Red White and Blue is Back For Your 2021 Go-Anywhere Motorcycle.
Ah yes, finally; the only color I would ever buy an Africa Twin in is coming back for the 2021 release. The legendary white with red and blue accents has been catching my eye since I first stepped into a Honda dealership in 2016 when I began riding. If I was in the market for an ADV bike, I wouldn’t have a choice but to go with the Africa Twin because it really is the perfect motorcycle for going literally anywhere.
The Tricolour paint scheme is a not-so-subtle nod to the original XRV650 Africa Twin originally released in 1988. It came in a similar variety of colors, the Tricolor option being the most popular and sought after though – similarly to today’s trends we see with the new model.
Although with the recent news of the paint choices being similar to last year’s model, the bike itself is far from the same when looking back to the 2019 model. For 2020, Honda took the liberty of giving the bike a complete facelift whilst boosting the engine an extra 100cc’s from 1000 to 1100 to compete with the other companies racing to manufacture large displacement ADV bikes (notably the BMW R 1250 GS, and KTM’s 1290 Super Adventure).
Honda aptly named this color scheme option ‘Pearl Glare White Tricolor’. I think they lost some style points with the extra addition of black accents to the motorcycle most notably the rims which used to be gold on the same colorway bringing a splash of extra pizzaz to the bike, but hey you can’t always win. If I bought the bike the first thing I would be doing is getting those rims painted to match the older set-up, but that’s just me. Some of you probably aren’t even fans of this color option and lean heavier towards the solid colors that honda also nailed (Grand Prix Red and Matte Ballistic Black).
See other motorcycle companies. You CAN have an adventure bike without a stupid beak…