Honda NC750X (2025): Is This 2025’s Most Versatile Bike?

Launched in 2012, the original NC700 was a case of Honda doing what Honda did best, creating a no-nonsense commuter-cum-tourer that would service almost all high-mileage rider’s needs.

It is though a huge deal for Honda, and a standout seller in a lot of markets, and in typically Honda fashion its 2025 update is light of touch but in all the right places. For this press ride, we headed to Portugal for a double-headed launch shared with the updated 2025 XL750 Transalp. We spent the morning on the DCT version of the bike, covering around 60 miles on mixed roads.

You can read the editorial review of this bike here: https://www.visordown.com/reviews/honda-nc750x-2025-review

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good afternoon folks welcome to visor down my name is Toad and today we are in Portugal for the launch of Honda’s new nc750x [Music] we’ve been out here today we’ve not had the biggest longest riding Day Ever we spent a morning on the nc750 and then we switched in the afternoon got on the new updated transel and had a little go onroad and off-road of that as ever I’m going to tell you everything that’s new about the model and then I’m going to tell you about how we have found it today riding it around in Portugal so there is some big news here there’s some big changes and there the changes basically that a lot of people are asking for with the model Honda have listened to the feedback from customers from journalists and from their own Road testers and they’ve kind of ticked all of the boxes that everybody was asking for so one of the big changes and this is one that I noticed when I rode the previous generation nc750x is they’ve given it a new braking system at the front end the old bike had a single caliper with a fixed disc this one has got twin floating calipers and two piston calipers on each side so is quite a big update it’s quite a hefty bike so obviously there is a lot of energy there that he’s trying to slow down and updating that Honda said it would improve the feel and I’ll tell you whether or not I found that we out on the road in a little while we’ve got new headlights so these are said to be 50% brighter than the headlights on the outgoing model and I can tell you from seeing the bikes in rear viw mirrors bouncing up and down the road today even though it was bright the daylight the lights are incredibly light another big change and this is another one that people were asking for and it was one that I noticed and it’s one that I’ve noticed across a lot of DCT models Honda did a lot of work in terms of tuning the DCT into the IMU so the DCT system knows exactly where the bike is in space and what it’s doing and then it can react appropriately one thing that was always a bit of a bug bear for me was when you’re pulling away when you’re just opening the throttle it could be a little bit abrupt and the the the clutch would engage and it would sort of pull away a bit quickly they’ve changed that so there is a completely new system within the DCT which and it’s it go it works by measuring the oil pressure within the clutch and they have added a temperature sensor now so the temperature sensor knows how cool or warm it is the ambient temperature and it will adjust the modulation of the clutch to suit that which is said to make it a little bit more slick another change for this one and this is quite a cool thing all of these panels all the green panels that you can see on this bike these panels here are made of a material called derbo now we can’t call it an actual plastic because it’s not a plastic it’s not made from you know uh crustations that have been left and fossilized under the ground it is made from corn they turn it into a bio oil and then they make this injection molded material which looks feels and sounds exactly like plastic but it is completely environmentally friendly and also the good thing about it is you don’t have to paint it so these panels here haven’t been painted they’ve been colored after they’ve been made which means they are not painting them and releasing a load of cfc’s out into the atmosphere another update that we’ve got we’ve also got a TFT Dash on the bike which means you can Bluetooth connectivity is included you can got turn BYT turn navigation you can get calls you can get music all of that obviously if you’re using a Bluetooth headset um and all goes through the Honda rid sync system so there’s quite a lot there mechanically the engine hasn’t really changed there’s not a lot that’s that’s that’s gone on in that’s changed in there to really think about or or mention but it’s really just refining the model a little bit more the front brakes the clutch actuation the TFT still as comfortable as before and still kind of the Workhorse of the Honda range so how have I found it out on the road we’ve not done huge amount of Miles as I said but we’ve got a really good feel for it I mean everyone’s ridden an nc7 50 in the world of motorcycle journalism so we didn’t need to do a big long day on the thing but the most noticeable upgrade is that clutch and the reason is that you feel that as soon as you pull out of the the hotel here in Portugal is you don’t get that clunk clutches engage and you’re pulling away cuz you’ve just wound in 400 RPM too much it is very intuitive uh it’s almost humanlike now in the way that the clutch engages and the way that the bike pulls away um it was always worse I always found it worse worse when bikes were cold because the viscosity of the oil the oil’s got thicker when it’s colder which means that the pressure within the clutch has changed and when you’re pulling away on a cold clutch it would always sort of jerk out into the road and then as the bike warmed up it would get better and better that is not an issue now they they’ve totally fixed that the DCT system I mean the DCT system on on the nc750x bless it it was never the most exciting of the range and that’s kind of because the engine that’s in it and and the the way the bike has been tuned and created and what the bike is generally used for by customers is just getting from A to B minimal first comfortable and to use as little fuel as possible but is a little bit laborious with regards to the changes up and down the box but overall it’s a DCT system and you can just put it into D Mode start riding the bike and forget about the the DCT element of the engine pretty much Al together and then you can still bounce your way up and down the gears as you always did when you need it which is the way that I that I ride a DCT bike I did put this into manual mode earlier but I must have only used it for probably about 5 or 10 miles and the sole reason for that is I kept banging into the Revel emitter um because this thing only revs to about 6 and a half th000 RPM the engine’s quite got quite a lazy feel to it so I was banging into the rev limiter and I just thought just let the bike do some of the thinking for me and if I need to pop down two cogs as I’m going into a hairpin band I can do it absolutely fine one element of the DCT system that I’m I’m I’m kind of not 100% with is that you on the Africa twin the nt100 and some of the other DCT models you can adjust the shift schedule separate to the riding mode so you can be in sport mode which is the engine maps and traction control and all the all the rest of it and you can either select D or you can select s and then you’ve got three levels of s gradually getting sportier the further up at you go this system isn’t the same on this bike when you change the riding modes it changes the shif schedules and if you want to change the shifting schedule then you have to go into the menu of the TFT which to me seems like a little bit of a ball Lake when all you want to do is just up how long it’s going to hold on to the gears for or how early it’s going to downshift when you’re coming into a corner I much prefer the system on the Africa twin and the nt100 D mode is just your boring drive mode where it uses no petrol whatsoever and S Mode is your slightly sportier mode and then you’ve got S1 S2 S3 with S3 being the sportier I prefer that system but you know overall H have done it the way that most people ride these bikes they just ride it in One D mode when they’re commuting to work or on a little tour or being a London bike cier which is what a lot of these will end up doing they probably just turn the thing on put it in D mode and ride off down the road and forget about it but it’s well worth a mention moving on to the other big change the new front brakes so you got double discs up front in terms of braking power there’s not it doesn’t feel like there’s massive amounts more breaking power than there was with the single disc what you’ve got now is you’ve got a much more appealing lever feel uh you don’t need to grab the whole lever with all four fingers and pull it right the way back to the bar to get the thing hold up if you’re doing an emergency stop for instance most of the little Trail breaking Maneuvers into Corners you can do with just one finger where before you’d probably have three on the lever it’s just got a much nicer feel you’re not having to work so hard and it doesn’t feel quite as panick when you are breaking into a corner or performing a last minute braking maneuver rear braking system is the same it’s worth noting that um but it’s still you know it’s a it’s a good enough rear brake on the thing it is a you know it’s a fairly hefty bike to slow down so you need some decent Stoppers and I kind of almost don’t know why it’s taken Honda that much time to put another disc up front on it because it’s been around for 12 years and it’s something that a lot of Journal have mentioned in the past including customers so that’s all the the the experience that I’ve had on the bike today are there any bits that I’m not liking well it doesn’t have cruise control a bit like the trans out that we Lo rode in the afternoon rode this in the morning the trans out we rode that doesn’t have cruise control either and considering what this bike is I mean it’s a tourah commuter and people kind of want cruise control it’s got an electronic throttle so there’s no real reason why it shouldn’t have the bike that I was riding earlier had some accessories on it uh it had some leg Shields to keep your legs dry it had heated grips and the big one for me was it had an adjustable screen the adjustable screen isn’t standard though there’s a lot of other stuff in this sort of class that does come with an adjustable screen screen so that would have been nice and the thing is about the adjustable screen if you do opt for it you can’t do it with one hand you got to take both hands off the bars to adjust it and lift it up but because there’s no cruise control you can’t do that on the Fly either which is a bit of a pain but there we go overall this update is just a big old positive for the nc750 if you’re a current owner of the nc750 and you’re looking at it and thinking well I like the sound of the ch is they all make a difference how the bike handles especially the front brake and especially the changes that they’ made to the DCT it’s uh it’s just made the system better and better I was never a fan of DCT the first time that I rode it I rode it I entered the industry when DCT first arrived in in Honda around that sort of time and I didn’t really get on with DCT and every single generation of bike that I ride with it it just gets better and better and better um and becomes more and more intuitive and that’s really what we’re ending up with here is a bike that can literally do all the gear changes for you and not frustrate you like some of the other automatic boxes on the market can when it comes to a bike changing gear on your behalf Honda do the best system and it is the DCT anyway that is basically my Roundup on my verdict of the nc750 I have been towed for visor down.com if you’ve liked that video please don’t forget to hit like And subscribe so you stay up to date with all of VI Down’s latest videos and for all the latest news reviews and motorcycle features get yourself over to F down.com cheers folks