Welcome to our starter guide to all the different types of motorcycles. Wherever you are on your motorcycling journey – if you have just passed your test and are looking for your first bike, or you are a seasoned sports bike rider wondering about making a change – read on and check out the rich variety the world of motorcycling has to offer.

What Are The Different Types of Motorcycles?

We’ve broken down the categories of two-wheeled options into 13 distinct types. All of these different types of motorcycle will be available with a variety of engine sizes and each manufacturer may have a subtly different take on each style but 99% of motorcycles are identifiable as one of these 13 types.

Moped:

As a general rule newer bikers will stick with smaller capacity machines, while they learn, and only progress on to bigger bikes once they have some riding experience under their belt.

Traditionally a type of motorcycle for beginners, a Moped will have an engine of less than 50cc. The word Moped originated to describe the ‘motorised peddle bicycle’ that has both bicycle peddles and a small engine. More commonly used now as a term to describe a 50cc step-through bike (you step through the bike to sit on it, instead of throwing your leg over, as you do for most other types of motorcycles) this bike is perhaps most famously made by Italian firm Vespa. Immortalised in pop culture in films like Roman Holiday and Quadrophenia it can be all things to all people; from a symbol of 1960s cool to the practical city bike that was almost certainly used to deliver the last pizza you ordered.

Scooter:

Also most often to be found in the city, Scooters can look the same as a Moped – and are also mounted by stepping through the frame - the crucial difference being they are not limited to 50cc engines. In fact, Honda now makes a Scooter with a 750cc engine, larger than some out-and-out Sports bikes. Comfortable, practical, easy to ride and great for manoeuvring through traffic, scooters are favoured by city commuters the world over. If you head out of the city for some of your ride, the larger capacity engines are also capable of pushing you along at motorway speeds. With fully automatic gearboxes there is no clutch or gear shift to think about just ‘twist and go’, often while holding heated grips and behind an adjustable screen; demonstrating that manufacturers definitely consider Scooters to be year-round bikes, ready to tackle a gridlocked city whatever the weather.

Naked:

Naked bikes (also sometimes called Streetfighters) get their name from being minimally designed. Most often they will have a frame, fuel tank and engine and no further bodywork (windscreen or fairings); almost like a bike with its ‘clothes’ taken off – hence the name, Naked. Also notable for their upright riding position they can be seen as an ‘entry level’ bike for newer riders, being simple to ride, cheaper to buy and offering a great view of the road ahead. While not designed for out-and-out speed, due to their light weight and their use of reasonable capacity engines (600cc is a popular engine size in this type of motorcycle) they are still capable of hustling along a road at decent speed; though some seriously illegal KMH might have you hanging on to the handlebars a little tightly, due to the complete absence of wind protection, from the lack of bodywork.

While simplicity is fundamental to this type of motorcycle the naked sector has developed a lot over the years and some naked bikes – the Streetfighters mentioned earlier – are now essentially very close to being sports bikes without fairings, having many of the high-end components and electrical gadgets of their sports bike cousins, while maintaining the naked look of the class.

Cruiser:

Sat back, bike burbling away between your legs, feet stretched down and slightly forwards, you can ride and watch the world go by. You’re not in any huge rush to get anywhere and the journey is as important as the destination. You’re comfortable, not concerned with out accelerating a Formula 1 car, probably wearing an open face helmet and sunglasses, hoping the weather stays fine.

Most usually associated with the storied American manufacturer Harley Davidson, Cruisers are long and low and make quite a lot of noise – both visually and aurally. A low seat height makes them easy to manoeuvre; especially considering their - often quite high – overall weight and they tend to come with an extensive accessories brochure that allows owners to carefully customise their ride. Generally, they will have quite large cc engines however, the engines are tuned for torque – sometimes colloquially called ‘grunt’ - not outright top speed, so while they will accelerate very quickly, they are designed not for speed but for lazy mile-munching; looking good and sounding even better.

Sports/Super Sports

In some way all motorcycles are about power and speed, an unfiltered experience that demands more of your awareness than driving a car and excites in a way that is unrecognisable from any other form of transport. The purest expression of this is to be found in Sports bikes. Aggressive in almost every respect; seating position, power delivery, lean angle, noise, these types of motorcycle are not for beginners and are sometimes unforgiving of foreven the most experienced riders. With power- to- weight ratios not seen in any other class they will out- accelerate, out –break, and out -corner all other motorcycles. If you dream of a horizon magnet these are the bikes for you. Traditionally coming in 600cc (sometimes called SuperSport) and 1000cc (often called Superbikes) these bikes are now so fast and so capable that they require an array of electronic rider aids to keep them on the road. Anti-wheelie (to stop the front wheel launching upwards as you accelerate) and traction control (limiting power to the rear wheel to avoid sliding) are the basics but Sportsbikes now regularly have electronic additions that just a few years ago were the preserved of only for race bikes only. In fact, most of these bikes will be designed for racing or derived from some form of racing, the most obvious parallels being The World Superbike and World SuperSport Championships where the bikes must closely match the Superbike and SuperSport model anyone can buy for road use.

Another level more elite, with yet more speed and outrageous performance - and illegal for road use - are ‘prototype’ Sportsbikes – the most extreme of which race in MotoGP, the category of racing that has brought us the most famous motorcyclist of them all, Italian Valentino Rossi.

With weight on your wrists and your legs tucked up underneath you on high footpegs, to ensure good ground clearance at the crazy angles of lean you can reach, Sportsbikes are no-one’s idea of comfortable. Designed for use in short bursts they offer little or no compromise for comfort, no capacity to carry luggage and often not even a pillion seat. Quite often painted in some form of racing livery modern Sportsbikes belong on the track and are sometimes a little unforgiving on public roads.

Multiple manufacturers recognise that sportsbike styling is useful to sell to all age audiences, so they may have a smaller engine capacity bike that could be classed as a Sportsbike but are nowhere near as dynamic as their 600cc or 1000cc counterparts.

Adventure

Adventure bikes have been around since the early 1980s but enjoyed a huge surge in popularity in the noughties, following the acclaimed and hugely popular TV series Long Way Round. In it, movie star Ewan McGregor and friend Charlie Boorman decided to ride around the world, taking only what they could carry on their motorbikes. With a mix of road riding, dirt-road riding and full off-road riding the Adventure bike needs to provide a strong, upright riding position; large suspension travel to absorb whatever the terrain may be; large fuel tanks for travelling long distances; storage capacity for tools and equipment and knobbly off-road tyres to ensure you can power your way out of the river you’ve just driven yourself into. Often these bikes will have frame re-enforcements and crash bars, because you can expect to drop the bike from time to time, as you cross inhospitable terrain; and also very powerful headlights, so that whatever the delays during the day, you can still see as you ride on into the night and finally set up your camp under the stars.

However, you don’t need to be riding across the Gobi desert to use an Adventure bike; all of the features that make them a great machine to ride over the foothills of a mountain range apply equally to riders who never venture far off public roads. They are hugely popular as touring bikes; with their luggage capacity, excellent riding position for long days in the saddle, rugged reliability, long range and commanding road presence drawing many riders to the adventure sector who never plan to go off-road.

Tourer

Riding across Europe on the road? This is the bike for you. With a very comfortable riding position designed to minimise stress at the handlebars even the pillion seat will be plush, often having a backrest and sometimes even heated. With a large fuel tank and built in storage/luggage capacity in the bodywork, this type of motorcycle will take you from Marseille to Milan, at speed, in comfort. Touring bikes will have large front fairings to deflect the wind and weather around you, so you sit ensconced in a kind of air bubble, with so little wind noise that this type of motorcycle sometimes has a stereo, so you can listen to your tunes as you waft along. Supremely plush suspension smooths out the worst of the bumps in the road surface and frugal – yet powerful – engines mean hours in the saddle without stopping for fuel or to stretch your legs is a possibility. A slightly longer wheel base than a Sportsbike or a Sports Tourer means rock solid stability at speed on the motorways but can mean they require more effort to change direction, on a twisty road. True ‘mile eaters’ touring bikes engines, while still powerful, will be optimised for efficiency and range, ensuring you need to make fewer stops for fuel. Touring motorcycles ensure you arrive as relaxed and unstressed as possible at your destination, no matter how long the journey has been.

Sports Tourer

Much like the Tourer this type of motorcycle is set up for covering long distances – but this time with a slightly more sports focus. Using a slightly faster version of the Tourer’s engine and with a slightly more aggressive riding position, this bike will take you from the desert to the mountains and then let you ride like a bit of a hooligan up the mountain itself. A slightly racier focus is present in most aspects, over its Touring brother, including sportier brakes, firmer suspension and tyres that are biased towards giving a little more grip, rather than the longevity favoured by normal Touring bikes rubber. One famous Italian Sports Tourer, the Ducati ST2/4 had an exhaust that could change position depending on where and how you were riding it. Long motorways? The exhaust could take up a low position at the side of the bike. Scratching around the mountain roads? Move the exhaust up so it doesn’t scrape along the surface of the roads, as you lean the bike fully over.

Understandably a Sports Tourer is a machine that many Sports bike riders move to as they get older, because it offers much of the performance of the Sports bike they are used to, but with much of the comfort of a Tourer.

Classic

Classic is a broad term but, roughly speaking, covers motorcycles that are over 30 years old, which means that even Sports bikes from the early 1990s can now be considered ‘Classic’. However, even if our early 1990s bikes technically classify as Classics, more broadly speaking this type of vintage motorcycle would refer to bikes from further back in the past; bikes from when photographs were black and white that perhaps feature a kick start, pea-shooter exhausts, a lower powered engine (by modern standards), and the occasional oil leak… Classic bikes will offer a more immersive experience in the physical nuts and bolts of the machine, with their stark engineering simplicity offering a connection to every pulse and vibration of the engine, whatever size. Coming with the understanding that some days they have to be coaxed into life, they are like a single shot rifle in comparison to today’s laser guided missiles.

Most of the big modern manufacturers were making bikes back in the 50s and 60s – Honda and BMW to name two industry giants – but many smaller manufacturers have come and gone from the motorcycling landscape in the years since. Brands like BSA - that in the late 1950 and 1960s was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world - are long since disappeared from dealerships and now just prop up the classified ads “15 careful owners and only one minor oil leak…” Feverishly bought and sold by enthusiasts and aficionados who cherish their simplicity and the ownership experience, over any single outstanding attribute.

Retro:

The Retro is a thoroughly modern bike but styled to look exactly like the Classic-bike-era machines. You have all of the style and feel of a Classic but with modern engines, modern reliability and modern electrics. Retro motorcycles have been enjoying a larger and larger share of the new bike sales market in recent years, appealing to people who remember riding bikes very much like this in their youth but perhaps don’t have the desire or the patience to be maintaining an actual classic, fixing those oil leaks… These types of motorcycle could perhaps be categorised as vintage feel with modern reliability.

Off Road/Motocross/Dirtbikes

This type of motorcycle is designed for use completely off road. Huge suspension travel, a high seat, light weight and narrow, it’s designed for ripping around forests and tracks or competing on purpose-built moto cross tracks. With large knobbly tyres, for optimum grip on loose or muddy surfaces, these bikes have smaller capacity engines, with explosive acceleration and no thought given to top speed or comfort. Agility and resilience are crucial as a dirt bike will often be jumped over obstacles, a facet of their design that naturally leads to them being used as ’stunt’ motorcycles at bike shows, with riders able to do back flips off ramps or clear vast obstacles. If you have a burning desire to jump over the Grand Canyon, or get from one side of a forest to the other, these are the type of motorcycle to do it on.

Dual Sports

Dual Sports motorcycles are bikes that are comfortable being used both on and off road. Similar in some ways to adventure bikes, though they will usually have a smaller engine, this type of motorcycle occupies the middle ground for people who want a bike that will allow them off road but not let them down if they have to do on road work too. Long suspension travel and high seat height mirror the full off-road bikes, but with road-orientated tyres and a slightly more comfortable seat these bikes can also cover road mileage without too much trouble and are a little more comfortable at speed than full-fat MX bikes.

Custom (13.1 chopper, 13.2 bobber, 13.3 café racer 13.4 rat)

This type of motorcycle is perhaps the hardest to pin down to an exact description as, by their nature, Custom bikes will have been customised in exactly the way any individual prefers. The sector of the market for people who build their own bikes in their garage, or who buy limited edition ‘specials’, made by boutique companies, owners prize their individualism.

Broken down into sub-categories Custom bikes will usually be Choppers; Bobbers; Café Racers or Rat bikes.

13.1)
Choppers are usually based on cruisers but with hugely exaggerated features. So, the riding position sees legs stretched out completely forwards and elongated handlebars sticking up, like bull horns, sometimes to the point they are even quite difficult to use. The front wheel of the bike will be pushed a long way forwards and builders will use a huge section (width) rear tyre with no rear suspension. Not comfortable or easy to ride these bikes are all about image and road presence.

13.2)
Bobbers can trace their origins back to the 1920s and 30s when American customers of Harley Davidson, started to strip their bikes of excess parts, to save weight. Working to a particular formula, which included shortening the mud guards, lowering the seat and often shortening the wheelbase (the length of the bike), these ‘bob-jobs’ increased even more in popularity after WWII. Soldiers returning from war would use their expertise from maintaining their army vehicles to customise their bikes in this ‘Bobber’ style. Now long established as a popular aesthetic, lots of mainstream brands include bobbers in their range.

13.3)
Café Racers owe their origins to 1960s rocker culture in Great Britain. Standard bikes were bought and then most-commonly had their handlebars and footpegs moved, to create a more streamlined riding position to gain a higher top speed. Engines could also be worked on but it’s the high foot, low ‘bars position that marks out a Café Racer, taking a more utilitarian bike and making it exciting.

13.4)
Rat bikes are also based around a particular look, but in their case it’s almost the absence of any specific defined look that identifies the bike as a Rat. Messy, minimally maintained, often partially repaired with incorrect or odd-looking parts this type of motorcycle is almost deliberately bad, drinking from the fountain that says nothing is wrong and you should just do what you want. There are no mistakes and the bikes make no apologies for looking like they have been pulled out of a scrap heap.