Questions
What are the main types of motorcycle?
The main types of motorcycle break down into a handful of broad families: sports and superbikes, naked roadsters, cruisers, tourers, adventure or dual-sport machines, off-road bikes, and retro styles such as the cafe racer and the scrambler.
Each family answers a different question about how a bike is meant to be ridden. Sports bikes and superbikes are built around lap times, with a race crouch and full fairing. Naked roadsters strip that fairing away for an upright seat and easier everyday manners. Cruisers trade lean angle for a relaxed, feet-forward stance and low-down torque. Tourers add weather protection and luggage for motorway miles, while adventure and dual-sport machines raise the suspension for gravel and green lanes. Off-road bikes drop the road-legal parts altogether for competition use, and retro styles such as the cafe racer and the scrambler borrow older cues on modern running gear.
Whichever family you ride, there is a matching page in our motorcycle art by style collection, or upload a photo of your own bike and we will draw it in that style. Not sure which camp a bike sits in? What is a naked bike? is a good place to carry on.
Written by Craig Fearn, Throttlefolio.
Transmissions
Questions, answered
Is a cafe racer a type of motorcycle or a style?+
A style, really - most cafe racers started life as ordinary road bikes and were converted to fit the look. The same is true of bobbers and scramblers.
What type of motorcycle is easiest for a new rider?+
Naked roadsters are often recommended first - upright, predictable, and without a fairing to repair if the bike is dropped.
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