There’s nothing misleading about the title. Supposedly the first Honda Africa Twin 1000 is making its way back to its legendary roots: the western African country’s capital, Dakar.
The first Honda Africa Twin was built in homage to the giant desert racers of the Paris-Dakar Rally. Long story short, it was a great success for Honda.
Based on a similar idea, a Hungarian Africa Twin lover decided to take his brand new Africa Twin 1000 back to where the legendary NXR-750 rolled through the finish line 1st place four times in the row during the Paris-Dakar Rally. The final destination will go a bit beyond Dakar, though. Him and his friends will ride all the way to Guinea-Bissau.
Our heroes ride a 2016 tri-color Africa Twin 1000 and two Suzuki DL 650 Vstroms. Perhaps you have found out by now that all three bikes are outfitted with Outback Motortek crash bars, skid plates and luggage rack. This adventure may become a great opportunity to test out these accessories in tough and unforgiving conditions in some parts of Africa, and will also be a great test for the new Honda.
The preparation began quite some time ago for this motorcycle adventure and went way beyond just getting shots against malaria, shopping for the “best” tires etc. After all these lads are going to West Africa, and one of the reasons why the Dakar race was moved from Africa to South America is due to its territorial danger. Luckily these guys are not new to adventure riding. A couple of years back they did a “gentle” warm-up ride to the top of Europe: Nordkapp. Not too much later, they had the crazy idea to ride to Kyrgyzstan via Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and take the longer way home to Hungary via Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey etc. This trip was called: Ride The Magic Carpet. Catchy name for sure.
I’m confident that we’ll witness a great trip by a group of experienced adventure riders, and we should all expect some great photography and tons of great videos from this journey on the Africa continent.
The first leg of trip was fairly smooth with only one tiny mechanical problem with of the Vstroms but it had been quickly resolved and the boys carried on all the way to the port of Genoa in Italy. Why to the port? In order to save their Heidenau K60Scouts, they had decided to book a ferry that would carry them and their bikes all the way to Morocco, thus conserving their energy for the African leg of the adventure.
After making it to Genoa, Italy, the bikes had got loaded on the (very busy) ferry and the nearly two days boating begun.
Just a couple of hours ago (6th of August) the guys arrived in Africa, where the real adventure begins. Let’s hope for some good wi-fi zones along the road, so those photos could keep coming in.
Your best bet to keep up with this very unique African adventure is to “like” the following page on Facebook: Desert Storm 2016 www.facebook.com/dtstorm2016
Or stay tuned here on www.OutbackMotortek.com and I’ll repost all of their news and photos.