Our new dedicated thread for the current Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin will showcase our own products that we will be engineering for this popular Adventure model. Our previous enterprise to turn the CB500X into a great all-round, mid-size Adventure bike has given us the confidence to extend many of the parts to it's larger brother and offer owners of the new AT the chance to address some of the shortcomings of the bike, whilst extending it's off-road performance with our rally/race background in billet parts and suspension development. Most of our products are designed and made here in the UK wih our in-house CAD & CNC machining capability, along with our new fabrication shop. We draw on many years experience developing and racing our own bikes in rallies, such as Dakar & Baja Rally, and preparing many bikes for long overland trips for customers. Our suspension partners, Tractive Suspension in the Nederlands, have also been working on several rear shock & fork upgrades on behalf of Touratech Suspension, who we are the UK sales & service centre for, and work very closely with the German company on suspension developments. We hope to bring regular announcements of new products, along with workshop reports of development of these parts as they progress. Our own CRF1000L is already stripped in the workshop undergoing measurement and fitment of the first few items to be available through our webshop, which we can deliver world-wide.
Our first pair of really useful parts are custom-designed wheel spanners to fit the front & rear axle bolts plus the front axle pinch bolt. The smaller one is laser-cut from stainless-steel, with hex cut-outs for front axle pinch bolt & rear axle head. The larger one has a 17mm hex for the recessed front axle, plus a hex cut-out for the rear axle nut. There are no tools supplied with the OEM toolkit, so this was our first requirement to make these before we could start stripping our own bike. They are designed to both fit in the OEM tool pouch under the passenger seat. Available now through our webshop: Large Spanner Small Spanner
Another new development, as a spin-off from our popular spoked wheel kits fot the CB500X, will be a heavy-duty tubeless spoked wheel kit for the new Africa Twin. It is well documented that the OEM wheels have had spoke corrosion problems, plus they are not tubeless, and the 32-spoke design of the rear wheel is not as robust a design as we would expect for a 1000cc Adventure bike that may be loaded up with luggage and ridden over poorly maintained tracks. There have already been a few UK owners having problems with the OEM spokes needing regular adjustment due to stretching. So, we will be offering the option of a 36 hole rear wheel, with CNC billet hub, laced to either a gold anodised or black powder-coated 4,25 x 18" alloy rim. The spokes will be stainless-steel, heavy-duty (as we fit to our Dakar bikes) and have nickel-plated brass nipples, this will prevent any corrosion issues. The front wheel will have the same options but with a 2,15 x 21" front rim. Both wheels will have a tubeless conversion professionaly carried out by our partners, BarTubeless, in Italy. They have been doing successful conversions on our CB500X wheel kits for some time now, and all tubeless conversions are subject to a 4-year warranty by the company. We are currently CNC machining the first batch, which we hope to test next month in the Illyria Rally, starting in Split, Croatia. Check out our progress today in the workshop:
Great news John, of course we will be hoping to have these products in Canada soon Nudge nudge Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Fitting the new UK-manufactured Scorpion Slip-On to our CRF1000L this week, easy to fit, strong stainless-steel brackets and great sound !!!
To give you an idea of our engineering & rally background, here is a short video of the rear hub for the AT being CNC machined in our workshop: Rally Raid Products Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1667718093245325
Hello, Congratulations. A question regarding the front RIM. You mentions the front rim will be 2,50 x 21". Your Italian partner, BARTUBELESS, proposes a 2.15 x 21" RIM (stock dimensions) with humps... Why the 2.5 width choice ? : --> http://www.bartubeless.it/en/price/fa-ba-rim-215-x-21-hump$ --> (RIMS ALONE) http://www.fa-ba.com/index.php/en/
Tuesday evening progress on the billet Rear Hubs for CRF1000L, getting the spoke holes drilled on our Haas CNC mill, with 4th axis. VIDEO LINK
Hi Mrob - with regard to the Scorpion exhaust pictured above - is just the silencer/end can, the OEM catalyst is retained (in the header pipe) so a traditional Spark Arrestor is not required* - it's basically the same as any other street bike/car exhaust. *...they are only necessary on [typically] dirt-bike exhausts that do not have a catalytic converter and/or second silencer/expansion chamber with baffles to prevent the escape of unburnt fuel. The current Scorpion Africa Twin silencer is designed as a direct OEM replacement, so will fit inside any existing luggage racks etc. In addition, Scorpion will also be introducing a full system/header assembly that does eliminate the catalyst and in that instance, a spark arrestor would be required in those riding areas where such an item is stipulated. Hope that clarifies things... Jenny x
Hope this isn't too off topic, but I was under the impression that Scorpion weren't going to do this?!? I've been speaking to the guys at Metal Mule here in the UK about a potential 'balanced' option for their pannier racks (where a scorpion replacement exhaust is used and the exhaust itself is closer to the body of the bike) and was told this would not be financially viable for all concerned. Has this now changed?!?
All I can say is that Scorpion are advertising a full system, and we have one coming, that's what I've been told.
The new Billet Top Triple for our Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin is finished today on the Haas CNC mill, it has 6 positions of handlebar movement, front to back, and the option for adding Bar Packers, to raise the bar position, plus the mounting for a Scotts steering damper. Now it's off for anodising before building the bike ready for the Illyria Rally in Croatia in 10 days. We will have our new HD wheels built up tomorrow, and the Touratech Closed Cartridge front fork kit installed, to compliment the TT Extreme rear shock. Both will increase the wheel travel by 15mm, and give much improved performance on rough terrain expected through the Balkans.
To further improve the performance, and fine-tuning ability off-road, of our Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin, in preparation for the Illyria Rally, we have decided to fit the high-quality Extreme Closed Catridge Fork Kit & Extreme Rear Shock manufactured by Touratech Germany, for which we are the UK Sales & Service Centre. These units are a special "one-off" version with slight changes to the standard items, mainly to give more progressive damping, due to the high speeds on the rally, and 15mm more wheel travel front & rear. The fork catridges were fairly easy to fit, just remove the fork from the bike, take out the complete OEM open cartridge and replace with the new TT closed cartridge, remove the springs & set the air gap at 85mm, then refit springs and fit to bike. Compression & rebound damping are in seperate legs, which makes for much more controlled damping and reliability. The cartridges are supplied already filled with oil and charged with gas, the oil in the outer chamber is just to provide air compression and lubrication. The Extreme rear shock fitment was tight, but manageable, and we took the chance to remove all the OEM linkages and pack with marine grease, and a good job, as they were all very dry from the factory. Once the bike had a couple of hours off-road riding we came back to the workshop and set the Free Sag & Rider Sag, this confirmed we had the correct springs fitted. For more information on the range of Touratech Suspension upgrades, check their new website: https://shop.touratech.de/suspension.html
The first production Billet Top Triple was fitted, along with the ever-popular Scott's Steering Damper in readiness for the Illyria Rally. This new top triple will give a choice of 6 different handlebar positions, forward and back, in 5mm increments, along with the possibility of raising the bars by using our own Billet Packers. To locate the peg for the damper, we designed a stainless-steel collar to secure around the headstock, and lock in place. These will be available end of June for delivery
Final day in the workshop before 2-times Dakar rider Christopher Cork, "Corky", collected our CRF1000L to leave on his 2 day, 1100 mile road trip through 6 countries, on his way to the start of the Illyria Rally.......Marathon Style !!! He is running an I-Phone 4 & Garmin Montana for navigation, and we are grateful to UK company, Rugged Roads, for supporting us with their own Engine Guards & Radiator Screens, which we will be evaluating over the next 2 weeks, 3,600 mile adventure.
After extensive testing of the Scorpion stainless-steel slip-on silencer fitted to our Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin at the recent Illyria Rally, which involved our rider Chris Cork cover 3,500 miles, riding to the start of the event in Croatia, competing in the 7-day rally, then riding home to the UK, we are pleased to say it passed with flying colours. No problems occured, and the bike certainly sounds throatier, and runs clean, so we are now stocking this product, along with the other 2 types, Black Ceramic & Titanium finish. We also have first stock of their own header system, designed to replace the OEM headers and remove the catalytic converter. These headers are crafted from stainless-steel, and will only fit with the Scorpion slip-ons. Available now from our webshop: LINK