Round the World by bike ?

Today : Africa-Twin presented by http://motoalbum.fr

Choosing bike to take a tour around th world, the Africa Twin is certainly a matter of consideration. The reason for that is lying behind the origin of the model itself. For explanation i will take a little detour.
The Paris-Dakar Rally was launched in 1979 by Frenchman Thierry Sabine and quickly became known as the world’s toughest motor race. The biggest and best production trail bike of the time was the Yamaha XT500 and it was also succesful in early Paris-Dakar events.
Achieved first and second places in 1979, and first through fourth the following year. However things were changed in 1981 when BMW stepped into the scene with its flat-twin R80GS.
Realising that its existing singles had no chance against the BMW twins, the just debuted Honda team started make their own move. They chose the 45° cylinder angle liquid cooled engine derived from the reliable VT500 but the displacement was 779 cc producing 70hp.
Named NXR and entered into the 1986 Dakar. By the time the competitions grew even bigger BMW GSs were now 1040cc, the Cagiva Elefant V-twins were also entering, Honda's new NXR was still good enough for the first and second places. It was this success that made possible the born of the Africa Twin.
Honda's engineers toke the already succesful Transalp’s 583cc, three-valve, SOHC V-twin engine and boost capacity to 647cc and raise peak power by 7hp. After that, the plan was to make the new bike more dirt oriented and use as many NXR elements as possible.
In May 1988 the first Africa Twin was launched with codename "RD-03".

Honda NXR750 1986-1989 The Paris-Dakar winner.

Honda Transalp 600 1987 (PD-06)

Honda Africa-Twin 650 RD-03 1988-1989

Honda Africa-Twin 750 RD-04 1990-1992

Honda Africa-Twin 750 RD-07 1993-1995

Honda Africa-Twin 750 RD-07/a 1996-2003

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