HONDA'S new Africa Twin CRF1000L will cost €12,100 in Europe - that’s £8,550 if the same price reaches the UK, making it £3,350 cheaper than a BMW R1200GS.

Of course, there are some provisos here. The pound is strong at the moment, which skews the conversion, plus the price released by Honda relates to an entry-level model – the firm says there will be several variations and we don’t know which will be offered in the UK at the moment.

Strangely, the official Honda release also says that ABS and HSTC (Honda Selectable Torque Control – or ‘traction control’ to use its familiar name) isn’t available on the base model. Since European regulations mean that every new model of road-going bike over 125cc sold from 1 January 2016 must have ABS as standard, that base bike is presumably not going to be offered in Europe.

So is that cheap price, stated in Euros, actually related to a model that won’t be offered in Europe?

However the message appears to be that this could be a bike that’s significantly cheaper than the market-leading BMW R1200GS, which starts at £11,900.

Other key facts are:

Power – 70kW at 7500rpm

Torque – 98Nm at 6000rpm

Weight – 228kg (wet), 232kg (wet with ABS), 242kg (wet with DCT)

Transmission – 6 speed or optional dual clutch DTC 6 speed with five shift modes (D, for cruising, S1, S2 and S3 as different sports shift patterns and G for off-road riding)

Electronics – optional ABS and HSCT traction control with 3 levels and an off-switch. The rear wheel ABS can also be switched off.

Wheels – 21 inch front, 18 inch rear, with 90/90 R21 front tyre and 150/70 R18 rear.