Honda Africa Twin Vs Ducati Desert X, What Would You Pick?

As an experienced motorcycle enthusiast, which adventure tourer would you pick? Honda Africa Twin or Ducati Desert X?

BHPian Ketan recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Greetings folks! I'm planning to purchase a new motorcycle, slightly confused between a couple of them and thought of checking here and take other perspectives.

Background: I ride Machismo500, REH411 and Xpulse 2004vPro. I usually ride to places around all states in southern India, at times with friends and other times solo as well. It's been a long time, I have stopped riding motorcycle to the places in city or to work, unless I have to. Breakfast rides to the outskirts are usual. I love to ride the GRIT (trails), did some stretches in KA/TN; either with limited group members or solo, I've got the xpulse just for that. I've found an amazing application for xpluse recently where I ride it to my farmland/garden in the outskirts of the city, exploring backcountry roads and sometimes trails a well. It's a great commuter at that. I think I like riding backcountry roads more than riding long highway stretch (may be since I don’t have a motorcycle that can do that with ease!)

I'm contemplating on giving away one of the small capacity motorcycles that I have and get a middle weight/capacity motorcycle. Although it's not very practical decision when I look at it rationally, but this time I may go purely for experience, satisfying ego and chasing that dream of owning a big motorcycle that we (my son and I, he's been riding our REH411 for few years now and waiting for new gen KTM 390 Adv) can use it for long time, it may also be my last one to purchase! Some options I'd like to list here follows.

Ducati Desert X: I fell in love with Ducati Desert X in past few months since I started learning about it and have watched some videos around it's capabilities. It's an amazing looking motorcycle alongside being a big motocross one that can ride to many places. However, I'm concerned about throwing around such a big (and costly!) motorcycle on dirt and trails, knowing a Ducati will not be easier to maintain considering the service/spare cost. It surely can be used with limited off-pavement usage, but again, there would be regular maintenance. Desmodromic valve service would be one example which may be a big cost every 30K kms. Desert X seems to have the most functioning ride modes among all the competitors, Ducati electronics are one of the best ones and it'll be a lot of fun riding aggressively on winding roads, trails and even for highways, only if it was easy to run, maintain and age!

Honda Africa Twin: Reliability, function, legacy, refinement, longevity are some of the things that makes me look at this one. I think running and maintaining this Japanese motorcycle would be far easier than the Italian beauty. There are good chances that we may get an ATAS (adventure sports) edition only for the India this year. I may get confused again if we get the base edition since I love the slender base edition with the ES and would also love to keep this motorcycle as a long-term, road biased adventure tourer and ATAS would fit that spot just right with the DCT, ES and 19" front wheel size. This 19" front would help compensate the excess weight that ATAS carries by providing lower saddle height/CG and help achieve better road manners. Although it won't be that much fun as Desert x on any surface, it can be a refined, reliable tourer for long time (lower compression ratio, higher cubic capacity to produce not so high power). I'm presently more inclined towards the ATAS. I'd try not to go for a multipurpose/function one like Desert x and would stick to one function that ATAS does better. I shall keep a second motorcycle for taking it off the pavement that's easy to throw around.

Honda Transalp XL750: Now this one is in a different category altogether, but I just slid this one in the list, asking myself if I can get most of what ATAS does with this motorcycle for way less, it's not a bad idea! This would require some after-market tubeless spokes, optional QS, suspension upgrade (!) in the future! So, it may add bit of cost anyways, not go as far as an ATAS does in terms of features and longevity. However, there is one major point about this one which forced me to keep this on the list is the weight of the motorcycle. I thought I can compare this with the other two, especially for my use case and added it to the list, I may be wrong to compare them!

Please let me know your opinion for a decent middle weight category adventure motorcycle that I can get today (I don't mind waiting for some more time, if better options are coming to India in near future, e.g. Yamaha Tenere 700 and likes but that would again be in the same category as Transalp!)

Thanks in advance.

Here's what BHPian Darkcloud had to say about this:

The three motorcycles you have mentioned are all excellent. A lot will depend on what you plan to do with your motorcycle and the type of rider you are. 

Another big factor is the price. The Desert X is almost 10 lakhs more expensive than the Transalp here in Mumbai.

The Transalp is a fantastic machine. Does almost everything well. But then it’s got no cruise control and has tubed tyres. God knows what Honda were thinking when choosing tubed tyres. If you factor in the cost of replacing the rims to tubeless the Transalp is not value for money. 

The Africa Twin AS is heavy and unless you’re skilled, not easy to handle off road. It’s a great road going machine, more so now with the 19” front tyre. But if you want to throw your bike around on some rough roads and have some fun, the AT is not for you. Unfortunately, we don’t get the base AT here in India. 

Finally, the Desert X. If this motorcycle was around when I was purchasing my GSA I would have got it without battling an eyelid. I’m too old for it now! 

You can also think about the Tiger850 as an alternative to the Transalp. You would gain tubeless tyres but lose out on the fun. 

The Tiger 900 is a good option with its various variants and the recent upgrades make it a compelling choice.

These are very difficult decisions to make. They’re all great motorcycles! Good luck!

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