Yep.
I like my PCX 150. Don't have to worry about a clutch or gears. Does good on the highway, too. Currently doing 77 MPG.
Posted on 10/21/2025 7:07:11 AM PDT by eyeamok
The E-Clutch does away with that and thereby arguably does away with the essential thing that makes a motorcycle something different than a Moped or a Scooter (or a car – with an automatic transmission – for that matter).
(Excerpt) Read more at ericpetersautos.com ...
Accessibility on Motorcycles ranks right up there with Transgender logic.
Positive ground in British cars.....still ain’t gettin’ it.
Automotive is one of the few things the UK has over France......and both pretty much fall into the suck category IMO.
And
Left foot brake
Right foot shift
At one time I owned both types of controls on different bikes at the same time. Fun and games. In fact until the Japanese came along almost all bike had right foot shift.
front brake only in the rain is bad juju
**************************************
Ditto font brake in snow.
No choice - got snowed on overnight. Straight south I went....
Once every few years I like to go up to Loudon in June to watch the crazy guys go round the track. A few years back I went with my son and he got drafted to help in the pits to help a couple pro guys riding in a Supersport race. He was wearing long pants so he could cross the wall. Those guys would pass the amateurs like they were standing still.
The Saturday before the big race at Loudon is a lot more relaxed. You can walk around a talk to all the racers. You drive right in and park in the infield. Walk through all the garages and wonder wherever you want. As long as you don't cross over the wall.
There have been DCT transmissions on motorcycles for a good while.
Author is just pissy because “those” people are going into his space.
Deal with it. I’m good at manual and faster by far with paddles and two-foot driving. F1 last had manual shift in 1995 in the space where only the best play and the final rule is the podium.
This is why, if you are in the market for a 600cc Supersport you never buy used. Those things get heavily abused with wheelies and stoppies. The transmissions are often toast.
See also MotoGP shifting; seamless, slipper clutch, clutchless shift. Essentially a foot version of the paddles. Wish my bike ran that way.
Yet my implicit point is not about me. Making motorcycles safer and easier to use is progress even if something of their excitement is lost. As a teen, I once heard several pilot instructors reminisce at lunch about learning to fly in the 30s and during WW II. They talked nostalgically of open cockpit biplanes without radios and soloing on their first flight in one seat, massive, powerful P-47s. They also recalled accidents and lives lost unnecessarily in training. None of them wanted to go back to that era.
My guess is that Honda knows that demographics and a diminishing appetite for risk are against the motorcycle. They are trying to save it by reducing the risk and difficulty through new technology. That effort may fail but it is not wrong.
I almost crashed once after watching some HD chomper rider doing a burnout, then trying to stop. Locked up the rear wheel and slammed into a wall.
There is a reason they ride so lethargically.
The downshift function works with a slipper clutch and an auto-blipper that increases revs to give a seamless downshift at any speed.
Both my track bike and street bike have it, and I absolutely adore it.
The beautiful thing is, I can still choose to use the clutch and up/downshift traditionally, just to maintain that skillset.
Years ago, a friend of mine was a legislative staffer and helped get a helmet optional law passed in Florida. Privately, he referred to it as “the organ donor bill.”
The damage is due to the demographic that buys 600s.
Millennials and gen z.
One of the track day orgs has a Road America weekend either the weekend before or after the motoamerica races, and some of the riders will be there testing their setups.
It's a humbling experience being out there, riding at 95% of your ability, and getting passed on the outside by a kid half your age on a bike with half the displacement.
When my dad returned from Vietnam, he had shipped a Honda 70 back home as “motorcycle parts”. We put it together and I rode the pookie outta that thing. It had an automatic transmission, and when I bought a 360CL when I was in college, I had to learn how to shift. That 70 was a blast for a 13-year-old out in the Mojave desert, though.
Colonel, USAF JAGC (Ret)
How is this new? The Honda 90 I drove to high school in the mid 1970s had no clutch.
At 48 years young, most of my friends who ride have Harleys. I’ll go out with them a few times a year, and I’m always amazed after watching how they ride that they manage to get themselves home in one piece.
My wife hasn't mastered the clutch or shifting. She likes a "twist and go". She has a Piaggio BV500, a Honda CT700 and a new Piaggio MP3. The Honda has the DCT clutch. I have ridden the CT700 and it gives my left hand/arm a break from gripping the clutch. It's a 670cc engine that provides plenty of power for the freeway and 61 miles per gallon on regular gas.
This past Summer, I only took the SR400 out to ride. I'm still trying to recover my strength from the cancer in 2024. The SR400 is a challenge because it is kickstart only of a 400cc single. At 144.4 lbs, I'm almost too light to kick it over. Wrestling my 850 lb Fat Bob was easy when I weighed 192 lbs. Plenty of muscle then. Not so much now.
To the point of the article, the Honda DCT is a very refined approach. Electric start. ABS brakes on the CT700. It fills a niche for me to overcome the neuropathy growing in my left arm and overall sarcopenia. It's the one bike in the garage that will probably remain in the stable. I converted the DR650 into a "supermoto" with 17 inch wheels front and rear and street tires. It has electric start and is relatively light, so it also gets favorable consideration to stay in the stable.
No shifting does not make a motorcycle safer. It actually makes low speed handling more difficult. If you can’t learn to feather a clutch you probably shouldn’t get on a motorcycle in the first place.
Remember that the easier you make it the less attention the driver/rider will pay to what he’s doing. And that’s deadly.
Try farting around and texting with your cell phone when you’re driving a five-speed manual shift in a car.
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