I saved over £500 by fitting aftermarket luggage to my Honda Africa Twin but it's too wide

Official motorbike luggage is an option for the ATAS, but ever on the hunt for a saving I though I’d kit my new Honda Africa Twin AS out with expandable panniers from Spanish specialists Shad. The SH38X boxes and fitting kit top out at £780.98 (£576.99 and £203.99 respectively) and save you nearly £540 over Honda’s £1320 aluminium cases. Winner.

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• Update one: A camping trip on the ATAS
• Update three: Honda’s off-road school with the ATAS
• Update four: 12 hours and 445 miles for cauliflower

But, while the Honda boxes slot neatly into the moulded lugs in the tail unit the SH38X do not, and the scaffolding required to hold them away from the high-level exhaust means they are very wide even when collapsed. How wide? The Honda’s bars are 99cm wide including handguards. When expanded, the Shad panniers are almost 120cm.

Even collapsed they’re wider than the bars by a good five or six centimetres, and that’s enough to give me the filtering wobbles on what’s already a considerably large bike. Excellent luggage it might be, but not on this bike. You live and learn.

After complaining last time about my frustrations with Android Auto and my phone/bike interface failure, I’ve been getting to grips with it. I read the manual (I know the ATAS has got sophisticated tech but the first mind-boggling 221 of its 371 pages seem to be all about the dash and switches!) and managed to make it work, happily displaying my GMaps nav info on the Honda’s fancy TFT telly.

It’ll still take a while to get used to navigating the system, and I’ll need to properly install a Bluetooth headset to use it, rather than carry it in a pocket. And that leads to another tiny gripe; you have to connect your phone via a USB cable to use Car Play/Android Auto, so why didn’t Honda build a nice little cubby in the vast fairing to stash your phone in?

As time and familiarity leave tech irritations behind, life on the Africa Twin is good. Recently back from a 500-mile round trip to the Isle of Wight, touring on it is a mighty fine experience.

With MPG in the mid-50s, a range of around 280 miles from its 24.8-litre tank and superb stomp from the parallel twin (especially punching out of corners) and a roomy riding position – full days in the saddle don’t get much better.

Low-speed fuelling could be better in tour mode (switching to Urban smoothes it out) while handling is excellent thanks to the electronic suspension and road-focused 19in front wheel.