The Honda CB650R E-Clutch is a spectacular vehicle with a beautiful balance of traits. It’s approachable and modern while still being soulful. Lively, but not intimidating. You can set the clutch to automatic, but shifting remains your responsibility. This is a great bike for new riders or old heads looking for new tech that makes the ride better, not just easier. For me, specifically, riding a Honda E-Clutch bike was nothing less than life-changing.
We don’t publish motorcycle reviews here all that often, but this story is for anyone with a casual interest in vehicles. If you’ve never ridden a motorbike at all, here’s the only bit of technical context you need:
I’m uniquely equipped to appreciate an auto-clutch motorcycle because my left hand is crippled. It’s a long and sad story. The short version is that I flipped a UTV in deep wilderness, and as I tumbled, my paw got caught between the Earth and the vehicle’s roll cage. Would you believe I was supposed to get married a few hours later that same day? As a matter of fact, I still did—my wife and I were officially hitched in a hospital hallway minutes before I was wheeled into surgery.
View Price on AmazonIn the year following that crash, the only thing I was riding was an endless carousel of medical visits. I resisted selling the bike I owned at the time, a Yamaha WR250R with completely custom suspension tuning, thinking it could be my motivation to get my hand’s functionality back. But as months went by, doctor bills piled up while clutch-pulling didn’t seem to be getting any closer. The Yammie got sold, and motorcycles were forced off my list of loves.
That crash happened eight years ago now. Today, few seem to notice that my left hand is a little gnarled and missing a pinkie. Less luckily, I still have severely limited dexterity and strength. There’s also a distant hum of pain I can never completely muffle.
But I promised this would be the “short version,” so let’s get back to bikes. I pretty much hadn’t ridden a proper motorcycle since 2018—I think my last loaner was a Honda Rebel 500. So, throwing a leg over this CB650R and zooming down my driveway was a pretty emotional experience. The craziest thing is, by the time I’d ridden from my garage to my mailbox, I felt at home on a steel horse again. And I was instantly convinced that Honda’s E-Clutch is awesome.
Practically speaking, the Honda E-Clutch lets you have a full and proper manual-transmission motorcycle, except you don’t have to touch the clutch. You still shift and fully manage the throttle, but clutching is optional. Yes—optional, it’s not removed. If you want to use the clutch, it still works fully manually, and you can deactivate the E-Clutch in the CB650R’s settings menu. It’s slightly annoying to find, but as we’ll discuss in this post, I doubt most owners will want to turn it off often. E-Clutch functionality is on “auto” by default.
A no-touch-clutch motorcycle is not a new idea. There are aftermarket auto-clutches (like Rekluse), and there are even some dual-clutch automatic motorcycles now (Honda’s big with that, too). Honda’s E-Clutch came out in 2024 on the CB650R and the sportier-looking CBR650R—all this to say, it’s been on the road for years now, but it’s new enough that many people still aren’t familiar with it.
Source: thedrive.com
