Honda today issued a fairly long and comprehensive press release for their 2021 Honda Africa Twin. In all honesty they could have saved themselves a lot of time and effort and just run the two lines that actually detail the changes. So we’ll do that for you,right here, right now:
‘2021 sees the addition of the much-loved Pearl Glare White Tricolour colour scheme, previously only available on the CRF1100L Africa Twin Adventure Sports version, for the Africa Twin itself.’
That is the long and short of it for 2021. But we shouldn’t be churlish, this is still a great bike. Re-read our 2020 world launch report – see link below – and you’ll see that the standard AT was our favourite from that test. We appreciate all the whistles and bells now bestowed upon the Adventure Sport, but for our tastes – sweet and simple – the uncluttered, no-nonsense base Africa Twin was the pick.
And to recap, it’s a good formula:
100hp SOHC parallel twin
105Nm
226kg
Showa forks, 45mm USD with 230mm travel
Showa shock, 220mm of travel
21″ front, 18″ rear
All told, that’s pretty damn good. But we appreciated the electronics package, too, we liked the way the engine mapping, the off-road ABS, the traction control, even the wheelie control all fed in to make a superbly responsive package, where you could dial in any level of attitude you wanted from gentle to barking mad. It’s a very dynamic package that deserves more credit than it receives.
So no changes except for the colourway – well, that’s just fine by us!
