2020 Honda Africa Twin 1100 Adventure Sports Review Daily Rider
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00:00Heyo everybody, Zach Kortz here with RevZilla and welcome to another episode
00:04of Daily Rider, where we learn about bikes as we ride. On today's show, Honda's
00:092020 Africa Twin 1100 Adventure Sports. That is a full-size adventure touring
00:15motorcycle, adjustable everything, 530 pounds, $17,000. So we're gonna take it
00:20for a spin and see how it stacks up on the daily ride.
00:30Okay, camera's rolling, gloves are going on, you are adequately prepared to rock.
00:37So Africa Twin 1100, very much the same kind of look to this bike as it had
00:43before, which I think is quite good. In my opinion, I think it's quite handsome.
00:47Tubeless spoke rims, which is something that people asked about on the last
00:51model, so this new one has tubeless rims, which is nice. Showa suspension, which is
00:56electronically adjustable on the Adventure Sports model, which we are riding
01:01today. Engine, increased the stroke by six and a half millimeters, I think, so it's
01:061,084 cc's maybe, 1100 up from about a thousand. New frame, new swingarm, I don't
01:13really remember what's new with the swingarm to be honest, nothing that you
01:16can tell while you're riding it, but the frame is supposed to be a little bit
01:18more intuitive while you leaned over. These are cornering lights, which is kind
01:22of cool, so when you lean over they illuminate in three stages to show
01:26through the corner. Yeah, we can fire it up, shall we do? This big old dash, who's
01:32it? Which takes a minute to boot up.
01:37But there's that Africa Twin thump, and there's that big old dash, and there's
01:43another dash below it. Okay, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's hit the road.
01:56So, basic specs on the Africa Twin. I mentioned it is 530 pounds, that is for
02:02this Adventure Sports version of the bike. Honda claims about 500 pounds for
02:08the base bike, which has a five gallon fuel tank instead of this six and a half
02:12gallon fuel tank, which is quite a bit of fuel. So, 530 pounds is a heavy motorcycle,
02:18no two ways about that, but six and a half gallons of gas is also quite a bit,
02:22so that's pretty good. Honda does not claim horsepower numbers for the US
02:28models, but in Europe, European models claim 100 horsepower and 77 foot-pounds
02:36of torque, I believe. The last spec that's an important one with all bikes really,
02:41but especially the Africa Twin, is seat height. And the seat height on the Africa
02:45Twin is 33.7 inches in the low position. I have it in the high position right now,
02:51and that is 34.3 inches, so it is a pretty tall seat. The standover height's
02:57not bad. It's fairly narrow in the middle, as you can see, but it is a tall seat, and
03:04it is a heavy motorcycle, and the gas is pretty high up. So, it is a little bit
03:09intimidating to push off the kickstand and swing a leg over, in my opinion. And,
03:14of course, one of the most important specifications is price. I said $17,000.
03:20It is $17,199 as a base price for the Adventure Sports, but one nice thing
03:26about Honda pricing is that $17,200 gets you the whole bike, everything. You know,
03:32cruise control, the dash, the big gas tank, the everything. The Apple CarPlay,
03:38that's kind of, you know, there's no, like, extra tiered pricing. It's just the
03:40Adventure Sports package, and you get everything with it for $17,200.
03:50On the topic of Apple CarPlay and pricing and the base model bike, which I'll talk
03:55about a little bit today, is that you can click on a link in the description of
03:59this video for my article that I wrote on Common Tread, which explains in further
04:05detail some of the things that I won't quite have time to talk about today,
04:09including what the dash looks like with CarPlay and a more direct comparison to
04:15the base model bike. Okie dokie, out onto the freeway. A few questions I got on
04:19social media were about the Adventure Sports model because some people assumed
04:23that Adventure Sports means that it's more off-road oriented, and that was sort
04:28of the case with the previous generation. The Adventure Sports had longer travel
04:31suspension, and it was sort of, the suggestion in marketing anyway was that
04:35it was designed to, you know, tackle bigger, longer trips and be more rugged
04:40while you were doing it. For 2020, that's not really the case anymore. The base
04:44bike is more the one that they suggest be used for off-road because it's a
04:49little bit smaller and lighter, carries a little bit less fuel, it has tubed
04:53rims, which is an advantage for some people and not for others. But anyway, the
04:59Adventure Sports model is very much a sport touring oriented machine. The
05:03bigger fuel tank is meant to increase range, which it does, and it also has
05:08adjustable windscreen, which we can play with, and the cornering lights and stuff
05:13like that are sort of just designed to be a little bit more luxurious for the
05:17long haul, not necessarily for riding off-road. And it is essentially the same
05:22suspension, same amount of suspension travel as the base bike. One thing this
05:27new Africa Twin has is cruise control. This little button down here with my
05:31right thumb, I can tap that and the cruise control switch comes on, and if I
05:35tap down, cruise control is set at 65 miles an hour. And you of course can
05:41cancel with the clutch or the brake or whatever, or by rolling the throttle
05:45closed. It's a very, very good system. It's been implemented flawlessly in my
05:49mind and also sort of accentuates the touring nature of this bike, although the
05:54base bike does have the same option. Now that we've got the cruise control set
05:59on the straight and narrow here, again we can play with the adjustable
06:02windscreen, which unfortunately you need two hands to adjust. I assume there
06:06were some lawyers at Honda that decided that if they made it only adjustable
06:10with two hands, then you would have to be stopped in order to do it. But of
06:13course they implemented cruise control, and motorcyclists being the people that
06:17they are, they are going to adjust the windscreen in whatever manner they can
06:22that makes sense. Of course I would not recommend doing that, but the fact
06:26remains that the windscreen is adjustable five ways, and when it's in the
06:30fully upright position here, fully erect if you will, it is pretty good for
06:35coverage. I have the seat in the high position, like I said. If I were in the
06:38low position it would be more like this, and that would provide a little bit
06:41better wind protection. For me it's six foot two, it's pretty comprehensive,
06:45although one thing I would say about the wind protection is that it's very tall
06:48and narrow, and therefore wind kind of comes around the sides here and still
06:52hits me in the in the shoulders and in the chest a little bit. Still, overall
06:58really really comfortable bike for logging lots and lots of miles. And while
07:02we are on the topic of lots and lots of miles, come to think of it, one thing I
07:06definitely need to address on this bike is fuel range, which is outstanding. On
07:11the very first episode of Daily Rider we rode the Versys 650 and I was talking
07:14about how you can ride at 250 miles and how amazing that is. My first, or sorry
07:19excuse me, second tank of fuel I ran through the Africa Twin involved a long
07:24day ride with a couple of colleagues, and I put 338 miles on the odometer
07:30without stopping for fuel. So well over 300 miles is pretty keen, and I think
07:35that's farther than I've ever gone on any showroom spec motorcycle on one tank
07:40of gas. Even a BMW GS 1200 or 1250 with an eight gallon tank I usually have to
07:46fill up around 300 miles, if not a little bit before. So props to Honda for giving
07:51the Africa Twin seriously long legs when it comes to touring. While I'm on the
07:56topic of fuel range I should mention that my fuel mileage for that tank was 53
08:01mpg, and I think another tank or two that I got were also low 50s. So I think
08:05that's a good benchmark to give yourself for potential miles per gallon on
08:10Africa Twin. It's a pretty efficient engine, it doesn't rev super high, it's
08:13kind of lopey, it's got lots of torque, and yeah I mean 50-55 miles a gallon is
08:19pretty good I think for a bike with 100 horsepower. Last thing to talk about
08:22would be mirrors. I only bring it up because lots of people ask in the
08:26comments section now about mirrors because I've always made such a big deal
08:30about mirrors and I do love them. These mirrors are quite good. These are sort
08:34of standard issue Honda mirrors with a basic stock in this sort of trapezoidal,
08:40that's the right word, shape. But they're very smooth, they're well mounted, they're
08:44high quality, they're really really nice. And yeah I always, or I often tell the
08:48story about how my old boss at Motorcyclist Magazine used to take Honda
08:52mirrors and put them on all his bikes because he loved them so much. Same goes
08:57for the Africa Twin. All righty, here we go trundling through this neighborhood
09:04here. Oh, I technically ran that stop sign. Speedo went to one mph. Now this is
09:10usually where we talk about general balance and clutch feel on the bikes we
09:16ride and yeah I think that the Africa Twin is quite good in that respect
09:21especially with sort of clutch feel. I think it's a simple cable operated
09:27clutch and I like the way it feels. It's very predictable and easy to get used
09:32to. Thank you good sir. I rolled that sign too. I'm just distracted by the
09:37politeness of strangers. All right focus up Zach, here we go. In general also
09:41balance is quite good on this bike. It has excellent steering lock and turning
09:46radius but it is big and tall and I was not able to get through that stop sign
09:53without putting my foot down. So yeah it's just a large and tall motorcycle
09:59with a 21 inch front wheel. So at low speeds it's good. At almost stopped it
10:05can be a little tricky to balance and you also don't want to take too many
10:09risks with tipping over because if it gets slightly off balance it is large
10:14and in charge so to speak. There we go. A nice clean footless stop there.
10:24A fellow adventure rider. Hello good sir. The other thing this hill of stop signs
10:29often brings up is throttle response which is actually one of my big
10:35complaints about the 2020 Africa Twin and not because it's particularly bad
10:40but because the old bike was particularly good. There was one ride
10:43mode on the original Africa Twin or the original new Africa Twin I should say
10:48and it was just excellent and when I rode that bike I remember saying it
10:51doesn't have adjustable ride modes but it doesn't need any. It has one that's
10:53really really good and this bike has four adjustable power modes. We'll take
10:59a quick look at the dash since we're talking about it. So here's power right
11:03here so I'm in power mode four which is sort of confusingly the least aggressive
11:08and if you put it in power mode one it's the most aggressive and I didn't like
11:11the most aggressive mode and even this one is a little bit flighty but it's my
11:16favorite the least aggressive one. Engine braking, torque control or traction
11:20control and then independent of the ride mode which I'm in user one these modes
11:24over here torque control is selectable with the touchscreen on the fly as is
11:29wheelie control and preload for the spring.
11:34So that's a quick tour of the dash. I'll try and show you some of the other faces
11:37it has later but again for more information on the dash definitely
11:40check out the article on Common Tread, link in the description of this video.
11:45In general I should say the engine is just excellent. It sounds great, it's easy
11:51to use despite the imperfect throttle response, the power delivery is really
11:56linear. It's just it's been a great engine and
12:01they increased the stroke a little bit to make it bigger but it's largely the
12:05same animal. It's very very pleasant to use
12:09and yeah again I love the way it sounds.
12:13Here's where we usually talk about passenger accommodations. My lovely wife
12:17raised her hand to volunteer to test this bike as
12:20she often does and she gave it very high marks. She said the seat
12:24is really comfortable, it's cushy and it's pretty wide. She felt like she had
12:27pretty good leg room and the grips are really nice. Oh the
12:31little you know the luggage rack handrail thing
12:33and yeah she gave it basically full marks. I believe what she said is the
12:37only thing that could make this any better is if it had
12:39a top box on the back that you could lean on which
12:42you know always makes any bike more comfortable for the passenger.
12:45And while we're on the topic, luggage is
12:49available on this bike. You can get top loading aluminum cases.
12:53I think they're made by Touratech. You can get from Honda.
12:57It has a slightly more complicated mounting system but it's still relatively
13:00simple. And then you can get the plastic bags
13:03that have been available on the Africa Twin for a while now
13:07that clip right to the subframe there and use the foot peg mount
13:10as a bracket. Away we go. Wrap.
13:16All right our little twisty mountain road here.
13:20Simulated twisty mountain road and like I said
13:24Honda redesigned the frame on the Africa Twin
13:271100 to be a little bit more rigid longitudinally but have a little bit
13:34more flex in the frame when the bike's leaned over
13:36to help handling on the sort of side of the tire help
13:40feel. And I'll be honest I can't say that I
13:44feel a real genuine difference between the amount of flex that the frame has
13:48when you leaned over but I can say that this bike really
13:52inspires quite a bit of confidence on roads like this. I think
13:55it's really impressive how well it works especially considering it's got a
13:59big 21 inch front wheel which is not exactly a sporting quality. Obviously
14:03that's more of an off-road adventure kind of thing
14:05but it feels really really nice and it's very low effort.
14:09It holds a line nicely. You tip it into corners. You can just sort of sit in the
14:12middle of the seat and push on this big wide tiller
14:15and yeah I mean I found myself dragging my toes on mountain roads and
14:20not really breaking a sweat. The bike's just sort of ready for it.
14:23Another nice thing about the Adventure Sports when it comes to
14:28twisty mountain roads or city or highway or any terrain really
14:31is that the suspension is quite adjustable via
14:35all these buttons on the left hand grip and this touchscreen dash.
14:39So basically, very basically, what you can do is
14:43tune spring preload with this set of parameters down here.
14:47So you can say you know rider, rider with passenger, rider with luggage etc etc.
14:52And all that is tunable in the menu system
14:55to for general preload settings as well as overall damping
15:00stiffness and damping characteristics which you can tune in the menu system. So
15:04it's pretty complicated very tunable system which is kind of nice for you
15:08know for owners right if you own this bike and you really really
15:12wanted very specific sets of parameters for the two different user
15:16modes that you can adjust then you can tune all that which is
15:19really nice. Practically, I found it nice because you
15:24know when a passenger hops on board you can just
15:26stiffen up the back same as all the other sort of elite
15:29adventure touring motorcycles on the market and
15:32also the damping characteristics are very noticeable when you change them so
15:36when you put it in a soft mode it really kind of floats along like a
15:3990s Cadillac and that's really comfortable in an
15:43urban environment when you have a passenger in the back or something like
15:46that and if you're going down a twisty road
15:48without a half a dozen cars in front of you
15:50for example you can stiffen up the damping characteristics and get
15:55a little bit more feel out of the front and rear contact patches as you
16:00peel through corners and the bike will just sort of
16:02stiffen up. It's not you know sport bike stiff but
16:06it's very noticeable and I think that's the kind of characteristic that you want
16:09with adjustable suspensions you want to be perceptible and
16:12sort of practically useful which I find this system definitely is.
16:15While we're on the topic of user modes and whatnot one thing I can do right now
16:18is show you this dash functionality which is
16:20the up and down buttons over here on my left side change ride modes on the fly
16:24so you can say I just flipped it to off-road mode from user one so this is
16:27a Honda preset mode and the dash style changed so there are
16:32three different display modes that you can have and you
16:34can tune each mode as well as the user modes to be whatever
16:38style you would like for a display so this is the more minimal one it just
16:43has a tach and a few pieces of information
16:47and then there's the big one there and then there's one other one
16:50where is it oh maybe maybe I uh there it is it was in gravel come back
16:56where'd you go there it is so yeah I think this is
17:00technically the most basic one because it has a fuel gauge
17:03speed tachometer and that's it and then you got your where is it
17:09off-road which does the bar tach so I'm like looking at the tach and there's a
17:13car pulling out in front of me it's kind of kind of distracting all
17:16the technology right so and you know while we're in here I can
17:20show you just all these things engine brake
17:22uh overall suspension damping front damping rear damping
17:25abs uh preload settings for the parameters that you have
17:31and that's it so that's all the stuff for
17:35that you can tune in the user modes I have a green light here though so I got
17:39to get back out and if you pull back on this little tab
17:41here it just goes back to the home screen
17:44it's not a bad system um it's just very
17:50complicated there are a lot of different things that you can tune and do
17:54which like I said if you're an owner is uh is going to be great because you can
17:57make all these like little tiny adjustments to
18:00either a specific mode that you tune or um you know each individual mode built
18:07into the bike based on power settings engine braking stuff like that it's nice
18:10to be able to do all that stuff it's just
18:12it's a lot and it's especially uh kind of daunting and I don't know it
18:19just feels big compared to the previous bike which was
18:22just so simple yeah I'm not saying it's bad but
18:25it's a lot someone asked on social media or I guess you got a few questions
18:28about if there's enough power for it to be fun and I don't really know what to
18:32tell you about that if you're coming from a super duke or a tuono
18:35probably not enough power for you I mean if that's how much power you need
18:39to have fun then no it's not gonna you know hit quite that hard
18:42um but for me I think it has plenty of juice
18:46to be fun on a mountain road and plenty of character in the engine to
18:50make it feel exciting when you accelerate and when you
18:53punch it you know on the topic of the africa twins engine it has historically
18:56been kind of tame compared to some of the
19:00other bikes I would say the most comparable engine would be the
19:03yamaha super tenere 1200 cc parallel twin
19:06similar design and similar character in the end
19:10the r1250gs r1200gs especially ever since it became
19:14water-cooled it's a it's kind of a hot rod it you know if when you rev it up it
19:18makes a lot more power um and the africa twin engine can't
19:22really compete with that kind of stuff much less uh multi strata or um
19:28a uh what you would call it ktm 1290 which is just a
19:32ungodly engine it's terrific so it's not as you know brutally strong
19:39as the multi strata or ktm doesn't crackle with the same kind of
19:42energy as the bmw boxer does but in my mind it
19:47serves its tour quite well here's red light good time to talk about
19:50brakes stab these brakes yeah
19:55lots of power good brakes on this bike um
19:58I didn't mention them when I was first settling up um it looks like the rotors
20:02are kind of small but that's just because that 21 inch front wheel
20:04actually 310 I think millimeter rotors which is
20:07pretty big that's almost sort of super bike spec um it's got big
20:10radial mount nissan calipers so the brakes are quite good
20:14and we're away
20:18hoiked a little willy there and that was with wheelie control in
20:21level three that's pretty it's interesting I actually don't know why
20:26this bike has really control like it doesn't I mean I guess it would
20:30technically completely wheelie over backwards if you
20:33were really I don't know hamfisted it or
20:35something but it's just it's like heavy bike and the engine's kind of
20:40lopey and it has enough power to wheelie it's just
20:44not really what it wants to do and it's certainly not
20:47tuned in a way that's going to have it like freak out on you
20:51it's a very uh it's a gentle giant if you will
20:55okay turn the wheelie control off you can play around with that I've been
21:00curious about wheelie control versus traction control
21:03which again are two modes that are independently adjustable
21:07in whatever ride mode you're in whether it's a user mode or a pre-programmed
21:10mode it's all very complicated there's a lot
21:13going on
21:18nice long footless stop sign that was fun
21:22as we approach our off-road testing area it's probably good to start talking
21:26about this bike off-road in general which I did a little bit
21:29off-road testing and I found it to be pretty good
21:31I mean it's it's really well balanced like I said the suspension
21:34is really impressive but it's big you know and
21:42that's just really something you should take into consideration
21:45peeling down our little off-road test route here but before I get going I'm
21:49gonna I'm gonna switch modes to
21:53off-road the off-road suspension mode actually has a neat
21:57trick that it does where it increases damping rates as the
22:01as the uh stroke increases so yeah that's going to be kind of
22:06interesting yeah this bike
22:12nice let me get in Swayze so I've got in traction control level two
22:16of uh eight or seven I think um but yeah I mean this thing is awesome
22:20this kind of thing if you're going to go down a gravel road
22:23there are better bikes to do it on but not very many
22:26this is bike super super composed stuff like this
22:31big bike to be jumping hey you can kind of feel the suspension doing its thing
22:36that's a pretty big jump but that's actually pretty neat I could feel the
22:39suspension compensating for the jump like when you
22:43land instead of just blowing through the stroke you can feel it stiffen up
22:46and catch itself that's pretty cool all right so we're going back to user one
22:51we're gonna hit the pavement again let's see if we can coax the wheelie
22:56out of it oh yeah definitely definitely do lots of
23:01big wheelies on this bike and that's interesting that traction
23:04control is not linked traction control is not linked to wheelie
23:07control so they're individually programmable that doesn't necessarily
23:11mean that you wouldn't be able to do a wheelie
23:15because you know some some brands they do that they separate the two and they
23:18say like oh no there's no wheelie control on but then you try and do a
23:20wheelie and you can't do it so it appears in my mind that traction
23:25control and wheelie control are genuinely
23:27separate parameters within the computer as well as the interface which I guess
23:31is good to know if that's your thing all right
23:35off we go nice that's wheelie control level one
23:40and it does it does a little power wheelie probably as good a time as any
23:43to talk about competitor motorcycles so you got your
23:471290 ktm which i think is like 79 18 grand maybe for
23:52a 1290 excuse me 1290 s not 1290 r which i think the s compares
23:58more favorably to this even though the r has
24:01a 21 inch front wheel i think this if this is realistically a big sport
24:04touring bike and that's what the s is as well in my opinion
24:07um and yeah the price is comparable i think it's like 18 grand
24:10and in my mind ktm has really had kind of a lockdown on
24:14the best bang for the buck in this category
24:18with that bike because it's just it's a phenomenal engine you have great you
24:21have a tft dash you got bluetooth connectivity all that jazz
24:25all the sort of whiz bangs and doodads that you want
24:28on a full zoot um adv touring bike but you don't have to pay twenty
24:34something thousand bucks like you do for a bmw or ducati
24:36but i think that the africa twin is making a real genuine
24:40stab at the throne because seventeen thousand two hundred dollars
24:44is pretty reasonable for what you get and it is more money it's a couple
24:48thousand more dollars than the adventure sports was but then you get
24:51your electro adjustable suspension and a whole new dash system and apple car
24:57play and all that jazz i mean it's a lot of stuff to add to a motorcycle
25:00and i really do think that 17.2 is a pretty reasonable price come to think
25:06of it last time i tested a bmw f850gs that had all the options on
25:12it i think it was 16.9 something it's basically 17 grand with
25:16all of the all the options with no saddlebags so
25:21i mean that's that's pretty good right basically same price for
25:26africa twin 1100 i feel like that's a pretty good deal
25:30all right that's just about it gotta skip down the freeway
25:34we'll be back to the neighborhood we'll answer some instagram questions
25:43yeah
25:46okay back to the neighborhood we see if we can back it in
25:50yeah especially off-road off-road abs you can sort of get away with it
25:57it's not the best bike for big hackers but it's not too bad and we'll do a
26:04couple little revs i really like the way this engine i
26:06know i already said that but it's just terrific
26:10yeah it's great man sounds like an old like
26:13bevel drive ducati or something it's awesome yeah it's a handsome bike
26:17and sounds handsome basically basically does all the things
26:25in my opinion anyway i don't think it leaves a whole lot
26:28to be desired okey doke and we can answer some instagram questions
26:35from all of you svan sean quick reminder i don't know how to
26:40pronounce any of your usernames i'm doing my best
26:43so please bear with me svan sean asks i think this is one of the best
26:48looking adventure bikes on the market oh yeah that's right that wasn't really a
26:51question that's just a statement and i agree
26:53it's got this sort of angry furrowed brow and for 2020 it's got these uh
26:57sort of like ring led lights it looks really menacing in a rearview mirror
27:00i think the best looking adventure bike by far well maybe not by far i think that
27:05t7 is pretty cool too similar similar style i think that's
27:08the that's all the rage and there's a reason for it it's like
27:11it's excellent yeah it's super handsome carson holbrook asks can i get it with
27:15more buttons good question two up here plus the
27:18dimmer and then all these here and then uh cruise over here and then
27:23there's this function switch up here which does heated grips
27:26and the volume control for apple carplay so there are a lot of buttons
27:31to answer your question carson holbrook you can get more
27:35buttons because you can get the dct version which has
27:38triggers for upshift and downshift on the left hand grip so there you have it
27:42micah bf asks can you pick it up by yourself i haven't tipped it over so i
27:46don't know but that's a fair question and uh yeah
27:50it's big for a dirt bike right i think that's a suggestion here
27:53and i've picked up other bikes this size uh after tipping them over so i'm pretty
27:57sure i could do it but it's something to consider
27:59adam zalt asks what is the best and worst thing about the bike
28:02that's a great question my favorite thing is the range i just think that's
28:06excellent 340 miles that's so cool and if you actually want to you know log
28:11miles or if you're gonna go places where there really aren't gas
28:14stations in between that's a genuine genuine attribute to have it's really
28:19really cool least favorite thing about the bike no
28:22center stand i don't know why they didn't put a center stand on it
28:25it's the probably legitimately the only thing i can think of that the bike
28:28really needs to be truly complete i mean it has every
28:32option that you could want so i just feel like it should have a
28:34center stand just barely larry asks does it feel less dirt oriented than
28:39the previous crf 1000 l um i don't know not really
28:44especially the base bike which again comes with fewer options it still has
28:48cruise control and the tft dash and carplay but it does
28:51not have electronically adjustable suspension tubeless rims
28:54cornering lights um or i think maybe heat grips
28:57anyway a bunch of other stuff that it doesn't have the base bike does feel
29:00approximately as dirt oriented um as the previous model i think it that
29:04it's a it's a nice um sort of compromise they did this bike
29:07is a little bit more sport touring oriented i suppose but
29:11all in all pretty comparable michael z armory
29:15michael's armory michael asks can it compete against the bmwr 1250 gsa in the
29:20real world of ad riding and distance touring
29:23i think it can yeah uh like range wise it can
29:26comfort wise it can the seat's nice it's adjustable in all the ways that you want
29:29a bike like that to be adjustable i think it's a i think it's definitely a
29:33competitor i think the wind protection on the gsa is a little bit better
29:36i think the balance of the chassis uh with the goofy arm
29:39uh parallel everything that bmw does is arguably a little bit better
29:42but in general they're very very comparable and
29:45yeah i'm impressed that you know that that someone can keep up with the range
29:49of that bmw with an eight gallon tank with honda did so
29:51respect andreas g tech asks has the africa twin become too tech oriented
29:56and less ride oriented you could say that it has become
30:00too tech oriented i suppose if you really want simplicity then this bike is
30:03not simple period uh but has it become less ride
30:07oriented absolutely not the chassis is excellent the engine is excellent
30:10it's a good piece of engineering it's a good machine
30:14period so yes it's complicated but it has not moved away from the things that
30:18made it good which is important to remember
30:20go neon two wheel go oh gone on two wheels
30:24that makes sense uh gone on two wheels asks is the at1100 trying to compete at
30:28the high end of the middleweight advs or the low end of the heavyweight advs
30:33good question the short answer is that i think it's both like i said
30:37the f850gs last time i tested that bike that was fully loaded it was basically
30:40the same price as this bike so i think you know
30:43what honda has the ability to do being such a massive company and maybe being a
30:47little bit more efficient in some of their
30:48research and development and engineering is they're able to offer stuff
30:51for a more reasonable price and i think that one of the things that they've done
30:54with this bike is created a machine that options wise
30:58capability wise versatility wise it absolutely competes with the with the
31:01big guys even though it's priced on the high end of the middleweight
31:05specs thank you as usual for all those questions that was great friendly
31:08reminder for more information on this bike to click on the link in the
31:11description of this video for a full article with pictures and some
31:14tutorial videos on the dash stuff like that for now
31:17we got to go back and rank the sucker on the dr leaderboard so bear with me
31:21all right we're back in the bat cave it's time to rank that honda
31:25africa twin 1100 on the daily rider leaderboard i finally got some red pins
31:30by the way so we're ready for honda and i guess
31:32that means Ducati claimed the pink ones so there you go as far as ranking it
31:3617 grand is always going to be on the high end of expense right
31:39and as far as cool i mean it's it's a cool bike
31:43i think so i'm gonna drop the pin right there and we're gonna drop the name next
31:46to it it's a great looking bike you can ride
31:50it around the world i don't really know what's not cool about
31:53that now the big kahuna we gotta rank it on
31:56the actual leaderboard and i'm gonna tell you right now this was really close
32:00really really close it goes just below the kawasaki versus 650 lt and
32:07that's for two reasons one it's pretty big it's not as
32:11accessible to every person as a versus is just based on
32:15size and also the uh luggage on the versus
32:19being able to swallow two full-size helmets
32:21that's undeniably good for daily riding but this was very very close to africa
32:24twin took it right to the wire i mean it's
32:26got more range than a versus more features
32:28cost no object it is an excellent excellent daily rider and
32:32the versus just got by so quick review of the leaderboard
32:36we got versus 650 africa twin street fighter and my personal ktm
32:40bringing up the rear i hope you learned something i hope you had fun see you
32:43next time
32:47really that's very aggressive
32:51but okay