New Honda Africa Twin

[XRMANU]

An adventure bike with real off-road capacities...

 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.765474100155480.1073742087.123962830973280&type=1

 

[pterry]

Yeah.....mmmm....I'll believe it when one is on the showroom floor.

Prolly NEVER in the USA!

I don't even understand it as a factory race bike. Maybe for the Baja 1000 but as for a Dakar bike no dice. The max cc for a race bike is 450 cc's.

Edited November 5, 2014 by pterry

[mrtt]

if I can't buy it or equivalent model, it's a meaningless product to me

Edited November 5, 2014 by mrtt

[XRMANU]

It's no (Dakar) race bike but a pre-production model of an new adventure bike à la Africa Twin from the '80. Dakar bikes are 450cc max,they have the factory crf450 (x) for this.

[XRMANU]

http://www.advpulse.com/adv-bikes/new-honda-africa-twin-revealed/

[pterry]

This looks like the repeat of the KTM 390 thread. It was all a bunch of hot air! It would be cool, but again, I'll believe it when I see it.

Edited November 5, 2014 by pterry

[michigan400]

That looks pretty cool!!

 

Not sure about the whole auto trans thing with paddle shifters though.

[XRMANU]

That will be optional stuff like on other Honda's with the dual clutch transmission (NX700 etc )

[pterry]

That will be optional stuff like on other Honda's with the dual clutch transmission (NX700 etc )

You do know it will never make it to the States.

[wallrat]

2 weeks until the International Motorcycle Show stops here in Long Beach.  If its there I'd say the US has a damn good chance of seeing this bike available here.  But yeah, I'm not really expecting to be that lucky.

[pterry]

2 weeks until the International Motorcycle Show stops here in Long Beach. If its there I'd say the US has a damn good chance of seeing this bike available here. But yeah, I'm not really expecting to be that lucky.

I'll be buying a lotto ticket the day its at a dealership in the US.

[XRMANU]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-gXpyjwGgg&feature=youtu.be

[pterry]

Cool vid.

The one problem: that was almost 3 decades ago! Please catch up fast Honda!

BTW, who dominates the Dakar these days?

Edited November 7, 2014 by pterry

[XRMANU]

Because there weren't any other factory teams involved over that period. ?

Off road is the core business for KTM ... they don't have much else.

 

Honda won 4 ,5 times back than and moved over to something else .They did the same in F1 after the Prost/Senna period.

 

They came back to Dakar with a factory team 2 years ago.

 

Honda won 6 of 13 stages in the Dakar 2014, KTM 3...

 

The CRF rally was by far the fastest bike (10 to 15 km/h over the other factory bikes) but they had a lot of bad luck (navigation and a serious crash for Barreda and other things) and Coma had more luck and won by his experience ...

 

BTW: KTM tried the last decade to beat Honda in your US Baja races without much luck.

 

The good thing is that Honda found interest again (finally !) in the off-road world with real factory teams/bikes : Dakar, MX1 and MX2 .This will lead to more competition between the different brands and hopefully to new and better models everywhere. And that's a good thing for us off-road lovers,all brands alike.

Edited November 7, 2014 by XRMANU

[michigan400]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-gXpyjwGgg&feature=youtu.be

 

 

Awesome!!

 

Excellent old footage from that era. Loved seeing that! Thanks for posting!!

[pterry]

Sorry xrmanu but your rational is flawed. To compare the Dakar to the Baja is like comparing trials riding with motocross. The races are two completely different animals.

Off road is the core business for KTM ... they don't have much else.

KTM doesn’t have adventure bikes?

Honda won 6 of 13 stages in the Dakar 2014, KTM 3...

This makes no difference in the strategy of winning the Dakar. The leaders usually get significant times ahead of any competition and then ride behind the next best rider. It’s the overall time at the end of the race that wins.

The CRF rally was by far the fastest bike (10 to 15 km/h over the other factory bikes) but they had a lot of bad luck (navigation and a serious crash for Barreda and other things) and Coma had more luck and won by his experience ...

This is again a moot point because of Dakar racing strategies. I also think your assessment of Coma is flawed. His experience is about 99.9999% and his luck plays about the other .0001%

BTW: KTM tried the last decade to beat Honda in your US Baja races without much luck.

The only comparison you can make between the two races is that they are off-road and very complex. Either team knows that there is a learning curve for these races of about three years or more, and they don’t really expect to win the first couple of years of racing them.

The good thing is that Honda found interest again (finally !) in the off-road world with real factory teams/bikes : Dakar, MX1 and MX2 .This will lead to more competition between the different brands and hopefully to new and better models everywhere. And that's a good thing for us off-road lovers,all brands alike.

I understand your enthusiasm but realistically the steps Honda has done towards dualsporting is the CRF 250l and that is not much more than a play bike. Their 650’s haven’t changed much in at least 2 decades.

Edited November 7, 2014 by pterry

[XRMANU]

I was just letting people know (for who have some interest in it...) that Honda is up with something new in the close future and that they finally invest time/money/people in the off-road /MX world (Mx,trail,enduro,travel enduro,Supermotard,adventure,rally etc etc).

 

Over here in Europe an "off-road bike" is something with lights ,street legal and capable of doing some kind of riding beside the paved road.

 

I wasn't "comparing Baja with Dakar"... just letting know that it's easy to dominate if there isn't an other team involved and that if they invest in something,Honda also can go for the podium,year after year. Even with a bike that was concepted early/mid 2000...

 

I'm not fond of the strategy or politics of Honda, I -personally- just love their philosophy/bikes and the way they are build.

[JoeBlow Kokomo]

Because there weren't any other factory teams involved over that period. ?

Off road is the core business for KTM ... they don't have much else.

 

 

 HELLO, it's 2014!!!  KTM sold 100,000+ bikes last year. More bikes than BMW, Triumph or Ducati and MORE THAN HALF were STREETBIKES>

Edited November 9, 2014 by MindBlower

[pterry]

I was just letting people know (for who have some interest in it...) that Honda is up with something new in the close future and that they finally invest time/money/people in the off-road /MX world (Mx,trail,enduro,travel enduro,Supermotard,adventure,rally etc etc).

 

Over here in Europe an "off-road bike" is something with lights ,street legal and capable of doing some kind of riding beside the paved road.

 

I wasn't "comparing Baja with Dakar"... just letting know that it's easy to dominate if there isn't an other team involved and that if they invest in something,Honda also can go for the podium,year after year. Even with a bike that was concepted early/mid 2000...

 

I'm not fond of the strategy or politics of Honda, I -personally- just love their philosophy/bikes and the way they are build.

 

 

Like I said, I understand your enthusiasm for new Honda bikes. But you, being from Belgium, have so many more options than we do, The Trans-Alp, Tener'e and even an xr400 style dual sport bike are available to you.  Please understand my side, Honda has left USA to rot when it comes to recent-technology dual sport bikes. So has a lot of other Japanese brand dealers for that matter. KTM has stepped up here in the US to deliver up-to-date technology in their dual sport bikes. My pessimism comes from the smoke blowing propaganda like this, when I am ALMOST absolutely sure it will never make it here to the US. I may still have a .1% glimmer of hope that it may happen because I like Honda's quality too.

Edited November 9, 2014 by pterry

[XRMANU]

The new Africa Twin CRF1000F.. Full monty this time...