Honda NC750X DCT (2025) - Review

If we bought bikes based on what we need ahead of what we want, UK motorcycling would be a one-make series and we’d all be riding a Honda NC750X. This affordable daily rider makes a flipping good tourer, goes well down twisty back roads, is cheap to run, reliable and holds its value too.

If however, like most riders you choose bikes based on ‘What’ll-it-do-mister?’ or how much of the sun it blocks out or are one of the more excitable members of the bike press, you can make all kinds of excuses for why 58bhp in a compact, useable package can never be enough for your enormous talent.

And that’s fine because we don’t all buy bikes with our head and ego is one of the things that differentiates us from our pets.

Honda has been building brilliant middleweight utility bikes since the late 1970s when they launched the CX500. The CX was the original anti-performance bike. It was slow, heavy, horrible in corners, unreliable (initially), complex, expensive and ugly. But it was comfy and had shaft drive and once they fixed the reliability it became the workhorse of the UK courier market because as a utility vehicle it was nigh-on unbeatable. Since then, Honda has always sold a twin-cylinder, slightly offbeat middleweight that the bigger boys poke fun at while the tens of thousands of owners just get on with enjoying it.  

For all those riders right now, an updated Honda NC750X is a big deal. Even better that the new bike addresses almost all of those owners’ criticisms of the previous model and only costs a few quid more. Plus, the new bike has one hilarious secret that will genuinely make every owner smile.

Half motorcycle/half maxi-scooter, the NC750X has the virtues of both

Pros & Cons

2025 Honda NC750X - Price

List price is £7599 for the manual gearbox and £8399 for the DCT version.

On a PCP deal (9.9% APR) that works out to £99 a month over three years for a manual bike with £1023 deposit and final payment of £4660. For a DCT model it’s £1317 deposit, £109 a month and £4910 final payment. Three-year-old NC750X DCTs sell for around £5500 in a dealer at the moment so the final payment will be a little less than the bike is worth giving you a bit of equity for the deposit on a new one.

Many riders will add either individual accessories or the accessory packs. We’d expect heated grips, adjustable screen, top box and centre stand to be the most popular of these. Sadly, there isn’t one pack containing all of them, so you’ll need to order individually if you want the genuine Honda accessories.

Engine is basically the same as the 2024 NC750X but DCT gearbox is much-improved for 2025

2025 Honda NC750X - Engine & Performance

The engine in the 2025 bike is essentially the same as the previous model. Changes are limited to emissions equipment in order to pass Euro-5+ which require the same actual emissions levels but tested for a longer period of time. Some manufacturers will have had to do more work than others for this, but mostly the cost was in having bikes re-homologated. The NC is such a big seller to be a no-brainer for Honda to re-submit.

Power is the same at 58bhp. There are three engine modes; Standard, Rain and Sport plus a user-mode where you can select your own levels of power, traction control and ABS intervention. Standard mode is very much like all NC750s ever. There’s enough low and mid-range power to make life easy and (on the manual bike, at least) a few too many bumps into the rev limiter just beyond the 7000rpm redline, before you get used to changing gear early.

It takes half an hour to understand that 58bhp is more than enough to do pretty much any kind of actual riding we do. It’s a very effective and efficient engine even if it lacks the excitement and eye-popping acceleration of a bigger bike. It’s that heart-v-head thing again. Your decision, I’m not judging…

Sport mode is comical for the first few miles, especially on the DCT bike. This is not a sports bike. In fact it’s the opposite of a sports bike and so, the quick-revving, noisy, raucous, slightly uncontrolled behaviour that Sport mode brings feels both hilarious, indulgent and strangely addictive in a mischievous way and should be used for a few miles on every single ride just for the hell of it. The NC750X doesn’t go any faster in Sport mode it just goes at the same speed more quickly with additional noise and stupid grins. It’s like drinking alcopops at a real-ale festival. Absolutely wrong, but refreshing and funny too.

The more important change for 2025 is the revised DCT gearbox. The algorithm controlling when it changes gear is much-improved making the standard ‘D’ mode as intuitive and close to your preferred change-points as it should have been all along. This is a really significant moment for DCT and feels like the system has come-of-age instead of just being a slicker manual change, which is why I’ve always loved it.

Honda has also listened to comments about low-speed clunkiness and smoothed out the power delivery at very small throttle openings to U-turns a bit more confident. It’s still nowhere near as controlled as using a clutch but it does feel better – although the true test will be on the bigger DCT bikes like the NT1100.

2025 Honda NC750X - Handling & Suspension (inc. Weight)

The brakes are uprated with a second front disc which makes a huge difference. You can really stop hard on the new NC750X and the weight distribution and chassis give the impression of a bike sucking itself down into the road surface. You can also brake really hard before the ABS kicks in. This new braking ability plus the revised DCT is more than enough to make trading in your old NC for the new one worthwhile.

Suspension and chassis are unchanged for 2025, so the ride quality, stability and cornering confidence are as easy and predictable as they ever were. DCT bikes still have 10mm more wheelbase than manual ones with the same steering geometry, which will slow the steering down a little on the DCT bike, but you never really notice from the saddle.

Wet weight is 226kg ready to ride but the bike feels small and manageable thanks to a low seat and the centralised mass of a chassis that’s halfway between a bike and a maxi-scooter.

The NC750X is the most easily managed adventure-flavour motorcycle (it’s only really an adventure bike in the same way as Kawasaki’s Versys 650 or BMW’s F800GS), but please don’t take it any further off road than a bumpy gravel car park unless you are a confident off-roader.

Optional adjustable screen is simple to use and very effective (red tape in picture applied to show height)

2025 Honda NC750X- Comfort & Economy

No real changes to the 2024 model in standard trim unless you ride it permanently in Sport mode in which case fuel consumption drops below 60mpg. Aside from that it’s the same easy riding NC750X comfort as always. The seat is low enough to be confident for shorter riders, but still comfy (our bike had the optional comfort seat fitted as part of the Comfort pack) for two and a half hours in one go.

The relationship between handlebars and footrests is natural for riders of any height and the optional adjustable windscreen gives five different positions with 7cm additional height and 2.5cm more width than the standard item for an extra £345. Fully extended it was very comfortable at motorways speeds for this 180cm tall rider, reasonably quiet and still easy to see over when it rained. Once set I didn’t adjust it other than for testing purposes. I’d maybe use the lower position for additional airflow on a very warm day, but apart from that I was happy at full height.

Fuel consumption averaged 66mpg giving a range of around 200 miles from the 14.1 litre tank.  

New switchgear and TFT dash are simple to use. Symbols on RHS of display are for the Honda Road Sync app.

2025 Honda NC750X- Equipment

Some of it remains the same. The 2025 bike has rudimentary ABS and traction control and retains the useful 23-litre storage where a conventional fuel tank would be. Owners call this space a ‘frunk’ (front-trunk, presumably) but I prefer ‘fr-oot’ because my other vehicle has a boot, not a trunk. The fr-oot carries many things but not all full-face helmets. My Shoei GT-Air 3 wouldn’t fit.

The new TFT display looks great and can be configured in different ways to show the information you prefer. It links to new switchgear based around a micro-rocker switch which is simple to use in summer gloves but a little bit fiddly in lined all-season ones.

Finding your function and making changes is reasonably intuitive and no worse than similar TFT displays. I couldn’t find a display for remaining fuel range in miles or outside temperature, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in there somewhere because the bike’s electronics will know both of them.

There’s still no cruise control as standard or an option, which seems like a major omission on a bike with touring ambitions in 2025.

Pairing a phone to the Bluetooth to use the Honda Sync app (that allows phone, music and simple navigation) is straightforward according to the manual and others I know have managed it easily, but I failed to do it on three separate occasions.

All of which would be sorted in five minutes with your dealer on handover, but make sure you do it or waste a weekend trying.

2025 Honda NC750X – Accessories

There are plenty of official Honda accessories already available. Honda sells them either individually or in packs. For example, the Comfort pack on our test bike has the adjustable screen, comfort seat for rider and pillion, heated grips and foot deflectors for £900 (saving £981 on buying them individually) plus around £140 to fit them. Owners of older NC750s might be able to transfer some of their accessories to the new bike. Honda tells us that the pannier fittings for official Honda panniers haven’t changed for the new bike, which means your aftermarket items might fit, but obviously, they have no actual experience of bolting a GIVI or SHAD rack to an NC so don’t get grumpy with Honda if they don’t fit.

Crash bars for older models definitely won’t fit the new bike though.

2025 Honda NC750X- Rivals

Kawasaki’s Versys 650 is probably the most direct Japanese competitor since Suzuki replaced the V-Strom 650 with the more expensive 800. Honda’s own Transalp 750 is close enough on price to the DCT NC750X to be a competitor and Yamaha’s MT-07 with the new Y-AMT semi-auto transmission (and cruise control) might be missing a fairing but is a definite contender in the urban-all-rounder class.

What’s changed most in this class are a wave of Chinese-built middleweight adventure bikes. Only CFMoto have a decent dealer network right now so you might have to work harder for a test ride or a local dealer for spares and service back-up, but they are coming and some of these brands will establish themselves.

For now, it’s hard to recommend any particular one and be prepared for resale values to disappoint (another thing that will change in time). Is it the right time for a Chinese bike? Right now, you’d be braver than me to go for it.

2025 Yamaha MT-07 Y-AMT | Price: £8054

Read more

Power/Torque

72bhp/50.15lb-ft

Weight

182kg

2025 Kawasaki Versys 650 | Price: £8349

Read more

Power/Torque

66bhp/45lb-ft

Weight

219kg

2025 CFMoto 700MT | Price: £6199

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Power/Torque

67bhp/44lb-ft

Weight

240kg

One bike to do it all for £7599 (manual) brand new with Honda build quality, warranty and a proper dealer network? Or an 11-year-old full-fat adventure bike with 30,000 miles for the same money. Your choice

2025 Honda NC750X - Verdict

If you already think you might want an NC750X or have an older one that you’re looking to update, the 2025 model is a useful improvement on the previous bike for almost the same price.

The biggest change that existing owners will see is the DCT transmission which is improved to the point where it finally feels that the system has come of age. It can still be a little clumsy in U-turns, but in every other respect DCT now delivers what we always hoped it would. I barely used manual mode even on twisty back roads.

The NC’s new TFT dash is better, the switchgear is easy to use and the (optional) adjustable screen is well worth having too if you can stretch to an extra £345.

Pricing is still very competitive for such a capable bike even in the face of increased alternatives from China.

Whether all of this is enough to convince those who believe NC750s are dull and boring remains to be seen. The majority of UK motorcyclists are male, and we are prone to make decisions based on many things, not all of which are practical.

Honda knows this which is why they make CB1000 Hornets and Africa Twins. But they also see how many NC750s roll out of showrooms each year and it’s hard to argue with that, which is why you can expect to see almost no enthusiasm in the bike press for the NC but plenty of them out in the real world.

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Optional screen is easy to adjust, even on the move, but you need both hands off the bars (not recommended!).

2025 Honda NC750X - Technical Specification

What is MCIA Secured?

MCIA Secured gives bike buyers the chance to see just how much work a manufacturer has put into making their new investment as resistant to theft as possible.

As we all know, the more security you use, the less chance there is of your bike being stolen. In fact, based on research by Bennetts, using a disc lock makes your machine three times less likely to be stolen, while heavy duty kit can make it less likely to be stolen than a car. For reviews of the best security products, click here.

MCIA Secured gives motorcycles a rating out of five stars (three stars for bikes of 125cc or less), based on the following being fitted to a new bike as standard:

• A steering lock that meets the UNECE 62 standard

• An ignition immobiliser system

• A vehicle marking system

• An alarm system

• A vehicle tracking system with subscription

The higher the star rating, the better the security, so always ask your dealer what rating your bike has and compare it to other machines on your shortlist.