Well Honda Transalp has been on the Australian scene for nearly 12 months now during which time it has really lived up to the name plate as a terrific all rounder great for commuting great for the odd Adventure basically everything in between but Honda insists there is more to the trans out than meets the eye and it can be genuinely cross shopped against bikes like the Yamaha tenor the new KDM 890 Adventure R even the new GS900 from BMW. In order to prove that we're doing one of the greatest adventures you can imagine Carnavon, Western Australia to Alice Springs in the middle of the country we're riding a bike that has been modified by none other than Daryl Beattie former 500cc race winner and of course the operator of Daryl Beattie Adventures there's loads of kit on this bike designed to make it better suited to the Australian Outback let's get to it [Music] The Transalp joined Honda Australian ranks in 2023 as the smaller sibling to the Africa Twin and while it was clearly pitched at the adventurer market taking on those bikes mentioned as well as the Suzuki V Strom 800 de and Aprilia Touareg it's stuck to an allrounder brief with road-going tires and minimal preload only adjustment on the suspension here we're riding a trans out with new tires a slip on exhaust and about $1,700 worth of suspension work with its circa $15,000 starting price you can add all those features and still come in under the price of the Honda's major Rivals. Righto Daz this is new for you because you guys have had the Africa twins for a few years why have you gone to trans out I guess firstly it's a new model Honda wanted it out there to you know put it in the outback I think initially we probably thought oh you know Africa Twins been so good for us and it was it was difficult to make that decision to go okay Africa Twins worked it's worked well we got repeat customers coming back doing these big trips across the country are we going to lose people when we change but my my feeling is that the reality of us of it watching people ride in the outback when and it doesn't happen often but some seasons we get to certain situations on the same track we do every year where bull dust has tripled or sands crept in from you know the blow off the desert so and I just find that in general The Experience level across the board people you could see on an Africa Twin or a bigger bike not struggle but look nervous and I just thought 750s got to make them feel better got to make them feel confident and the whole idea I do this is for people to enjoy riding a motorbike. I still love the Africa twin but I'm enjoying the the lighter bike it it it behaves more like a lighter bike at times it feels a little more nervous that less little bit less weight but um I enjoy the feel of it I've been you know fortunate enough to be riding both this week and it is fair to say like this doesn't quite have that intimidation factor about it when you first get on it um but the Transalp's always been great all rounder um it's certainly very road centric so what are the changes that you've done to you know tailor the to your tour and why have you done we initially when we got them we got hold of three straight up thank you Honda which was really nice and um we went to Boulia in Western Queensland and thought we'll just ride them home and we realised straight away the standard set up on the road's fine but offroad it's just way too soft and and and needs an upgrade there's no secret to that so um that was a good little tester just to feel where we're at so the customer bikes on these two tours that we've run this year so Birdsville to Carnarvon in the West, that was 5,000 km for customers um we've had some ripper corrugations just the general outback stuff happening and I called on a guy who's been involved in the Australian Super Bike series for many years a guy called Paul Free he's got Moto Logic he's Bitubo Australia now and he and I did a couple of little rides together and he basically came up with a package that was going to be a budget package so still use standard forks and standard rear shock but spring them and do a bit of valving because there's very minimal adjustment on the standard setup other than preload he's done that and we found in general across the board um first crack at it the setup's been pretty good so my one's gone the next level that people you'll find maybe with Tenere and some of the other models and even Africa Twins it's got the cartridges in the fork so it enables us to do more adjustment uh and I got a different shock in the back of mine it's a bigger shaft as well so um it just depends what you're going to do and where you're at and that's I guess we all say we're going to do this most time we don't um but I think as a as a base setup that motorcycle it's been across Australia nearly twice now and it's proven I think in general to be pretty good so it's a good good starting point and I don't know what his price is but I'm thinking as a budget set up it's probably around 1,500 bucks to two grand which I think is pretty good and that'll do most things for you unless you want to go to that next level to quickly recap the standard trans app offers a 755c parallel twin while show suspension offers 200 mm worth of travel up front and 190 mm at the rear sadly there is no adjustment to the front windscreen and no Cruise Control Function whatsoever the trans out offers five different ride modes plus adjustable throttle response engine braking traction control and abs all of those features are conveyed via a 5in TFT screen which it must be said is easier to operate and navigate than the larger Africa Twin but enough of the chat we have a lot of ground to cover. Okay so first things first uh as we've said from the top spent a bit of time on the trans out and on the updated Honda Africa Twin what's sort of really immediate from the outset is that the Transalp feels like a much less intimidating motorcycle the rider triangle is very different compared to the Africa Twin which is sort of swept back more of a traditional adventure bike in that you have you know high mounted tank uh very high screen high dashboard you're sitting really in the bike this feels more like you're sitting on top of it which is good for you know it's it's it's almost like a motocross bike in that sense, it's good for confidence and and getting on top of the thing and getting it to turn through corners less good I guess is you know the wind buffeting it doesn't quite have the same amount of protection as some other Adventure bikes out there and just the basic setup of it it is a little bit more nervous in the front compared to other bikes on the market and yeah I'm I'm quite quite impressed at just how well it is withstanding everything we're throwing at it the suspension changes are noted you know they they do make a big difference in making this bike a lot more compatible with the dirt the ride is still quite harsh over smaller imperfections um and and the fork particularly is quite soft so much so you come into a heavy braking zone the thing will dive quite a lot it'll even dive and pitch a bit through harsher gear changes it comes back to that allrounder setting it needs to to withstand corrugations which has done really well and it needs to withstand um big wash outs you know be consistent all the way through the stroke so whereas the regular trans out kind of falls through the stroke particularly in the fork and just doesn't feel as composed through different hits this one feels a lot more progressive and a lot easier to read and I guess above all else it feels more composed than the regular bike when it comes to power I would be spending the money on an SC project exhaust because you know you're getting 10 extra horsepower with that system it's just a really nice torque feel there the engine has a lot more redeeming it broadens the capability of this bike irrespective of whether you got an exhaust or not the other thing that you know I really took issue with on this ride is is the traction control I'm one of those guys I don't mind turning it off but I actually don't mind having a little bit of a safety net there so there's lots of different settings with the Transalp unfortunately even in the weakest setting it's just too intrusive with its intervention it cuts power, it stops you in your tracks and it just hinders you a lot you get stuck in a little bit of sand you want to cleanly rev out of it the traction control will essentially stop you from doing that so it's more of a hindrance than a help I think that's an easy one for Honda to go back and fix. We're hammering along here now at just over 100k an hour on some really solid corrugations and this bike is just blowing me away at just how capable it is I'm really surprised yep you can improve the suspension, is it really really going to change the character of the bike? The answer is it does it's withstanding everything we can throw at it there are no vibrations everything feels really well engineered that's a Honda thing really you know it's really putting up with everything we can throw at it and it doesn't feel overcome by the conditions out here that's a really really strong tick of approval for my end I think it's a really sound motorcycle and it's got that Honda build quality the other big talking point and I mentioned it before is just the handling like this bike you can turn on a dime it's very easy to navigate in and out of Corners it's very easy to build confidence on doesn't take a whole lot to transform this into a genuine off-road motorcycle and we've seen that across 3,200 km it hasn't missed a beat and happily it still has that legendary Honda reliability. We've now reached the end and the bike has made it I was really quite impressed at the improvements and just how you know capable this bike is off-road so take a look you will see a I think there's definitely scope for improvement with the fork seals they are Weeping a little bit but other than that the bike has not missed a beat I've been really impressed just as at how well it's handled the corrugations as well there's no rattling of the screen no rattling of the plastics the mirrors are still firm and secure. Everything feels really well tied down to being you know still a largely unchanged model there haven't been any wholesale changes there are some you know carryover inherent problems with the Transalp so the most obvious one no cruise control that would be really nice for a big open road trip and the traction control settings I think there's definitely scope for Honda to go back to the drawing board and even just introduce you know a better off-road setting say you know you can go back to there's basically six different parameters for the traction control system it'd be great on the soft softest or weakest parameter if you just had a little bit more leeway because as it is it really cuts power but no complaints in terms of the rider triangle and everything else we removed the rubber mounts on the foot pegs and found that that immediately cultivated more feedback with this bike it felt much easier to gauge on the Sandy surfaces but otherwise everything worked really well uh it's more of a an upright kind of sitting position you know you don't feel as though you're sitting in it you don't have the big wall of fuel tank and screen like a traditional adventure bike you're more on top of it but I I found quite comfortable sitting down standing up um standing up I do feel you know I'm I'm trying to ride more and more in my toes because it definitely helps um you can't quite hang your heel straight down because you've got the exhaust pipe there they've kind of got to be out facing in which is supposedly the right technique anyway um but yeah, really impressed with this bike I think you know price point is still its major strength there's a lot of other strengths to it too but the fact you can get one $5,000 less than a Tenere is great news. You effectively add about $3,000 to the purchase price with the changes that we've made if you go the forks, the spring and the SC Project Exhaust to me that's money well spent and you've still got a $2,000 saving over a Tenere that's great savings money for a trip away [Music]