RUST magazine: RUST#37

adventure
AFRICATWIN
Bigger is better?
Two years after its sensational release, Honda
has revisited the Africa Twin with some
updates – and an upgrade in the supersized
Adventure Sports. So RUST joined Honda in
the UK West Country to assess the progress…
Words: JB Images: Nuno Laranjeira
I’ve got to hand it to Honda, they have the
chassis on the Africa Twin nailed. I’ve just
launched the big AT up a gravelly climb and
it’s eaten it up. There was a ledge halfway
up and it lofted the front over that – I could
have gone for big air, but I didn’t take my brave pills
at breakfast, so it was just a modest wheelie, while
keeping the power on hard in second gear. Then
at the top of the climb it skipped an easy diagonal
across some mud ruts gone dry. It had then braked
and turned left in the one slick movement, using
a bank for a berm, before being flicked right for
the next climb. It was dynamic, secure and fun. A
well-sorted frame working in some harmony with
a set of 9” suspension units allied with the off-road
optimized 21”/18” wheel combo.
This is the Africa Twin at its best, at home as it
were. Its kind of where it’s come from after all, for
the original Africa Twin was an evolution of the
big trail bike. It’s there in its bloodlines, going back
to the XL/XR600s of the early 1980s that scored
podiums (if not wins) in the Dakar, through to the
first Africa Twin of 1988 – the XRV650 created by
the Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) that aped
the NXR750 works machines (that Cyril Neveu had
raced to Dakar victory for the first time in 1986).
The first Africa Twins were not Adventure bikes
as we know them now, they were ‘big trailies’ with
off-road capability something of a top requisite.
w
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