Pro Rider Tries Backflip on Honda Africa Twin…With Luggage

Watch what happens when a pro enduro rider & an FMX star play with a big ADV bike.

Published on 03.08.2022

So, a pro freestyle motocross rider and a pro enduro racer walk into a bar…

Until you watch the full video, the punchline is tough to guess. But if you know it’s Spanish enduro rider Kirian Mirabet, an up-and-coming FIM Enduro World Championship and Spanish Enduro Championship series Team Honda racer, meeting up with professional FMXer and podium regular, Sebastian Westberg of Finland for a stunt, you know it’s going to be something extreme.

Now we’ve all seen a foam pit stunt or two, though it’s most often gymnasts and bicycles being backflipped into the abyss, not motorcycles. And when it is a motorcycle, it’s usually lightweight motocross bikes being slung into the pit by the likes of guys like Seb when they practice stunts.

But a full-size adventure bike? Now that’s a rare event.

Make that a 550-pound CRF1100L Africa Twin bagged up like it’s headed out on tour and you have some real shenanigans afoot.

While this feat has been performed with a big adventure bike at least once before Kirian says the idea got stuck in his head when he was talking with Seb one day and the freestyler told him it would “be easy” to backflip the big Honda. Now Kirian has already proven he likes to do crazy things with his Africa Twin when he’s not racing his appointed CRF250RX. What comes to mind is a recent video where he loads the AT in his van for a 33 hour trip to Sweden, where he slaps on some ice tires and proceeds to wheelie, roost, jump and slide his way through a winter wonderland.

So it’s no real surprise when the newest video on Kirian’s YouTube channel has him loading up the Honda and traveling to La Clua, a motocross training park in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region, to meet up with Seb and learn how to backflip. Seb gives him some tips that sound simple: “It’s mainly just give the throttle a rev, lean back with your neck…in the maximum position, try to keep the weight back and then pull up easy [on the bar].”

He then hilariously asks Kirian if he can do wheelies (duh), and instructs him to just “over wheelie.”

As Kirian is gearing up for the stunt he admits he’s already “dead of fear.” And though everyone keeps telling him it’s easy, he knows how powerful the Africa Twin is and how easy it will be to get in trouble.

And then boom! He’s on the ramp, in the air, over once, and lands the Africa Twin squarely in the pit of foam on his first try. Or does he?

Turns out the punchline is that Kirian is way too smart to even try the stunt. “I’m obviously not crazy enough to kill myself on my first backflip attempt. With a 250 kg motorcycle in a pool of foam, which can catch fire.” Seb’s not crazy either, he just happens to be practiced enough to flip an Africa Twin, which he does, wearing matching gear as Kirian’s stunt double.

When the video cuts to Kirian on the bike in the pit taking off his helmet post jump he’s like, look, I’m not even sweating.

It’s pretty funny. But what’s really remarkable is what we’re learning these production adventure bikes are capable of when under the bum of the right rider. Whether it’s Sebastian Westberg backflipping an Africa Twin, Pol Tarres defying gravity on a Yamaha Tenere 700 or Ivan Cervantes winning the Bassella Enduro Race on a Tiger 900 Rally, one thing is clear: Building skill is the only path to becoming a true master of size.

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A post shared by Kirian Mirabet (@kmirabet38)

Author: Jamie Elvidge

Jamie has been a motorcycle journalist for more than 30 years, testing the entire range of bikes for the major print magazines and specializing in adventure-travel related stories. To date she’s written and supplied photography for articles describing what it’s like to ride in all 50 states and 43 foreign countries, receiving two Lowell Thomas Society of American Travel Writer’s Awards along the way. Her most-challenging adventure yet has been riding in the 2018 GS Trophy in Mongolia as Team AusAmerica’s embedded journalist.