2025 Honda NT1100 DCT

The Africa Twin That Stayed on Pavement

There's a big segment of Africa Twin buyers who never actually go off-road. They buy the tall ADV because they want the engine, the comfort, and the touring credibility, not because they plan to drop into single-track. For those people, Honda makes the NT1100. Same 1,084cc Africa-Twin parallel-twin. Same DCT option. Lower seat. Road-focused chassis. Fuller fairing. Real wind protection. And in the US, it starts at $11,900, which undercuts every other full-featured sport-tourer on sale.

Chase's line mid-highway, once the electric windscreen came up: "This thing had to be in a wind tunnel hardcore to get that much dialed in." That's the NT1100's whole pitch. Skip the off-road tax, keep the engine, add real touring hardware, price it lower than anyone expected. In the US, DCT is the only available transmission. You can't buy a manual NT1100 here.

Performance highlights

1,084cc parallel-twin (the Africa Twin mill), 101 horsepower, 86 lb-ft of torque, 547 lb wet, 5.4-gallon tank. Throttle response scores 5 and the reason is entirely DCT calibration. In Drive mode the transmission is sluggish. It hesitates before downshifting, it short-shifts into sixth at city speeds, and it lugs. In Sport shift mode it becomes a genuinely different bike: it holds gears longer, downshifts aggressively, lets the engine actually breathe. Chase's direct take: "If I was riding this motorcycle, if I owned it, I would keep it in the sport setting." A Drive-mode-only owner is going to feel perpetually 500 rpm short of the power they paid for.

Acceleration earns 7. The 40–80 pull in Sport DCT touring mode was "medium speed" on-camera, Chase explicitly noted he could've gotten a faster time doing it manually. That's the DCT tax. The engine itself has real punch: "I throttle it up and bro, you got, look at that, it'll throw you back." The power is there; DCT just takes a beat to deliver it.

Agility is 7. 547 lb is not light on paper, but the NT rides lighter than the scale says because the seat sits you low and the bars are wide. "The bike literally takes no energy to throw over." It's not a canyon-carver, but nothing about it fights you in traffic either.

Brakes rate 6. Soft initial bite, adequate stopping power, limited feel. "I wish they were a little biteier. I wish I had a little more feel in those brakes." They match the bike's mission, but this isn't the sporty end of sport-touring.

Suspension is 7. Adjustable up front. Stable, planted, confidence-inspiring. "It has no business feeling that planted leaned over." Not race-tuned; tuned for the use case.

Rider experience & tech

Comfort is the 9 and is the reason this bike exists. The seat is wide and plush. Chase's direct quote: "For long-distance riding, this seat would be phenomenal." Pegs are directly under the rider, which means you can stand up on them mid-highway to give your butt a break. Upright body position with a slight forward lean. The electrically adjustable windscreen goes from tucked-low to full-cover and "blocks all of the elements, including on my leg." Highway fatigue on this bike is genuinely low.

Tech scores 6 and it's held back by the UI, not the feature set. You get: full TFT dashboard with touchscreen, wired Apple CarPlay, wired Android Auto, cruise control, four ride modes (Rain, Urban, Tour, plus customizable), paddle-shift override on the DCT, electrically adjustable windscreen, heated grips (accessory), favorite-action button, 12V and USB outlets. That's a lot. But the dash UI is the exact same menu system as the Africa Twin, which Chase has historically called out as clunky. Mid-ride he literally couldn't figure out how to get into the settings menu: "I don't even know how to go to the settings. Do I What do I do? Do I touch, do I pull down?" If Honda fixed the UI, this tech score jumps two points.

Ease of use is 6. DCT removes the clutch-and-shift workload (huge for riders with left-hand issues), which is the feature's whole selling point. But the switchgear is crowded. So many buttons on the left cluster that Chase kept hunting for the turn signal. And the DCT itself introduces a new learning curve about when to let the bike shift vs. override it with the paddles. New riders will have a learning curve on that alone.

Versatility is 8. City: excellent once you're in sport-shift. Highway: excellent, wind protection is genuinely S-tier for the price. Touring: excellent if you spec the accessory panniers. Canyon: surprisingly capable, not the bike's mission but it doesn't embarrass itself. Off-road: no (buy the Africa Twin). Fun-for-the-money is the other 8. $11,900 for a full-feature sport-tourer with a 1,084cc parallel-twin, adjustable windscreen, cruise, and CarPlay is a genuine value, BMW's R1250 RT is $20k+, the Gold Wing is $29k, Yamaha's Tracer 9 GT is stripper-spec by comparison.

The Chase Score & final thoughts

With a Chase Score of 69/100, Good Tier, the NT1100 DCT is the bike that makes the full-fat sport-tourer class uncomfortable. 32 ride points + 37 usability points = a machine where the usability score (tech + comfort + versatility + price) carries the day and the ride score gets chipped by DCT hesitation that Honda could software-patch if they wanted to.

Buy it if your ride is mostly highway plus the occasional weekend mountain run, if you want the Africa Twin engine without the seat-height penalty, if cruise control + Apple CarPlay are non-negotiable, or if left-hand clutch work is painful for you. Skip it if you prefer a traditional clutch-and-shift experience (the US market NT1100 is DCT-only. No manual option here), or if you want the genuine off-road capability of an ADV. Chase's close: "If you're looking at doing serious touring, this thing is really competitively priced." At $11,900, it's the cheapest way to tour on Honda's best parallel-twin engine.