Bye-bye Beemer, Hello Africa Twin

[LongRanger_imp]

100 Groms at one time? That's amazing. I've seen ONE since they came out a few years ago.

[4 Paws_imp]

I've seem some pictures of groups of Groms burning up The Dragon, looks like a lot of fun.

[morewood_imp]

A little over a year ago, I traded my 2013 Suzuki DL650 in on a 2011 BMW R1200GS. The dealer where I work lets us take used bikes home for tge weekend, and in doing so, I convinced myself I needed that bike. It was, and remained an awesome bike without any issues over the year I owned it. Two things led me to trade it. One, I never grew accustomed to the normal BMW quirks: lack of steering feel with the telelever front end and the odd sounding engine with its rough idle. Two, I work at a metric dealership and I have been surrounded by Africa Twins since they started hitting the showroom a year ago.

The first one we got in that didnt have a deposit on it, was a manual version. I hopped on and rode it down the street and back. I nearly bought it on the spot, even though I just bought the GS and I'd probably would have had to pay retail price since these were in such high demand. That bike ended up selling a couple hours later, so of course I was disappointed. As soon as I hopped on my GS, all in the world seemed right...for a while.

For the rest of the year, all we got were DCT models, in which I had little interest. I knew Honda's DCT was neat, but not for me. I like to shift my own gears. Then, I decided to ride one. We have a demo DCT Africa Twin and I rode it home a few weeks ago. Having ridden the DCT NC700x, I was expecting the riding experience to be dull. What a difference doubling the horsepower makes! I knew I liked the Twin's riding position, handling, suspension, and brakes, but I was not expecting to be a DCT convert so quickly. The lack of clutch lever and foot shift is odd, but 10 minutes later, I was sold.

I could have bought that demo bike, but I knew the red/white/blue color scheme was coming stateside. I wanted that one. A few days later, a young man came in asking if we had any r/w/b in stock. We said no, but we will run a locator to see if we could trade one in from another dealer. Honda's locator showed we had one, lol. Sure enough one came in the day before and nobody knew. Once I laid eyes on it, I was done. This bike was sold to the customer, but it was a manual and I wanted a DCT.

A couple weeks ago, a coworker tells me we had a r/w/b DCT in the warehouse. I just about fell out of my chair. The next day, I rode my GS in and left a new Honda owner. 450 miles in and loving every mile. For my commute, not having to shift is a blessing. For my weekend fun rides, the manual shift paddles are very engaging. There is no loss of fun riding the bike aggressively. The worst part of fetting a new bike is not wanting to ride my other bikes. The CB1100, Grom, and Z125 have sat in the garage for 2 weeks.

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WAY better than a GS. Well played sir.