Ever heard of Honda Quest? Run by Honda South Africa and unique to our shores, it’s an adventure motorcycling challenge where participants compete in teams of two. There’s one heck of a prize, too: the Honda Africa Twins that they competed on.
I’d wager that while some of you are nodding your heads right now, this is news to the rest of you. Riaan Fourie, head of Honda SA’s motorcycle division, admits that “people outside Quest don’t know what Quest is all about.” Now the brains trust behind the event is set on changing that.
With four annual Quest events under its belt, Honda SA is changing things up. The main Quest event officially called ‘Honda Quest True Adventure,’ will now happen every second year. The format will be much the same as now: Through regional qualifier events, Honda will select 30 entrants to attend a Quest boot camp, then select 14 finalists to duke it out over eight to ten days.
The year preceding each running of Quest True Adventure will be filled with ‘Road to Quest’: a rolling roadshow designed to spread the Quest gospel to the masses.
Road to Quest’s concept is as clever as it is unpretentious. Honda will move from city to city, each time leaving four fully-equipped Africa Twins at a local dealer for a week, for adventure riding enthusiasts to sample.
Each leg of Road to Quest then culminates in an ‘open day’ at a local venue. With seven events already hosted in the Johannesburg, Pretoria and Vaal areas, and two special days at the ADA Training and Outdoor Centre (they’re Honda’s official rider training partner), it was Cape Town’s turn to play host.
Honda South Africa set up shop at Anura Vineyards, tucked away in the impossibly picturesque Stellenbosch wine region. With a mini-fleet of Honda Africa Twins in various configurations on hand, including DCT- and non-DCT-equipped bikes, they entertained around 60 visitors over a weekend.
Both days followed the same basic format. Every hour, a group of riders would be taken on a 45 km loop in and around Anura’s grounds, by experience Honda Quest guides. The route included some tar, open farm roads, enough corners to break loose on, and a tight forest single track with one or two butt-puckering bits.
Like the primary Quest True Adventure challenge, Road to Quest is open to anyone with a motorcycle license—whether they’re a Honda customer or not. So at the very least, the weekend was a great opportunity to put the Africa Twin through its paces in its natural habitat. But the moments between rides were just as important.
Honda made sure that the Quest community was well represented. In attendance were various key Honda South Africa staffers, local dealers, official Quest ‘crew’ and even some past participants—like actor and comedian, Pierre Breytenbach. Questions were asked and answered, conversations were had, and Quest was effectively demystified to a group of dual-sport riders that, until now, had just been looking in.
Honda has six more Road to Quest events left for 2022 before they start looking forward to 2023’s Quest True Adventure challenge. Those are going down in Port Elizabeth, East London, KwaZulu-Natal, Bloemfontein and Brits.
If you’re curious about Quest, or you just want to ride Honda’s acclaimed Africa Twin and meet some rad people, you owe it to yourself to check out your local Road to Quest event. And if you’d like to participate in the main event next year, keep an ear to the ground—entries are set to open sometime in the first quarter of 2023.
For more information visit your local Honda Wing dealer: www.honda.co.za
