Honda’s Africa Twin is more than a motorcycle. I always liked the ballsiness of its name invoking the magic of an entire continent as your marketing, the implication being that This Is It – the motorcycle which is going to take you anywhere. Adventure unlimited, pleasure guaranteed.
The Twin had sat in my mind as a bucket list item for years. It was a machine I’d wanted to ride ever since I had passed my test, what I was thinking of as I scooted down the A40 with test certificate in my backpack and my instructor chuckling over the radio: “enjoy it – you can ride anything now!“. I also just like adventure bikes, presumably for the same reason that men are attracted to strapping up and jumping on a horse. It’s the intoxication of self-sufficiency; the appeal of the ancient ritual of slinging a boot over the saddle, and wondering where you might end up.
I knew I wanted to take the Africa Twin on something more than a road trip. I needed a different sort of expedition. And then it hit me. Forget Dakar – there was only one destination worth aiming for.
Dungeness is a notorious wind-blasted strip of beach on the Kent coast, overshadowed by an old Magnox nuclear power station. Notorious not because things happen there, but because they don’t any more. Or, in a sense, they happen in reverse. The reactor built there was once a sign of Britain’s future; it is now being dismantled as it has come to the end of its useful life. I holidayed in Dungeness as a kid still in primary school, and have carried the powerful impressions of those trips for decades. The memories are all snapshots; the hulking concrete turbine halls full of mysterious danger, covered in blinking lights. The lone RNLI station from which lifeboats would launch themselves, to my juvenile horror, into a violent grey sea. The shingle which sapped you of energy as you trudged through it; the wooden shacks which creaked in the cold wind. It was an alien place for me – wild, untameable, a forbidden vastness full of things which could hurt you. But you wanted to know them.
I knew that was where I would take the Twin, on a long loop stretching all the way from West London down into Surrey and then East along the coast. About 400-500km of English roads of all kinds, and English weather. It would take me all day, from dawn to dusk and possibly beyond. It was my bonding time with this curious machine, and if anything went wrong, I’d be stricken very far from home.
I liked the Africa Twin immediately for how it felt under me. This is not a bike which looks large in photographs or when you stand next to it. But when you ride it, it has a reassuring heft and comfortable bar position, making it a solid platform for long rides. Not that it feels chunky like a newer BMW GS – in fact there is an elegance about it, with a weight distribution which never feels unmanageable. In front of you is a voluminous and long-lasting 24.8 litre fuel tank, and between your legs is the full-fat 1084cc, 100hp parallel twin which gives the motorcycle its name. In 2024 the engine was updated to increase torque in the low and mid-range. On the road this translates as almost immediate power whenever you need it, propelling the Africa Twin with an eagerness which can take you by surprise if you have a soft suspension setting dialled in. It sounds good too.
I began my ride in the morning, snaking out of Hammersmith down into Surrey. As I was riding the Adventure Sports ES model, specially designed for long road journeys, it was a good chance to experience how Honda’s engine and chassis management electronics play with the Showa EERA suspension – an electronic system which offers optimised, constantly adjusted damping control. I will spare you the dazzling technical details of how it works; suffice to say that the practical difference between the mid-damped, lower power URBAN setting and the firmly damped, high-power TOUR setting is significant. The Africa Twin felt stable, predictable, and fast on all roads – although you do have to plan your movements and steering so as not to overburden the 19-inch front wheel. This is not a race bike.
My example had Honda’s DCT gearbox, effectively turning the bike into an automatic, twist-and-go adventurer. Purists will moan about the ability to change your own gears but on a large adventure bike like this, it’s the preferable system. It frees up just a bit more of your brain to deal with navigation, coordination, and enjoying the landscape you are travelling through. The AS spec has all the fancy features you’d expect from a top-shelf adventure touring bike too, from cruise control to Apple CarPlay to a USB slot which came in clutch when my phone began to die. Taken together, it’s a great package from Honda, almost a mobile adventuring office.
No machine is perfect, of course. Meandering through the backroads of Kent, I did notice a few small annoyances. While wind protection around your legs and upper body is good, by some quirk of how the hand guards were mounted on our review model, I noticed my thumbs getting cold. Even the toasty heated grips could not quite resolve this. Also, the Africa Twin’s windscreen is adjustable, but requires two hands – not ideal on an A-road. The dash and head unit also have no cubby holes to stash a phone, which is a bit irritating if you haven’t got a mount. Finally, the CarPlay setup is somewhat finicky, requiring a Bluetooth headset and a steady wired phone connection.
However, dear reader, you’ll be pleased to know I made it nonetheless. After a few hundred kilometres of rolling countryside the landscape flattened out, the weather becoming increasingly erratic. With cold rain spitting down and illuminated by the occasional shaft of sunlight, I flung the Africa Twin down the coastal road towards the hulking mass of concrete and piping on the horizon. Dungeness A was waiting for me. I flipped the bike into off-road mode and gingerly made my way as close as I could to Dengemarsh beach, snapping a few photos near the MoD range. I crunched my way to the water, and revelled in the vast landscape of shingle and sea.
That’s the funny thing about this place. It’s a mind-bogglingly large expanse of nature with some human stuff just politely sprinkled on it. Looking out in all directions, I felt the same as I had all those years ago: the world is big, and we are small. I got back on the Africa Twin, propelling myself over to the familiar stretch of beach. Crossing the railway line, here I was again – and there was the RNLI station. The pub. The old lighthouse. Things I remembered through flashes of memory. But now it all felt so much… smaller. So much friendlier, knowable, harmless. I rode right up to the gates of the nuclear power station, which had felt so unknowable when I was a child. I spent a while just taking in the sheer size of it. The core is being dismantled now. They are building a replacement elsewhere.
I still don’t know why this location makes me feel the way it does. But I wanted to come and see it, make the journey in an honest way, on two wheels, exposed to the elements. Coming in a sports car just wouldn’t be the same.
I sat in the pub musing on the allure of the Twin. It’s a bike that somehow makes journeys feel meaningful, letting you in to a bit of the magic behind the name. Even if – as will be the case for 90% of buyers – you aren’t crossing the world on it. Maybe you’re just going to work, or out for a long weekend. It’s a more substantive, powerful, serious machine than the Transalp. Built for more significant things. And yet there’s nothing which stops you from just hacking around on one. That’s the contradiction at the heart of it. It makes going anywhere feel as easy as popping down the road.
The evening was drawing in. I drew my textiles tight and embarked on the long journey home, with the cold wind whipping at me all the way back to London. One thing I can say about the Africa Twin is that it does not let you down in the latter stages of a long ride; when you are aching and tired it will eat miles in comfort, dragging you back without fuss. There had been accidents on the motorways, diversions, tailbacks – I made my way through all of them in the dark, navigating, filtering, feeling the smooth harmony of the bike working beneath me, soaking up the road. These parts of the journey are the unglamorous, essential ones – those which a solid adventure bike must work through faultlessly. The Africa Twin did not let me down.
I came back to London late. My legs and shoulders were groaning; I was tired of wearing a helmet, tired of wind and rain. I’d done hundreds of kilometres on a pedigree continent-crossing motorcycle to go gawp in front of a mystery power station from my youth, a journey nobody else would ever understand. You’d think I’d have been sick of the Africa Twin by this point too. All I wanted was a cup of tea.
I looked at the bike, ticking quietly. My hand paused on the key. With a bike like this, it’s not about where you end up. It’s about turning you into someone who just wants to go.
Maybe just a quick milk run to the newsagent.
Not that one. The one a couple of miles out.
Just one more little adventure.
