The Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin Build Is Completed

Have you entered into win the Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin?

You just have until midnight on the 31st of October 2018 to make a purchase online or instore to be in to win! 

 

Steve: Hey guys, the Africa twin build is finished, mate, you've got to get in this. It's 20 days before we draw the prize and on the 30th, midday, spend 500 bucks in store or online, win the bike, it's beautiful. And mate, that's the sweet sound of winning. Woowhoo.

Let's start with the front of the bike and work our way back. The team from ADVWorx have been, they've done some amazing things, starting with the AltRider High Guard Kit and Fork Leg Protectors, AltRider Radiator Guard. We've got Denali lights on Outback Motortek upper and lower crash bars. So that protects the engine case as well as the body. We've got an Outback Motortek Bash Plate, solid as. So Barkbusters, always wear Barkbusters. I've got a GPR Stabiliser Kit on the handlebars there, onto the handlebars, nice and slim. Coming down past the Outback Motortek crash protection we've got some AltRider kit on the bike, a dual break controller. We've got Fastway Footpegs, AltRider Master Cylinder Guard, we've got our Adventure Moto X-Frames here, that'll carry RotopaX's. Giant Loop or Wolfman saddlebags, these are made by Outback Motortek so they're really strong. We've got the Outback Motortek rear luggage plate.

Now on this, this is our rally seat by Seat Concepts. What it does, it's still a 2 piece seat, but it gives you that lovely flat plane, it makes the bike tall, you can go to a standard seat if you're a bit on the short side, no worries. Giant Loop are throwing in some luggage, we've got a tank bag, a Fandango Tank Gag, we're going to throw in a set of saddlebags as well.

I think I mentioned we're running D2 Denali lights, I wanted something small but powerful, I did take off the [inaudible 00:01:53]. I'm going to get Greg in to talk about suspension and tyres. Greg from ADVWorx, you've spent hours on this bike mate, I really do appreciate it, thanks very much.

Greg: No Worries mate.

Steve: It's a great build, I know Jeff from the workshop helped a lot.

Greg: Did a great job.

Steve: So talk to me about the tyres, you've chosen. I see you've got Pirelli's on this bike.

Greg: We chose the Pirelli Rally STR, and the reason we chose the STR over the Rally Scorpion was the STR's probably a 60/40 version, road/dirt, gives the lucky winner the choice of both. A great tyre on the bitumen, but more than a good tyre on the dirt roads too.

Steve: And I know that you ride bikes pretty hard and you do like the Pirelli's overall as a good.

Greg: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah they've got such a good range in the Pirelli's, we use the Pirelli's on the smaller bikes as you know exclusively on RideADV, but we also run these on, and we had them on your BMW, remember. We had the Rally Scorpions on the BWM. So that was the reason we went for those.

Steve: Now Greg suspension, we've had this bike up to Teknik and Nicks worked his magic.

Greg: Yeah, we pulled it out and we've sent it to Nick, and it's had what they call a stage one kit at Nicks, so he's revalved and resprung the rear shock. So basically if you ran it on Nicks Dyno it's the same shock absorber settings as an Ohlins would have, it's the same rebound, the same dampening forces, but it just doesn't have the overall adjustability.

Steve: So I noticed that there's been work done on the front forks mate.

Greg: Well you know you've seen it on all the forums, everyone's talking about the coating coming off the inside of the fork tubes. The bushings are rubbing off, the coating the anodised coating ends up scratching the chrome on the fork legs and stuff. So a lot of people are having them re-anodised, and Honda are replacing the tubes at the moment. Nick sends these to Japan, they are Kashima coated. As with everything Nick does there's no middle road.

Steve: And he's got stock of these?

Greg: He's got 10 sets in stock at all times for faster turnover. So as with anything Nick does its top end, those forks have been Dyno run so they're the same as all the other forks they've done, everything's the same.

Steve: And it works great with the fork leg protectors from AltRider with the high guard kit. You've done some other stuff on the bike?

Greg: I've been amazed actually at the quality, just on that kit, the quality of that kit, they're not plastic flaking, cracking fork guards, they're actually a really nicely coated steel. It's a real quality kit, there's some of the stuff that's gone on this, this Outback Motortek stuff, I know we've been having trouble getting some stuff, it's such good quality, and it's not a sale thing.

Steve: I've got heaps coming in, mate I do notice with the suspension done there a difference on the ride of the bike.

Greg: Oh, it's a different motorbike.

Steve: The bikes taller, but it feels so much, you know more confident on the trail and on the road.

Greg: Do you know what amazes me, when we put it on the lift to pull the suspension out, I put the scissor jack underneath it when I clamped the back wheel. And I started winding the bike up, I thought the scissor jack was going to run out of travel, the front wheel hadn't come off the ground. There was that much spring sag on a standard fork. To ride the bike it's totally different. It doesn't dip under breaks, mate we're not allowed to ride it properly because it's someone else’s.

Steve: I won't let you, it's someone else’s. Hey, what's this little thing here mate?

Greg: The Africa Twin can be a struggle to get to the battery, we've talked about it before. So we put a tender in so they can plug their charger in when they win the bike.

Steve: I guess you could also plug your pump into that too?

Greg: You could, yep.

Steve: Fantastic.

Greg: How many tickets have I got in this?

Steve: Mate, unfortunately you're not allowed to enter the competition.

Greg: I'm not allowed to ride it, I'm not allowed to win it. I got to say I'm really proud of what we've done here at ADVWorx when you haven't been down here getting in our way. Sorry mate. All the gear's been quality gear, there's no garbage gone on it. And Jeff was given the deep end control of this, and he's done, he's set it up, he's done probably the bulk of it, and he's done a really good job.

Steve: I don't want to count the hours you've billed me for but.

Greg: Oh, I've billed you don't you worry.

Steve: Yeah I know you have mate. But I tell you, I think it's been worth it.

Greg: Oh, it's a great concept.

Steve: I've almost got tears running down my face having to give this thing away now, see the tears. Because it's turned out better than I expected, and it's actually the ultimate Africa Twin Adventure bike.

Greg: It is yeah, there's not much left to do to it, if you go to do it. Have to be pretty serious hard-core to do much more with it.

Steve: Some lucky bastard is going to win it, or maybe some lucky lady, who knows.

Greg: Somebody's going to win it, but look it's a great concept and I look forward to next years, whatever that is. Oh, we're not allowed to say anything are we?

Steve: Shh.

Greg: What if Jen finds out, she'll flip.

Steve: I know. But she loves giving away my bikes.

Greg: I don't think so.

Steve: Yeah.