Secret patents show Honda’s Africa Twin

It’s only drawings at the moment, but the next generation Adventure bike looks like it’s going to be very serious indeed...

This is a patent drawing filed in the US that appears to show the next generation Adventure bike from Honda. There’s been no news officially about this motorcycle in relation to the drawing, but at first look-over it does look very similar to Honda’s ‘True Adventure’ concept motorcycle shown at last year’s EICMA motorcycle show in Italy.

If it turns out to be the case that what we see in the drawing really is the final motorcycle then Honda was clearly using the concept bike in 2014 to gauge reaction from dealers around the world to something more hardcore for the Adventure bike sector.

This patent application shows a split airbox design with each part of the airbox sitting on each side of the headstock. In turn this shows that the fuel tank can then sit lower in the frame, keeping the bike very narrow indeed and also helping keep the bike’s central mass low.

There are several reasons for a low-mass on the bike with great ground clearance – but the chances are high that this has been done to make the bike more able off-road. The same can be said of the bike’s twin radiators which sit on either side of the engine just below the airboxes, an area less prone to damage from the front suspension over extreme terrains.

The new bike is clearly going to be 1000cc but is likely to not weigh much different to the original bike’s 218kg wet weight.