The world of motorcycles is diverse. You have many different types of motorcycles available to riders around the world—not to mention all the brands, engine sizes, and price points. To help make sense of this, bikes are often divided up into categories or types of motorcycles based on how they look at their intended use.
I have to note that these categories and styles are just to help give buyers and riders some idea of what the machine is. A motorcycle is really whatever you make of it, and you shouldn’t let some arbitrary category define how you ride or customize your bike.
Different Types of Motorcycles
There’s a grouping of the different types of motorcycles that are generally accepted in the industry. These types of bikes have been the categories that motorcycles have fallen into for decades.
They are as follows, according to the Motorcycle Legal Foundation:
- Standard
- Cruiser
- Sportbike
- Touring
- Sport Touring
- Dual Sport
- Scooter
- Moped
- Off-Road
You’ll note that these are broad categories and not every bike will land squarely in one. Also, this doesn’t easily encompass some particular styles of machines. These are just broad classifications, and it’s important to keep that in mind.
Different Styles of Motorcycles
In addition to the broad categories above, there are various styles of machines out there adding yet another layer of classification. These are fluid categories of sorts.
Here are some common styles people use to identify motorcycles:
- Cafe Racer
- Scrambler
- Bobber
- Adventure Motorcycle
- Tracker
- Desert Sled
- Streetfighters
- Bratstyle
- Naked
Are these all of the categories? Nope, there will be more that come up overtime. The important thing to know is that there are a lot of options out there.
My advice to everyone is to look for the bikes you like. What looks cool to you? the right bike for you is likely the one that seems to grab your attention the most.
The Blurring of Lines
As you can probably imagine, and as I have stated above, all of these categories get blurred all the time. Specifically in the custom bike world. You might have a bike that looks a lot like a mash-up of a cafe racer and a scrambler. This is quite common, and that means you’ll see bikes show up in a couple of categories sometimes.
This is a testament to the builders and designers that make these bikes. They’re challenge is to push boundaries and transform the way we percieve the motorcycle.
This challenge is also placed on the manufacturers. However, generally they do a less impressive job of creating innovative designs and styles and instead focus on technology and following the trends and focusing on what’s popular.
Right now cafe racers and scramblers are popular in the custom world. On the new bike side of things these styles are also popular, but so is the adventure motorcycle category right now. This will shift over time, and it will be interesting to see how things change over time. My guess is that some bikes will stay hyper specialized while others (most ADV bikes) will try to get better and better at a wider variety of things.
The Categories Wind Burned Eyes Covers
No motorcycle is excluded. If it piques my interest, you’ll see it here. That doesn’t mean I don’t have certain bikes that I’m drawn to.
I love cafe racers and scramblers. I’m also a huge fan of custom motorcycles and try to feature one weekly. You’ll find a bit of everything here from stock, production motorcycles to fully customized machines.
Most of the time, I focus on the following types and styles of motorcycles:
- Cafe Racers
- Scramblers
- Bobbers
- Sportbikes
- Electric Motorcycles
- Minibikes
- Mopeds
- Scooters
- Adventure
- Cruisers
Obviously these aren’t the only bikes I cover. When I say everything, I mean everything. Click here to see all the recent motorcycle articles.
Why Does it Matter?
You might be thinking, so what? Why does it matter if I know what all of the different types of motorcycles are? Ultimately, it doesn’t. As long as you’re interested in riding on two wheels, you’re my kind of person.
However, I will say knowing the types of motorcycles and the various styles will help you when shopping for a new or your next used motorcycle. I always encourage people to ride many types of motorcycles. Different bikes are good at different things, and knowing the types and their uses can be helpful when shopping.
It’s also helpful for when you’re riding. These different motorcycles have different capabilities. If you know what those are you’ll make smart, informed riding decisions. That is always a good thing.
Happy riding!