You may have heard a lot of things about the Honda E-Clutch system by now, but let me ask you this: Did they come from someone who actually rode one? If they have, awesome. But if not, then I feel like it's my responsibility to tell you more about it. Why? Because I've ridden one, so I can tell you a pretty reasonable amount about my experiences with it.
This isn't a long-term review; rather, it's first impressions. For a longform written version, you're welcome to read my full review that we published shortly after I got back from checking it out in Los Angeles, doing some city sightseeing.
But one thing I can't possibly stress enough is that the E-Clutch is emphatically not some type of automatic transmission. You still very much need to shift gears up and down with your left foot. Instead, what changes with the E-Clutch is that you have a choice in whether you use the clutch lever or not. If you want to use it, you can! But if you don't want to, that's also fine.
As I get into in this video, there will probably be instances where you'll want to use the clutch. Also, when you switch the ignition off, if you're in first gear, you will notice that it will behave as a standard motorcycle parked in first would. That's super useful information to have if you're parking on any type of incline, for example.
Something else important to know is that Honda told us that if the E-Clutch module is damaged (say you have a minor tipover or something), riders should still have no trouble using the clutch like a perfectly normal motorcycle clutch. For anyone worried that this is simply one more fancy module that can fail and leave you stranded, that's reportedly not the case. To be clear, none of us on the press ride tested whether that's accurate, so I'm just telling you what Honda told us. If accurate, that's probably the best possible news about a system like this.
Ready? Go watch my video review and see how I felt about it after spending hours in the saddle and wrapping my brain around the E-Clutch!
