VOL. 53 ISSUE 19 MAY 17, 2016 P75
recently, well, the quake was cen-
tered near the city of Kumamoto,
where Honda has one of its major
factories, the one where the Africa
Twin is built. The quake forced the
plant to shut down for a while and
is just now ramping back up again
but, unfortunately, won't reach
full production for at least another
month or two. Honda says it will try and supply
every dealer with at least one Africa Twin when the
bike is first released. This means some of you who
have already decided you simply have to have one
will need to wait just a little longer. But don't worry,
we can tell you right now that it will be well worth
the wait. Just hang in there.
REAL QUICK, TECH STUFF
First, a little bit of history. The Africa Twin made
its debut as the XRV650 Africa Twin in 1989 after
winning the Dakar Rally four straight years; unfortu-
nately, the bike never made its way to the U.S. The
closest thing we ever got was the XL600V TransAlp
in the early 1990s. Unlike in Europe, we hadn't
caught on to what we now call Adventure riding
and the TransAlp quietly disappeared. But with the
recent surge of interest in Dakar and other new ral-
lies across the planet, Honda has shown newfound
interest in adventure riding and rally competition.
And because of this, we're the lucky recipients of
the new and high-tech CRF1000L Africa Twin.
Mechanically, there is tons to talk about when it
comes to the Africa Twin, way too much stuff to try
and attack it all here, so we'll hit just some of the
key things that make the AT (Africa Twin) tick. After
all, you probably already know all about it by now.
You might've noticed that the AT bares the same
CRF signature as Honda's motocross bikes (like the
CRF250R and CRF450R), and that is by no means
a coincidence, since the Africa Twin's 998cc par-
allel-twin, eight-valve, water-cooled engine draws
heavily from its MX cousins, most notably its four-
valve Unicam head design. This single-cam system
is lighter and more compact than traditional dual-
Compliant
suspension and
lots of ground
clearance help
make the Africa
Twin a very
competent dirt
bike.
