Why The New Honda Rebel 1100 is better than Anyone thought..

This is a bike that doesn't really care what box you put it in. And that's because it blends multiple motorcycle categories onto one bike. It also shares its engine with a very unlikely culprit. This is the 2025 Honda Rebel 1100. Now for you to fully understand the Honda Rebel 1100, you have to go back a couple years, and you have to learn about the Honda Rebel 250. In 1985, Honda came out with a Rebel 250, and it was and is still an amazing motorcycle. It's the perfect starter bike, and it made around 16 horsepower. And they made that exact same bike from 1985 to 2016. Because if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But what you might not know is that Honda also made a Rebel 450. That made 38 horsepower, which actually for that time is kind of a pretty fast little bike. But they only made that bike for two years, 1986 and 1987, and then they discontinued it. So as legendary as the little Honda Rebel 250 was, it was a pretty simple formula. It was taking a sport bike engine out of the Nighthawk, the Nighthawk 250, and stick it in a somewhat cruiser bike. So that's exactly what they did for the new Rebel 300, the new Rebel 500, and this bike too, the Rebel 1100. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Sean, wait, what bike did they pull those engines from? The CBR 300 and the CBR 500. Now this is 1100. There's no CBR 1100. So where did they get this motor from? All right, now before I tell you where this engine comes out of, it's not uncommon for motorcycle companies to pull sport bike engines and put them in cruiser bikes. And it saves them a lot of money because they've already designed the engine. Anytime a company has to redesign a whole new engine that costs millions and millions of dollars, who's going to pay for it? The consumer. So that's why they're able to keep these bikes cheap. But it's not a new concept. Some guy had the bright idea to say, let's take the engine out of the Honda Talon and stick it in a Rebel, which is basically what they did. Now, it's not a direct fit bolt-on and it actually shares a little bit more with the Honda Africa Twin, which that makes a little more sense. But it's a very similar engine. They had the same DNA, which is kind of interesting. The Honda Talon and this share a lot of components, but which is perfect for a very high torque, fun, reliable power plant. Now what this gets you is a 1,084 cc, eight valve parallel twin that makes 87 horsepower, 72 foot pounds of torque. That's very similar numbers to a stock Harley-Davidson 114 cubic inch. Now the Rebel 1100 comes in a couple different configurations. Two of the main ones, two of the main differences is a regular six-speed gearbox or this one, the DCT. Now you might be thinking, DCT, that's some new technology. Well, it's actually not true. Honda's been doing DCT for almost 20 years. But you'll notice something big right here. Because you can't lock it in gear like you normally would, they have to put this goofy looking e-brake on here. Now your e-brake's on. Now it won't go anywhere. It won't roll down the hill. You would think it'd be simpler to disengage it, like you just pull it back or whatever. It's actually a button right here on the side that you release the pressure of it, push the button in, now you're back out. But it is kind of big and bulky. Now I'll be honest with you, I was not completely sold on the looks of this bike. It took a couple years before I really started to like it. And actually after riding it, I kind of like it even more. Nothing short of impressive. All right, so you may have noticed something different about me. My wife's been telling me to class it up a little bit. I thought, you know what? That's a pretty good idea. So I got a new pair of glasses. These are the Fletcher frames from Warby Parker. From the moment I put them on, they were lightweight, they were comfortable, they felt good. And a lot of these new glasses companies are sharp. They got sharp edges. You put them on, they're hurting your temples. These just felt great the moment I put them on. They also come with anti-reflective and scratch-resistant coatings built right into the lenses. If you need prescriptions, there's no extra fee to it. It's included in the price. And the best thing about it is these glasses, they start at $95. So I went on their website, I picked out my frames, took me about 10 minutes to do. And then a couple of days later, they just showed up at my door. They got free shipping and free 30-day returns. Also, if you're having trouble choosing or need a vision expert, they offer eye exams right at their stores. And what's cool is Warby Parker has a program that every time you buy a pair of glasses, it gives a pair of glasses to someone else who's in need. So with the holidays coming up, I think this will make an awesome gift. If you wanna check out my glasses, these are called the Fletchers. The link is in the description or in the QR code right here. I'm gonna get back to the ride. It's a pretty cool design. You know, you have the exterior frame tube, you know, kind of Ducati style. You have the external rear shocks, kind of Sportster style. Then you come up here to the front and you have what looks like these rubber shock covers for the fork boot, kind of Triumph Bonneville style. So it really is a Frankenstein of a lot of different styles. I think it turned out pretty well. I think it's a pretty cool looking bike. I love this color. Probably should have looked it up before I made the video. If I were gonna name it, I would call it Burnt Orange. Now, they also did a lot of stuff that you would normally have put on your bike after you buy it. Like instead of having mirrors that come up like this that everyone hates and they put, they put handlebar mounted, they just, they come this way from stock, which a lot of people like that. I think it's pretty cool. They got fork mounted turn signals instead of big bulgy things that come out from the side. That's a nice clean look. It's got a 3.6 gallon fuel tank, which this bike gets around 50 miles to the gallon. Put that together, you have somewhere around 180, 190 miles to the tank, which is, which is not bad. If you're wondering how much this thing weighs, it weighs just over 500 pounds, which is about 30 pounds lighter than the Yamaha Bolt, but about 30 pounds heavier than the Triumph T100. So in motorcycling, the ignition switch key could be anywhere. It could be up here. It could be down here. Everywhere. On the Honda Rebel, they decided to put it right here. And it's actually, I like it better than down here or back here. It's actually a pretty convenient spot. It's an infotainment center. It's got a nice little five inch screen, although I don't know if all five inches is actually being used. It seems like the modern day thing for these infotainment center screens is to give a movie play before the thing, Honda, Rebel, and all this stuff. Well, Honda doesn't seem to do that. It's pretty simple. And it's just the Honda logo and the information. It kind of looks a little dated in my opinion. But when you're riding it, it's irrelevant. Let's go take a thing for a spin. Hey guys, before we get riding, let's do the verse of the day. Let's do the words of wisdom. Proverbs 14 25. A truthful witness saves lives, but one who breathes out lies is deceitful. In the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence, and his children will have refuge. All right. So I have never ridden one of these. I've ridden the 500 and the 250. I was really impressed with both those bikes. Now normally, my camera bike is significantly faster. We generally choose a pretty quick camera bike. Not the fastest thing out there, but something that can keep up with most things. We're gonna test that camera back out and see if it's as fast as this. Because I don't know. I think I might be able to beat him. So it's been a while since I've ridden a DCT. After riding for a half an hour, oh, this thing is a rocket. I felt a little bit of it. This thing is gonna be so much fun. So what Honda has done, and they actually came out with this a long time ago. They had the Honda Matic, and then later they had the VFR 1200, which was an amazing motorcycle. They've perfected an automatic motorcycle. DCT is a very high quality transmission. There's no belts. It learns what you're doing, and it learns how you ride, and it's taken in all these data points from your throttle, and your braking, and stuff like that. After riding for a half an hour, what ends up happening is it just ends up shifting exactly when you would shift. You learn when it should shift, and it learns when you wanna shift, and it ends up being just, this does what I want it to do. It's pretty remarkable. Now does that mean if I was gonna buy one of these, I would get the DCT? I still like the manual. Click on this, and I can do it manual. Now it's all gonna be me. Let's actually see what manual does. Yeah, so now it's all me. I'm gonna put it back in the automatic mode. The only thing that would be holding this thing back from a zero to 60, everything else is gonna be perfect shifts at the perfect time, just as fast as anyone else can shift. The only thing that's gonna hold it back is I can't dump the clutch. One, two, three, go. Wow, that was nothing short of impressive. See, now it knows, and I'm kind of in like racing mode, so it wants to kind of hang on to the gear. It's not wanting to, but I can shift. So a lot of people hating the DCT. They don't like, I think it's, they nailed it. It's very easy that I could jump on this bike. I ride bikes all the time. I ride different stuff, unique stuff all the time. I'm a manual loving, I love everything manual, but I can still ride this bike and have just as much fun. It's got big, giant power, even though it's a Rebel. I would consider this motorcycle a hot rod. This is gonna put a lot of bikes or a lot of people who think they have fast bikes, it's gonna put them to shame in the zero to 60. I mean, you're not gonna have any problems passing a tractor trailer on the highway. With a motorcycle like this, we are cruising at highway speeds. It feels extremely comfortable. It feels extremely stable. Obviously the old Rebel, the old 250 Rebel, you didn't even have the power to do highway speeds. This has more than enough power. It's also ergonomically a very comfortable bike. It looks cool. It comes in cool colors and it's also inexpensive, you know, but I could see you jumping on a bike like this and doing a long trip, like 100%. Now, there's nothing really blocking you from the wind. So if that's a problem, you know, if that's a thing for you, but normally you don't really notice the wind. It's not, you know, at normal highway speeds, the wind is not fighting you. It's until you get the triple digits where the wind is just really, really hurting you. Wait for it. One, two, three, go. This thing is fun. When the Vulcan 650S came out, I made a lot of videos about the Vulcan 650S because it was such a fun bike and the fact that the Vulcan 650S was faster than my turbocharged Road King at the time in 0 to 60 kind of blew my mind away. This bike is more. This bike is even better. It's more comfortable. This is definitely a different styling, but it's funny. There's been a lot of motorcycles where I look at the bike and I'm like, that bike is ugly. But then I ride it and I'm like, I love riding it. Like, you know, a case in point is the Victory Vision. Ugliest bike I've ever seen. And then I rode it. I'm like, oh man, this thing's amazing. And now I love them. So here's another thing that I think makes bikes like this and everyone, there's so much hate. I don't know, really know why. So much hate on the automatic bikes or the DCTs. Here's what is awesome about this. Up until these bikes started coming out people started realizing these were here. They were doing heavy, heavy, cumbersome, ugly modifications to other motorcycles for guys that, you know, had problems with their left hand or maybe they had a bad left foot. Right now, you don't need them. You know, before you needed four limbs. Two hands, two feet to ride a motorcycle. As of right now on this bike, I only need the ones on my right. So I think it opens up a lot of opportunities for a lot of people who otherwise, you know, have to do some pretty big modifications to a motorcycle. The first time I saw this bike, I didn't really like the looks of it. I thought it was funny looking, but it's definitely growing on me. And but after riding it, man, this thing is a really, really fun bike to ride. Go. Guys, that wraps it up. I think this bike is great. We'll see you guys next time. Remember, it is not what you're riding, but where are you going?