, you can spend a long time looking for the diddly lithium battery if you don’t know it’s behind the engine on the left hand side, and God knows what you do if the battery goes flat in the middle of nowhere – you’re certainly not bump starting with a DCT.
Qualityand nish
Tricky one this, because the bike arrived from Honda showing 450 miles and by then the surface finish on lots of fasteners was already saltdamaged and there was rust on some tuckedaway brackets. Other owners I spoke to hadn’t had a problem, so maybe it was runin through salt without being washed. Otherwise the quality and finish is as you’d expect from an expensive Honda: superb. The plastics are a joy to take off and replace because they’re so accurately made, the finish on the engine comes up pristine after just a hose down and there’s that feeling of engineeredin invincibility you get from certain modern Hondas (eg Blade and CB1000). Obviously it used no oil over 3000 miles.
‘There’s no doubting the Africa Twin is an excellent motorcycle. Its problem is the price – the DCT version with all the electronic gubbins is over £20k’