VOL. 55 ISSUE 21 MAY 30, 2018 P115
When riding, we prefer the
new ergonomics. Increased sus-
pension travel has never annoyed
us and this bike doesn't ride tall
and tippy. It rides planted. It eats
road turns. The seat is now flatter
so it feels better while riding, too.
From standing and picking our
way through off-road sections to
sitting and crushing gravel road
miles, the new AT is more com-
fortable than before.
The footpegs are now bigger
across the Africa Twin range for
2018, thank goodness. They're
actually quite comfortable now
but not immune to upgrading to
something even more substantial.
Likewise, the windscreen
grows to make wind pushing
more effective and comfortable,
as do the fairing components.
Again, these upgrades to size are
generally welcomed and address
upgrades we've made to our pre-
vious long-term Africa Twin test
bike (pegs, windscreen).
Honda claims the Adventure
Sports DCT model hits the scales
right at 555 pounds ready to ride
(full of gas). Honda has manual
transmission Adventure Sports
models at 533 pounds.
2018 HONDA AFRICA TWIN ADVENTURE SPORTS FINAL THOUGHTS
The new Africa Twin is intriguing
as ever. And now every 2018 Af-
rica Twin gets serious options to
play with when it comes to how
you want to ride it. The Adven-
ture Sports edition has brought
serious fuel range and suspen-
sion travel to the AT lineup. And it
looks awesome. We're fans of all
of this.
Likewise, the Adventure
Sports is a great mascot for the
seriousness of Honda in the
long-distance and more extreme
adventure sub-segment. It has
taken the often-mild Africa Twin
and put it face-to-face with more
aggressive competition without
doing any major damage to the
usability of the original. We do
feel the seat height is going to
turn many buyers off, but with
the optional low seat and a
CRF1000L version next to it in
the showroom, sales will con-
tinue to be strong for AT's.
The model updates are good.
And even though we might
think eight modes of HSTC on a
Honda complicates it more than
necessary, it's pretty easy to
ignore.
Pricing of the new Adventure
Sports model is set at $14,999
for a manual and $15,699 for
a DCT version. That's directly
in-line with KTM's 1090 Adven-
ture R ($14,899) for the manual
version.
This year's Adventure Com-
parison is going to be interesting
(and a lot of fun). CN
A larger fuel tank means you
can really get out there.
