Two wheels good : Trying a Transalp in the traffic

Thinking of buying a bike to beat petrol costs and the traffic? Me too. So I asked Honda to lend me an XLV700 Transalp for a week.

This 680cc V-twin falls into the adventure/tourer category. That makes it the two-wheeled equivalent of 4×4 vehicles. It looks capable of taming the Kalahari, and probably is. But one wonders how many Transalp owners use it off-road and how many, like their counterpart owners of big butch 4×4s, never leave the tar.

My practical mind tells me it’s better to decide what you want to use something for before you buy it. In my case, that would be mostly for traveling to and from work. Like the huge majority of us, no riding through veld or even on dirt roads is involved. Read More…