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A year with my Honda Africa Twin: Service costs, accessories & more

15th April 2025, 10:01 by Deepankar Sadekar

The bike’s a keeper and each and every time I get to crank it up - I end up smiling ear to ear.

BHPian TheVaas recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Happy ONE-er

April 9, 2025 marked one year of the Africa Twin coming into our lives. Going by my ‘verbose’ track record in this thread, there’d be so much I’d usually have said as the date came closer - but it’d be a repeat of everything ‘that has already been said’. Haha! So keeping it short this time around.

Some moments from a year gone by!

The bike’s a keeper and each and every time I get to crank it up - I end up smiling ear to ear (or how much ever my helmet liners can let me!) like I did when I bought it a year back! Drawing heavy inspiration from fellow Tbhp veterans, KarthikK and Crazy Driver - I thought I’d also try and make some charts of my one year ownership costs etc. Well, the inspiration remained strong but the application (read: MS EXCEL & yes, pun intended) was too complex for me to handle. So I’ve promised myself that the ‘Two Year anniversary’ will at least have ONE chart of ownership expense to show off!

So I’ll just stick to the basics here of my One year Ownership details:

Total Kilometres : 13,180 kms (inclusive of 2 major trips: Mum-Zanskar-Mum & Mum-Kutch-Jaisalmer-Mum)
Spares and Annual 48k kms service cost : 25,500 INR (mentioned in my earlier posts)
Accessories : 75,000 INR (Includes Center stand, rally footpegs, Hard panniers + pannier mounts)
Tyres: 31,000 INR (Pirelli Rally STR 21”F-18”R)

Total cost: 1,31,500 INR (Make whatever you want of it!)

90s music + Bombay Nights + Partners in Crime (Pawan & Prerana) = Perfect celebration

Ok I admit I am NOT a man of few words. So sharing another update that coincided with the one year happy birthday event (eagle eyed viewers might have already guessed it from the video above!) -

Since these are the months when our Earth shares the same room with the Sun, I decided to look for some ventilated helmet options for my city commutes. From NOT being a huge fan of off-roading helmets, I actually ended up buying the ACERBIS PROFILE 4 off-road helmet from the REISE Moto Store in Andheri West. One of the reasons to look for a secondary helmet, apart from ventilation, was that I didn’t want to ‘overuse’ my current MT helmet that I use for touring and erstwhile commuting. Secondly, - the mindless consumption of off-road, trail biking content on social media where such helmets and googles are the norm made me try it out even more! And lastly, the city of Mumbai has become one big off-road dirt park with roads being dug up left, right and centre. So even more reason to ‘LOOK THE PART’ while commuting!

Saying CHEESE - but you cannot see it!

My head size is S even with longer hair, but I guess with Acerbis, the M size fit me snug. The helmet is super lightweight at 1250g as I wore it in the store and spent some time chatting with the great team over there especially Saiyam (who’s an off-road enthusiast himself). After about 20 minutes, nothing seemed off with the pressure points, so thanked the team and rode off with my wallet weighing 8,000 INR lighter.

"Phantom of the Off-road-era"

I guess to complete the look, got myself these first copy 100% goggles from Garage0Eight and a fully ventilated ‘Fusion Neo Offroad Jersey’ from Rynox. Initial impressions (apart from I LOVE IT) after about 200 odd kms of city riding is -

It is light weight so automatically you feel comfortable with free-er neck movements.
Ventilation is great but that also means it is noisy. I use ear plugs to cut most of the sound and I’m happy with the levels.
The goggles are pretty easy to put on and the yellow-golden reflective lens provide great sun protection in the day and night riding is also manageable (doesn’t completely cut off the light). There is a clear lens also provided in the box.
The Jersey is pretty much mesh - front and back - light and really comfortable when you’re at standstill. Thinking of getting one more in the arsenal.

"Paint me like one of your Off-roading icons!"