I've had zero complaints about the twin engine in AS ES form (with the DCT). I may or may not have led a group of Superbike on a 407 run once or twice. Certainly not gonna knock your socks off coming from a dig, but the overall experience was satisfying (imo)Does this engine make my bike feel fat?
Yes. Yes, it does. More on that later...
Took a 2024 Africa Twin out today. Spent a bit of time in the dealer parking lot trying to configure the Ride Mode settings. Compared to the spartan Tenere controls, the left handlebar cluster on the AT is a confusing, hot mess:
OMGWTFBRBHawkTuahBBQ
I had rented an Africa Twin Adventure Sports in Spain a couple of years ago but only rode it on pavement. Back then, I had accepted the defaults for Sport mode, so there was no need for further customization. But for this ride, I had very specific requirements for off-road and the "Gravel" mode did not have what I was looking for. After 10 minutes of diving in and out of menus, I had to admit defeat and I slunk into the dealership to find someone to help me customize a ride mode.
A sales guy comes out and says, "Oh it's easy, you just hit this button and... um... hmm... maybe it's that button. Nope. Hmmm... Wait here a second, I'm gonna go inside and get the user manual..."
Actual excerpt from the Africa Twin user manual
After a couple of minutes, he comes back out and says, "Okay, it's a bit confusing. You gotta touch the clock display on the top screen to get into the customize menu"
Whut? Can you hide that a little bit more, Mr. Honda? I don't think anyone would ever have intuited where that menu was, and for such a very basic function too!
Dumb.
You have to press this to get to the customize settings menu... Yep, so very intuitive, right?
Okay, so this is how I set it up: full Power, minimal Engine Braking, minimal Traction Control (can't turn it completely off), and no ABS. Had to confirm the No ABS on the nanny screen and if you turn the bike off then on again, it switches the ABS back on.
When I first rode the AT a couple of years ago, was very impressed with the touch screen. It's the only motorcycle I've ever ridden with a factory touch screen that's not a separate GPS/Nav display. The touch capability does deactivate when the bike is moving and is only restored when completely stopped. Not a big deal.
What *IS* a big deal is that you cannot update the parameters unless you are fully stopped. Some (most?) ADV bikes, you can turn TC, ABS off/on and change throttle response while actively riding. The BMW also lets you change suspension settings while riding too!
Not so with the Africa Twin.
Dumb.
Rode out of the parking lot and immediately I noticed how heavy the bike feels. Yes, it's 510 lbs wet and it carries it all up top, so you do notice it when you take it off the sidestand. But this porkiness persists even when it's on the move, and this is due to the power characteristics of the parallel twin engine.
Most newer motorcycles today are designed with P-twin engines. Vs and I4s are slowly being phased out as motorcycles powerplants because of the ever-tightening Euro and California emission restrictions. Stuffing a parallel twin in a bike is the easiest way to pass these new rules. But most of them suffer from relatively poor low end torque, and the Africa Twin falls victim to this as well.
This becomes more apparent once you ride a whole bunch of motorcycles back-to-back, as I'm doing. Most of the mid-weight ADVs I've taken out are ~450-490 lbs, while pushing all this mass with ~100 hp. That's an acceptable power-to-weight ratio. The one exception is the heavyweight R1300GS coming in at 525 lbs, but offsetting the weight with a more powerful 145hp engine, which still maintains a more-than-adequate power-to-weight ratio.
The glaring issue here is that the Africa Twin is closer to a heavyweight on the scales, but is still trying to squeeze by with its very midweight 100 hp. With very poor low-end power. This makes the bike feel quite sluggish until you rev the engine up past 4K rpms till all the way up to its 8K redline.
Gorgeous though! Also, the bike is pretty good looking too...
As I took the bike up and down the gears, I realized yet another Achilles Heel. In stock form, the gearing is super-tall. Fine for high-speed pavement runs, but for off-road, you gotta redline the engine to get it to fall into an acceptable place in the powerband in the next gear up. Again, victim of the parallel twin's anemic low-end grunt. This makes either the lower gear very twitchy or the higher gear very sluggish. I never take these demo bikes on tighter, technical terrain, but hunting for the right gear got annoying on some of the wider switchbacks on mild grades. For off-road use, I'd definitely switch out the sprockets to achieve closer gear ratios.
I get the sense that this bike doesn't know what it wants to be. Or it's trying to be all things at once and failing at each thing individually. Even the wheel choice is indicative of this indecisiveness: heavy bike, highway gearing, but 21" front? Who are we trying to kid? It should have a 19" front. A lot of owners do make the switch opting for an aftermarket smaller front wheel and for 2024, the larger gas-tank equipped Adventure Sports model of the Africa Twin does come with a 19" front from the factory. That makes more sense.
Another surprise when banging down gears - no quickshifter! It's an option, but not part of the base config.
Not a problem, I get to go back to blipping the throttle on downshifts, which I find super-fun to do manually instead of letting the computer do it. But another side-effect of no engine slip (slipper clutch) regulation is that it makes breaking traction to the rear a lot easier with the clutch on downshifts. Especially when you crank up the Engine Braking in the Ride Mode. Great for backing it into corners. Yay!
Other nice things I can say about the Africa Twin, the position of the pegs and bar while standing on the pegs is perfect for me, and the tall seat height gives lots of leg room when seated. Very comfortable bike.
A good day was had... just not for the Honda cleaning staff...
The Africa Twin is an okay bike, let down by a weak engine, user interface fails and too-tall gearing for off-road. You can change the sprockets to fix the latter problem if you want to play in the dirt, more seat time will get you familiar with the controls, menu system and the stop/start Ride Mode quirks, but Honda desperately needs to put a proper heavyweight powerplant into its heavy weight motorcycle.
Heading back tomorrow to dirty up more bikes!!!
Full disclosure; my twin never saw so much as a puddle (off road). However, I thought it was an excellent street based ADV.
