thumb|upright=1.35|A [[Yamaha Motor Company|Yamaha sport bike YZF-R1 racing down a hill.]]
alt=Ducati Panigale V4|thumb|[[Ducati Panigale V4 at Clark International Speedway during California Superbike School Philippines Track Day held on April 13th 2025]]
thumb|The groundbreaking [[Inline-four engine|inline four of the Honda CB750.]]
A sport bike, sports motorcycle, or sports bike is a motorcycle designed and optimized for speed, acceleration, braking, and cornering on asphalt concrete race tracks and roads. They are mainly designed for performance at the expense of comfort, fuel economy, safety, noise reduction and storage in comparison with other motorcycles. Because of the complexity of modeling all the possible movements of different sized riders, to approach perfect tuning of a motorcycle's weight distribution and suspension is often only possible by having a bike customized or at least adjusted to fit a specific rider. Some motorcycles have anti-wheelie systems, with various designs including computerized traction and suspension settings controls or mechanical suspension features, which are intended to reduce the lift and loss of traction of the front wheel under acceleration.
Classes
There is no universal authority defining the terminology of sport bikes or any other motorcycle classes. Legal definitions are limited by local jurisdiction, and race sanctioning bodies like the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) and the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) set rules that only apply to those who choose to participate in their competitions. Nonetheless, by present day standards in Europe, North America and the rest of the developed world, sport bikes are usually divided into three, four, or five rough categories, reflecting vaguely similar engine displacement, horsepower, price and intended use, with a good measure of subjective opinion and simplification. Marketing messages about a model from the manufacturer can diverge from the consensus of the motorcycling media and the public. Sometimes the classes used in motorcycle racing are approximated in production models, often but not always in connection with homologation.
The sport bike classes in common usage are:
- Lightweight: also called entry level or beginner bikes. Some two strokes in this class have dramatically higher performance than the four strokes, being likened to miniature superbikes. are terms sometimes used in lieu of superbike as a catch-all for everything larger than middleweight. but as of 2008, there were only about 3,000 motorcycles, or fewer than one in 12,000, of displacement or more. Similarly, the perception of relative sizes has shifted over time in developed countries, from smaller to larger displacements. When the original superbike, to that line by having pairs, or several pairs, of similar sport bikes aimed at riders of different levels. These are designed to appeal to riders seeking more or less extreme performance features. The more expensive model will be in the vein of a race replica, offering the latest technology updated with frequent design revisions, while the lower cost model typically relies on older technology, can have a more relaxed riding position, and is generally more practical for non-road racing tasks such as urban commuting and carrying passengers or baggage, and offering lower fuel, insurance and maintenance costs. Examples of these paired models are Buell's Firebolt and Lightning, Ducati's 916/748 through 1198/848 paired series, Honda's CBR600RR and F4i middleweights In 1982 Yamaha described their 1983 RD350 YPVS launched at the Cologne motorcycle show as "the nearest thing to a road going racer ever produced".
The term race replica was then also used to distinguish the period of sport bike production from Japan and Europe since the mid-1980s having integrated race-styled bodywork, representing an evolution from the superbike period that began in 1969. and they retain many of the performance features of other sport bikes, but besides abbreviated bodywork, they give the rider a more upright posture by using, for example, higher handlebars instead of clip ons. The streetfighter name, associated with motorcycle stunt riding and perhaps hooliganism on public roads, can imply higher performance than the sometimes more tame naked bike, which in some cases is a synonym for a standard motorcycle.
The same period that saw the naked and streetfighter variants of the sport bike theme also had a resurgence of the versatile standard in response to demand for a return of the Universal Japanese Motorcycle. A similar sensibility drives the so-called power cruiser motorcycles, based on cruiser class machines but with horsepower numbers in league with superbikes.
See also
- Sport moped
- Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling