Honda Africa Twin 2019 - Review

I recently had one of these for a month as a loan bike, so I thought I'd do a short review. First impressions: The Africa Twin is one tall motorcycle. I'm 6'1” and with its 870mm seat height it's a challenge even for me to get my leg over (f'narr, f'narr). But once in the saddle, it's a different story: The seat is plush, the riding position spacious and I can still get both feet down flat. The centre of gravity is low, and I was surprised to read that the Africa Twin weighs 232kg because it hides that weight very well. And it's a nice looking beast.

From the cockpit, there's no surprises. The controls and switchgear are as you'd expect on a modern Honda, although the digital dash is a bit busy for my tastes. The gearbox is superb and the slipper clutch nice and light, although the lever itself seems a tad short and I don't exactly have massive hands. Being a modern bike, the Africa Twin has various traction control and riding modes. “Tour” gives full power and minimum intervention so that's where I left it.

The engine is the opposite of what I'd expected: Gutless and vibratory low down and requires a surprising amount of revs to pull away cleanly. The refinement improves with speed but even at motorway speeds it's never exactly what I'd call smooth. One American reviewer described the engine as "...kind of gnarly" and that pretty much covers it. Which is a shame because the Africa Twin would make a good bike for mile munching, except that I wouldn't want to cover long distances sat atop that motor.

Not that it's all bad, it's just that if you approach this bike as you might expect, it's a bit rubbish. But grab it by the scruff of the neck, rev it towards the red line and suddenly there it is... The top third of the rev-range is where the magic happens, the motor smooths out and the bike takes off. And the noise... Proper motorbike noise. Brrrrmmm! Brrrrmmm! And, as you roll off the throttle a hugely satisfying pop, pop, bang, bang on the overrun. Seriously, this is the best sounding standard motorcycle engine I've heard in decades.

Now I don't go off-road (although the Africa Twin is apparently very capable there) so I'm viewing this purely as a road bike. And I have to admit that I really don't get it. We have a chassis that's perfect for relaxed touring with an engine that wants to be revved like a sports bike. It seems fundamentally conflicted, as if the engine and chassis are somehow at odds.

After another few hundred miles on the Africa Twin I found its sweet spot and while it'll never be inline four smooth, it can be made to thrum along quite happily. And it's quick enough if you wind it up. The suspension is decent and, despite the off-road orientated chassis, this thing handles. Indeed on the right road, with the engine in its happy zone, the Africa Twin can be hustled with surprising aplomb. This is no sensible tourer, it's an over sized hooligan bike.

But wow, it's expensive: The Yamaha Tracer 900 and Triumph Tiger 1050 both offer more performance and refinement for less money. Indeed, the Tracer is some £3,500 less than even the base model Africa Twin. And while the Africa Twin is doubtless more capable off-road, I'm not sure how many adventure bike owners actually take their bikes off road.

Having achieved some kind of peace with it, the end of my time with the Africa Twin saw several weeks of commuting and there it started to grate again. Only really happy at higher revs, the engine simply does not want to do town speeds. Okay, I've been spoilt by too many super smooth inline fours, but I really expected a 1000cc motor to be more flexible.

It's also too wide for effective filtering and the splayed bars made my shoulders ache at town speeds. The footrests seemed perfectly placed to catch my shins when paddling the bike into parking spaces where, being side-stand only, it took up far too much room. All in all, it started to feel as if every aspect of the bike was specifically designed to annoy me!

Afterthoughts: Despite how this reads, I did actually enjoy the Africa Twin. It's a quality machine but one with a very narrow performance envelope. Contrary to the marketing hype this is no sensible all-rounder: It's a proper trail bike and it wants to be thrashed off-road or hammered down the twisties. And it really doesn't do slow. In the right environment it's a hoot but elsewhere it's a chore. And unfortunately for most of my riding it just happened to be the latter.