Types of Motorcycles

Motorcycles comes in a variety of designs suited for usage under different environment and styles catering for the wide diversity of biker preferences.

Below is a list of the most popular types of motorcycles and a description of how one is unlike the other.

1. Street / On Road bike

Street or on road bike are designed to run on paved roads. There are many sub classes under this types of motorcycle which encompass the road track bikes, the cruisers, choppers, tourers, scooters, underbone and many others.

Road track bikes are bikes that are designed with racing in mind, featuring high powered engines,front leaning seat and heavily covered with plastic ABS fenders to achieve aerodynamics when ridden under high speed, they are seen in racing events such as the Superbike World Championship. Examples of this bike include the Ducati 999, the Suzuki Hayabusa as well as the smaller Aprilia RS125.

Cruisers are bike that are designed for long riding comfort, with the feet placed forward and the back leaning back slightly. Cruiser's design are the main design styles of American bikes during the 1930s to the early 1960s, brought popular by Harley Davidson, Indian, Excelsior and Henderson. Cruisers are often design "naked", that is with minimal accessories and other non-essential plastic liveries. However, cruisers are often highly customized with chroming especially at the handlebar and the exhaust pipe. Due to their low slung design, cruisers have limited turning ability and lower performance.

Choppers are bikes that radically customized cruisers designed with a high handle bar position and longer front forks, often requiring the rider to place their hands above head levels to grip the handle during riding. Choppers have enjoy a large cult following with companies like Jesse G. James' West Coast Choppers being successful in creating expensive traditional chopper-style bikes and a whole range of chopper-inspired merchandise such as clothing, automobile accessories and stickers.

Scooters is a much simpler type of motorcycle compared to the ones mentioned above. They are very simple to ride as they don't have a clutch unlike the standard motorcycle and they do not require the rider to switch gear during riding, this is achieved using a automatic gear box within the scooter engine. Scooters are also very convenient and practical as they have running boards onto where the riders can rest their feet while riding and large storage compartment underneath the seat to safely keep your belongings during riding.

Motorized pedal bikes, or mopeds recalls the early days of the motorcycle by fitting a small engine to a bicycle. They are popular in South East Asia where they are also known as underbone motorcycle as they featured an underbone frame. Mopeds generally do not go beyond 150cc in capacity, are usually light weight, designed without a clutch but with a gear switching pedal to switch gears.

2. Off-road bike

Off road or motocross bikes are designed to take a lot of punishment in rough-road and muddy situations. To do this, they are equipped with smaller engines, longer front fork suspension, stiffer rear suspension, special off road tyres, minimal accessories, plastic livery and no fairings.

Enduro bikes are street bikes that are based upon motocross frame and features, but installed with on-road tyres to enable traveling on paved roads, however due to their high ground clearance, they are rather uncomfortable to ride for long distance.

3. Dual-sport

Dual-sport is a marriage between road and off-road bikes. A dual-sport can handle rough roads very well and at the same time has the ability to be used in paved road conditions. Bikes that are classified under dual sport includes the adventure tourers that are capable of handling rough dirt paths such as fire roads yet at the same time comes with a number of luxury features and larger engines which make on-road riding much more enjoyable.