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What It’s Like Riding the Honda Rebel 1100 DCT, A Review

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When Honda brought us the Rebel 300 and Rebel 500 four years ago, I called the small-displacement cruisers the most important motorcycles to debut for the 2018 model year. Now, Honda is adding a third model to the family: the 2021 Honda Rebel 1100. 

Debuting last November, the Rebel 1100 was Honda’s big new model for the 2021 model year , and the bike is basically the amalgamation of the Rebel cruiser line, with the familiar parallel-twin engine found in the Honda Africa Twin 1100 adventure bike.

This new metric cruiser is arriving in Honda dealers as we speak, but the American Honda team invited us to Murrieta, California to ride the Rebel 1100, to see if this interesting, if not odd, motorcycle was more than the sum of its parts.

Our ride saw us burn close to 200 miles, with a mix of tight canyon roads, rolling sweepers, and some urban commuting – the typical duty a bike like the Rebel 1100 would see in the real world.

Big Red will admit that the Honda Rebel 1100 is not a cruiser for everyone that rides in this segment, but the bike brings a unique appeal to a large market, and it does so with a certain flair that has been absent from this space. Let me explain.

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Bikes

What Happens When You Make a Cruiser Out of an Africa Twin?

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Close your eyes, and imagine you have a Honda Africa Twin. Now, strip away everything about the bike that makes it one of the most potent adventure-touring models on the market, and start adding back the design elements found in the metric cruiser thing. Open your eyes.

What you just built in your head is the 2021 Honda Rebel 1100, and as you might be able to decipher from its name, the Rebel-styled full-sized cruiser features a parallel-twin engine that shares more than a few chromosomes with the 1,084cc motor found in the CRF1000L.

That might seem like a weird way to build a cruiser, but there is at least a little genius in Honda’s madness.

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A&R Pro

Why the Honda Rebel Is The Hot New Bike for 2017

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The following is our second taste of the exclusive content that A&R Pro members can expect to read on a weekly basis at Asphalt & Rubber. This article focuses on a current and critical event that happened in the industry, which is something A&R Pro content will focus on. If you want to have access to this kind of long-form content after this week’s free trial period, we recommend you sign-up here. 

New bike season is just about over, now that INTERMOT, EICMA, AIMExpo, and IMS Long Beach trade shows are behind us.

We could still see some new models and concepts debut later this year in Japan, and there is always the possibility of something interesting showing up at the IMS New York show, but those are less popular venues for new bike releases.

In that case then, we can start making some conjecture about the bikes that debuted this year, many of them for the 2017 model year. Let’s start with the best of the best — I am of course talking about the new Honda Rebel models. No? Not the bike you were expecting?

Sure, these unassuming 300cc and 500cc street bikes don’t have the same sex appeal as some of the more wild machines we saw in Germany and Italy, but make no mistake, the revamped Honda Rebel is the most important new bike we have seen debut this year. Let me explain.

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Bikes

New Honda Rebel 500 & Rebel 300 Models Debut

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It would be hard to count the number of motorcyclists who got their start in the two-wheeled world on a Honda Rebel motorcycle, with the line going back through decades of time. The number is certainly a large one.

Now, a new generation of rider can begin their two-wheeled journey on a new generation of Rebel, with Honda debuting the all-new 2017 Honda Rebel 300 (above) and 2017 Honda Rebel 500 (after the jump) ahead of the IMS Long Beach show.

The Honda Rebel 500 and Honda Rebel 300 use the same power plants found on the CBR500R (471cc parallel-twin)  and CBR300R (286cc single-cylidner), respectively, repackaging those engines into a cruiser platform that is friendly to new and shorter riders, with a 27″ seat height.

Available starting in April 2017, tentative pricing for the Honda Rebel 300 is set at $4,399, while the Honda Rebel 500 is priced tentatively at $5,999, both sans ABS, though ABS models will be available as well.

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