Every rider has imagined the perfect ride on their naked bike. Empty roads, green lights on all routes to work, and enough neat corners to make a Monday morning feel like a Saturday ride. The reality looks very different. Most trips involve crawling traffic, constant stoplights, and many moments when you’re more concerned with feathering the clutch than enjoying the motorcycle beneath you.
The latter is simply accepted as part of owning a manual bike. Your left hand gets a workout. Your wrist learns to balance clutch engagement with throttle input. However, we have all wondered at one time or another whether there is a way out. A machine that makes commuting fun, but also gives comfort to your wrists when traffic is out of control. Honda has a great solution that is easy on the pocket.
Clutch fatigue is something every traveler learns to live with.
Clutch control is arguably the hardest skill for a new rider to master, and it’s not close. Figuring out the friction zone, modulating it against throttle input, doing all this while also watching the car that is about to pull out into the adjacent road – it’s a lot of processing at once for someone who has had a license for six weeks. Crash the bike at a light because you release the clutch too quickly, and that embarrassment stays with the rider longer than expected.
Even experienced riders are not immune to this. Months of daily traffic wears out the same left hand and left ankle in slightly different ways. Thus, bike manufacturers have started innovating to mitigate this problem. Yamaha’s Y-AMT system fully automates shifting on select models, and Honda’s own DCT has been doing something similar on larger machines for more than a decade. When these work, both also remove the mechanical connection, something riders may not particularly want to give up. A great middle point for a fun ride comes in the form of Honda’s innovative e-clutch.
Honda CB750 Hornet e-clutch quietly becomes ideal for daily riding
Base price: $7,999
On paper, the 2026 Honda CB750 Hornet E-Clutch is still a mid-displacement streetfighter built for throwing down the backroads. What’s changed is that Honda has quietly made it as comfortable as sitting in traffic, and the trick is a system that doesn’t cost buyers anything extra. The e-clutch is now standard equipment across the board, even though the MSRP remains the same at $7,999.
This cost becomes more apparent when you look at the competition. The Yamaha MT-07 starts at $8,599, the Kawasaki Z900 and Suzuki GSX-8S both start at $9,000, and the Triumph Trident 660 is priced at $8,745. None of them offer anything like an e-clutch at this price point, which leaves the CB750 Hornet in a strange, utilitarian spot: cheaper than most of its direct rivals, and loaded with technology none of them have an answer to yet.
What helps make the CB750 a smooth daily ride
It helps to be clear about what this system is not. This is not a DCT-style automatic, and there is no clutch-free version of this bike being sold. You still change gears yourself using the same foot lever you use on any manual six-speed. E-Clutch removes the need to touch the handlebar-mounted clutch lever. A small motor electronically manages clutch engagement and disengagement – off the line, through gear changes, and at stops.
Under the hood, it’s leaning on the bike’s throttle-by-wire system to automatically blip the throttle on downshifts, matching engine speed to road speed so transitions don’t feel slow. You can also dial in how firm the shift lever feels, independently choosing between soft, medium and hard resistance for upshifts and downshifts. And importantly, the traditional lever never moves away – pull it whenever you want full manual control, and the electronics will simply retract.
A parallel-twin built for real-world torque
Power comes from a 755cc liquid-cooled parallel-twin producing a claimed 90.5 horsepower and 55.3 lb-ft of torque, built around a 270-degree crank that gives it a lopsided, almost V-twin-like pulse rather than the buzzy feel that some parallel-twin defaults give. The valve train uses Honda’s Unicam design, a single-overhead-cam layout that the company originally refined on its off-road machines, where keeping the cylinder head compact and light is as important as outright output. The same intensity is at work here in the low center of mass and the obviously clean top end.
efficiency equation
Honda engineers also created a downdraft intake path, what the company calls a Vortex Flow Duct, which is specifically designed to accelerate airflow through the 3,000 to 8,000 rpm band – the range where most commuting actually happens – to improve fuel atomization and, by extension, real-world mileage. A counterbalancing system tied into the primary drive keeps vibration under control, which seems like a footnote until you spend forty-five minutes on a bike with numb hands on the highway.
Ergonomics that don’t punish long journeys
Elsewhere, seat height is a low 31.3 inches, so most riders can keep both feet flat at a stoplight without raising or shifting their weight from the saddle. Weight drops to 432 pounds when fully fueled, ten pounds heavier than the current standard-clutch model, but still light enough for quick direction changes. Once aboard, Honda describes the ergonomics of the CB750 Hornet as an “open riding position” and that’s an apt description. The handlebars are said to be wide enough to provide excellent leverage without forcing the rider forward. The footpegs are positioned beneath the rider rather than aggressively rearward, while the seat offers ample room to move around during long rides.
The chassis and suspension are simple
The frame is a steel diamond design that uses the engine as a stressed member, a fairly traditional approach that keeps things light without sacrificing stiffness. Up front, a 41mm Showa SFF-BP inverted fork splits the damping and spring functions between its two legs, a setup intended to keep the ride composed over rough pavement while maintaining its line under hard braking. The rear runs a Pro-Link shock with 5.1 inches of travel.
Braking duties are handled by dual 296 mm discs with radial-mount, four-piston Nissin callipers at the front and a 240 mm disc at the rear, both of which come with ABS as standard. The 120/70 front and 160/60 rear tire sizes are squarely mid-naked territory – wide enough for stability at highway speeds, narrow enough that the bike still turns without much effort at commuting speeds.
Technology that stays out of the way until you need it
A 5-inch color TFT display anchors the cockpit, paired with Honda RoadSync smartphone connectivity, which gives turn-by-turn navigation prompts on the dash instead of forcing riders to look down at a phone mount. Riding modes include Standard, Sport, Rain and two rider-programmable user slots, each adjusting throttle response and level of intervention from Honda Selectable Torque Control and Wheelie Control. When it’s working properly none of it demands attention. The system quietly manages the parts of the ride that require sustained, conscious effort, and moves out of the way the moment you just want to ride.
Source: Honda Powersports
