Travelogue: Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin Anniversary Ride

Day 1/2

The start of my trip doesn’t really match with my introduction – airlines remove a lot of the moisture in the cabin of the aircraft, which is why airline food also tastes so bad. No moisture means our sense of smell is greatly diminished, you see. I land in Bangalore, and walk to the hotel which is situated right outside the airport. We have a riders’ briefing, the members of the media are assigned their Africa Twins, and we are told to report early the next morning.

However, this isn’t a small ride in any sense of the word. Honda has 100 customers for this product in the Indian market, and nearly half of them have come along on this ride. There are 56 Africa Twins, and four CBR650Fs that will see use by marshals on this ride. I climb onto my bike, and ride off into the morning – and smack into Bengaluru traffic. The Africa Twin is terribly well balanced, so riding around in traffic wasn’t tough at all. Of course, the height of the seat is a challenge for any normal person, but that holds similarly true for any large adventure tourer. In D mode, the big Honda is relaxed and in no time we were out on the highway. 

The road to Madikeri is a dual carriageway which had the Africa Twin cruising at triple digit speeds quite comfortably. The roads approaching Madikeri are winding, and our stay at the Paddington Resort and Spa in Kodagu was one filled with the sounds of the forest. The smell of the bonfires accompanied our dinner that night. The rain thankfully stayed away just long enough for our dinner to be held out in the open. 

Day 3

The morning brought with it the smell of petrol fumes: sixty large-capacity motorcycles all warming themselves up in the cool Madikeri morning. The scenery was beautiful, with fields and forest interspersed with villages along the route. What wasn’t there was phone network – as five of us found, when we didn’t realise where a particular turn was to be made, and promptly got lost. However, this is part of what puts the ‘adventure’ in ‘adventure touring’, so with a lot of gesticulation and not enough data connectivity, we managed to find ourselves back with the Innovas that were shepherding us. This led to an unscheduled coffee stop at a shack at the side of the road, where I had the best coffee of the entire trip. 

We were warned before we started the days’ ride that the roads for the day’s route were narrow and single-lane, and that traffic and the road condition would be unpredictable – and they were. There were bits that had potholes right in the middle of the corner, there were bits where gravel was strewn all over, but mostly there were bits where there was low traffic, tarmac smoother than Sade’s voice, and the smell of tea in the air as we rode through miles of tea estates. Not that I saw much of the scenery – the Africa Twin might be an adventure tourer, but it lends itself surprisingly well to hard riding. The air might have been filled with the scent of tea, but it was also full of the sound of Africa Twins with wide open throttles. Finally, we reached Masinagudi, spotting wild elephants and a herd of really tame deer (“mild animals”?) along the way. 

I found a field just near the parking lot and lay down and watched the clouds race across the sky. The temperature dropped, and the sun went from a blazing ball of fire to a lemon drop before finally sinking below the horizon. All I had in my vision was the vastness of the sky above me (and occasionally a drone), and the smell of the grass that I lay on added to my olfactory collection from the trip.  It got too cold once the sun went down, so off to my room I went. Dinner was held around bonfires, again, under the sky where stars sometimes managed to peek through the clouds. If you ever visit Masinagudi, the Monarch is a great place if you prefer your holiday rustic and close to nature.

Day 4

Day 4 was a late start, since the ride to Ooty was only 36 kilometres long. We were presented with a bunch of hairpin turns and even more freshly laid tarmac. We did the obvious thing and gave the Africa Twin its head, and as always when you’re having too much fun, got into trouble. The local police didn’t take too kindly to our pace, but after a conversation, let us go amicably. We stayed at the Gem Park in Ooty, and you, dear reader, will already know what the overwhelming thing my nose recognised in Ooty. We then went in search of a place to shoot in Ooty, and imagine our surprise when we found more tea estates, and the quaintest railway station imaginable. Shoot done, we returned to the hotel. That night, the party was just getting started when we got news of a bandh to be organised the next day. New plans were drawn up, and we decided to avoid any untoward incidents by leaving at an ungodly hour. 

The final day

Five am on the final day saw the first batch of Africa Twins roll out from the hotel for Coimbatore, 100km away. A light rain was falling, and the air temperature was low enough to make Mumbai residents shiver. I had on five layers of clothing, including my riding jacket, which barely kept me warm. We rolled through Ooty in the darkness of the pre-dawn, and rolled through villages that hadn’t yet woken up. The tarmac got better and better, and I stopped for a break, somehow getting separated from the group. After I resumed my ride, I found myself all alone, with only monkeys and boards that warned about elephants crossing for company. The Africa Twin’s power figure might not be a headlining one, but it certainly is a grin-inducing one. The DCT gearbox knows what you want, especially in ‘S’ mode. This time there wasn’t anyone to take offence to the sound of my Honda reverberating through the area. All too soon, we reentered civilisation, with the chaos that is small-town traffic in India. An hour and a half later, I parked the Africa Twin in the basement of the Radisson. My anniversary ride was over. 

The point of an adventure touring motorcycle is to give you the confidence to go anywhere you please. The Africa Twin has got that brief down to the T. It is a little tall for most people, but it is one of those few gems that gives you the confidence to ride it anywhere. In a very real way, it gives its owners freedom – and you can’t ask for more than that from a motorcycle. As for the Anniversary Ride, it opened up a world of smells to me, one that I’d never have had access to in a car. Every once in a while, it pays to stop and smell the eucalyptus.

Images: Kaustubh Gandhi