A few weeks ago, Honda North America dropped off a 2026 Rebel 1100 DCT SE at my front door. It was at my asking actually, to compare the revised 2026 model year’s new dash, seat and riding position to the previous model. I was not prepared for what happened next. Not at all.
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We all have to get to work somehow, but its more fun when you do it on a motorcycle.
Deciding to ride the bike to work is a simple choice when your bike is easy to ride, nimble, and attractive. A relaxing ride that can slice through traffic makes you more likely to ditch the keys to the cage and throw a leg over the motorcycle. Honda solved that dilemma for me when they dropped off a 2026 Rebel 1100 DCT SE at my garage a few weeks ago. Since then I have piled on hundreds of commuter miles and along the way discovered that the Rebel, while designed as a cruiser, just might be the perfect commuter bike.
The Pacific Northwest produces a multitude of wonders: thick forests, majestic mountains, abundant wildlife and bugs. Yes, bugs. I get more bugs on my motorcycle in thirty minutes of riding in the Northwest that I do in a week in California. Bugs populate here by the billions: giant bugs, tiny bugs, biting bugs, stinging bugs, green bugs and those yellow ones that taste like battery acid. I hate those. Ride here for an afternoon and you will get a grasshopper in the throat, a bee in your helmet or plow through a crowd of gnats like a boat leaving a wake. Or all three at the same time.
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Honda must read Road Dirt and, unlike me in high school chemistry, actually listen and take notes. For 2026 they addressed the Rebel’s riding position, revised the dash with a new TFT display, smartphone connectivity and introduced a factory custom SE trim. The net effect of a series of small tweaks on a motorcycle can sometimes exceed their sum. Do the Rebel’s small tweaks improve the package? If so, how much? Would it be worth it to upgrade from the older model?
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In a digital world driven by touchscreens, scrolling menus and artificial intelligence there lives a Unicorn, a 1993 VFR 750. In this electric world measured by binary strings of 1s and 0s she is a deliciously analog endangered species driven by feel, a deft but heavy touch, proper feel at the levers. Her cockpit is full of spinning number odometers and sweeping white needles on black numbered faceplates that don’t disappear when the bike turns off. When I feel saturated by screen time and need to unplug and return to the heart of motorcycling, the core of who I am, I ride The Unicorn.
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We ask everything of motorcycle sport touring tires. Unlike narrow focus tires dedicated to track-only performance or mud-slinging off-road roost chuckers, we expect sport touring tires to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of everything. They need to stick like sap, munch massive miles, conquer Colorado heavy rain showers and handle like MotoAmerica track refugees. Oh, and they need to last forever. Tire manufacturers attempt to work miracles with modern tires by engineering ways to expand a tire’s envelope in all these directions at once. A rare few sport touring tires do this, succeeding in all areas at once. Others fall short. Some fall way, way short.
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Splitting the wood took all day and made me horribly thirsty so I kept the garden hose running and drank often, which helped wash the beer out of my mouth because when we went woodcutting that was what my dad brought us to drink. When the wood was split I fired up the old Honda Trail CT-90 and rode down the street to the nearby empty field for a celebration run. Sometimes I wore a helmet, sometimes not, because of all the things I did as a kid growing up, riding a motorcycle was probably the safest.
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Much trust is placed on those black donuts, much more when compared to automobile tires. Whereas a motorcycle has two oval contact patches roughly a credit card in size, passenger cars have four square contact patches, each about the size of 4” x 6” picture, or larger, and consequences for motorcycle tire failure are more disastrous. No driver has ever lowsided their Ford F150 after tucking the front end while trail braking into a corner. No driver has ever highsided their Honda Accord with too much throttle application on corner exit.
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Bridgestone’s new for 2025 T33 Battlax is here to take on Dunlop’s Roadsmart IV for bragging rights as King of Sport Touring Tires. It is a big task. Nothing so far has been able to unseat the Dunlop as the best all around sport touring tire on the market.
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