Africa Twin or “lass mich schwimmen in Benzin”

Few weeks ago Husbando bought a new motorcycle. New as in “next one in the line of the motorcycles he drove for the last 12 years”, not “freshly forged in the fiery chasm of Honda’s factory in Japan”. He is a huge fan of Africa Twin motorcycles, so after he found this beast of a machine on finn.no, he went to a small village near Hamar (cca 160 km from Oslo) and came back home riding a motorcycle which is pretty much popular among many moto-travelers.

His previous rules-to-live/drive-by were: a motorcycle must have a kickstart, must be air cooled and has to have no more than one cylinder. Africa Twin does not have a kickstart (you really cannot know how huge this change is ROFL), cooling system is water-based and the machine has two cylinders (twin, get it?). All in all, this is a huge and almost tectonic change in my Husbando’s way of thinking (and motorcycle riding).

My own impression is based mainly on the looks and comfort while driving. #women I honestly don’t care about technical aspect and I cannot detect 20 hp +/-, although I’ll gladly listen a bit about the machine and the idea behind it. For example, I wanted to hear about the angle of the pistons. XRV model has the pistons at the angle of 52^o, and they can be set from 18 to freaking 170 degrees. Didn’t knew that, I have only seen the ones with 90 and would not expect extreme values of angles among different motorcycles. First thing you’ll notice when you take a look at Africa Twin is humongousness, it looks literally like a whale. AT weighs cca 240 kg with a tank full to the top, and measures approximately 230 cm in length. But, it seems to be quite comfort while riding, which is one of the most important factors for me. Also, the tank is colored with some sort of nail-polish nuance of violet, and the only thing more gayer than this would be spontaneous nodding to I love willies. ^_^

I, for one, welcome our japanese overlord motorcycle because I see that we are gonna travel more through this gorgeous country.