Thirty years ago Britain was riding the crest of a wave. The country was in the clutches of Britpop, Euro 96 was upon us and, in the motorcycling world, superbikes ruled.
MotoGP and the start of four-stroke Grand Prix racing was six years away, as the Superbike World Championship enjoyed a golden era with factory teams galore and a roster of star riders headlined by the legendary Carl Fogarty. Britain loved superbikes, and we bought race replicas like GSX-R750s, YZF750s and ZX-7R Ninjas in big numbers.
And that love affair with sports bikes became greater as the bikes became faster and more sophisticated. Rewind 20 years and four-stroke MotoGP bikes saw research and development departments throw more and more resource at developing new technologies. Superbike racing now featured four-cylinder 1000cc bikes (rather than 750s) and the World Supersport Championship, which mainly featured 600cc fours, really meant a lot to manufacturers.
Race on Sunday, sell on Monday
The result was that our roads were awash with CBRs, Ninjas, GSX-Rs and R-series Yamahas of varying capacity, topping the sales charts by quite a margin. Then, almost in a heartbeat, sales ended. A global financial crisis meant manufacturers cut back on the huge R&D costs required to continually update these flagships.
Focus went on reducing emissions rather than increasing power, while buyers changed too. Finance became harder to find, bikers held onto their machines for a bit longer and the stream of new riders slowed down. Customers looking for new wheels discovered the joys of adventure bikes. BMW’s GS adventure bike went from oddball to everywhere and those superbikes left on sale were loaded with electronic aids and no longer provided Ferrari performance for Ford money.
And while superbikes have never gone away, they’ve become increasingly irrelevant to road users in recent years. Most manufacturers canned their middleweight supersport 600 bikes, rather than update them for Euro4 emissions laws, and the almost unthinkable thought that you couldn’t buy a new Honda CBR600RR, Suzuki GSX-R600 or Yamaha YZF-R6 became real.
Making a comeback?
In recent years we’ve seen the rise in a new generation of sporty bikes, more basic and affordable, in an attempt to attract younger riders back into the fold. Suzuki’s GSX-8R, Triumph’s Daytona 660 and Yamaha’s MT-07 based R7 can be seen on racetracks in a new ‘Sportbike’ class but have still been barely visible on the roads.
Recently released figures issued by the Department for Transport showed just one fully-faired motorcycle in the top 20 best sellers list for 2024, with 816 examples of Kawasaki’s sports-touring Ninja 1000SX making it the 13th most popular new bike sold in the UK last year. Not a single race replica has piqued public interest, with even old favourites like the learner legal Yamaha YZF-R125 nowhere to be seen.
We’ve already written about the top 10 selling bikes and it didn’t bring too many surprises. The top three were all 125s, with Yamaha’s NMAX and the similar Honda PCX125 topping the charts ahead of the utilitarian Honda CB125F.
Triumph’s new Speed 400 is the top selling big-ish motorcycle, shifting 1570 units alone, but combining sales of BMW’s big GS models (the outgoing R 1250 GS Adventure and the new R 1300 GS) we would still consider the ubiquitous adventure bike to be Britain’s best seller. Together 3039 GS boxers were registered in 2024, compared to a total of 2806 examples of the new 400cc Triumphs (Speed 400 and Scrambler 400X).
The latest registration data gives a good picture as to what the British motorcyclist is buying, and utilitarian metal is still what’s selling. Just six of the top 20 best sellers require a full motorcycle licence. Eight are 125cc or below, and only really Triumph’s Speed Triple and Yamaha’s MT-09 could be considered as exciting sports bikes, albeit nakeds rather than fully-faired race style machines.
Even learners are choosing naked over race replica, with KTM’s Duke 125 and Yamaha’s MT-125 outselling their faired alternatives – something that would be considered unheard of in years gone by. Bigger retros, like Triumph’s Bonneville range and Ducati’s Scramblers, barely feature in the sales charts – although the much vaunted Yamaha XSR900GP, the motorcycle which tugged at the heartstrings when launched at the end of last year, may well attract buyers this time around.
Honda’s budget GB350S is also flying out of the showrooms and is a dead cert to be one of 2025’s best selling bikes – confirming the trend towards smaller, low powered, retro bikes. Honda’s been really aggressive with its pricing this year as it looks to consolidate its place as the leading manufacturer, with the new Hornet 1000 in particular bringing 1000cc performance for middleweight money.
Overall, registrations were down by 3.14% in a tough year that saw many dealerships close their doors.
Royal Enfield continue to be strong, with the DfT reporting 4450 registrations for the Indian manufacturer. Chinese brands also continued to rise, with small bike company Lexmoto the eighth best selling brand in the UK, with registrations up 30%.
Over 1600 Benellis arrived on our roads (the historic Italian brand now owned by and manufactured by a Chinese company), while relative newcomers CF Moto and Voge are starting to make a real impression on the sales charts – a trend we expect to continue in 2025 thanks to some impressive new machines, low prices and a growing dealer network.
Short circuit for electrics
Once again electric motorcycles failed to win over bikers. Only 3061 electric motorcycles were registered, less than the total number of petrol-powered mopeds (3184) let loose on the roads. Almost a quarter of these electrics were learner legal bikes from Super Soco, with small stuff from the likes of Maeving and Sur-Ron also posting moderately respectable numbers.
The market for big electrics remains dire, with technology leaders Energica going bust and Harley selling just 612 LiveWires globally. Fellow Americans Zero will be hoping their new lightweight, Sur-Ron style bikes will help boost numbers this year, as just 80 of its products were registered in the UK last year. The company is running offers to try and shift unsold stock from the 2022 model year, as traditional motorcyclists continue to shun battery powered bikes.
Getting older
Tellingly, the average age of bikes has gone up according to the DfT figures. The typical bike on British roads is now 16 years old, which is on average three years older than was the case in 1996, and six years older than would have been expected in the halcyon days of the superbike in the early 2000s. The average age of the bikes we ride has been increasing since 2005 which, coincidentally, is when we saw the superbike bubble start to burst.
It's not just our bikes that are getting older, riders are too, which makes it no surprise that big, powerful and uncomfortable sports bikes are being chopped in for more practical and comfortable bikes.
A recent study from Honda UK, conducted in conjunction with Nottingham Trent University, concluded that the average age of the British motorcyclist was 54. This ties in with government data, which suggests the percentage of bikers under 30, in their 30s and in their 40s has declined over the past 10 years, while the number of us in our 50s, 60s and even 70s has increased.
It was hoped that the introduction of smaller capacity machines would broaden motorcycling’s appeal to younger riders and, while the arguably do, they’re also providing a great option for older riders looking for a more manageable steed.
Are sportsbikes really dead? Thankfully we don’t think they are, but there’s also no doubt that tastes have changed and these once kings of road and track are now relegated to the fringes of 2025’s motorcycling landscape. European manufacturers like BMW and Ducati continue to make exotic sportsbikes, while all the big four Japanese continue to make 1000cc superbikes in small quantities in order to be eligible for racing, although in the case of the Yamaha R1 it’s now a track only model.
Middleweight sportsbikes, traditionally 600cc four-cylinders (with some 675cc triples like the Triumph Daytona 675) have largely been replaced by an eclectic mix of machinery, with supersport racing regulations now allowing the Ducati Panigale V2 and Yamaha R9 to race alongside a faired version of Triumph’s Street Triple 765 and the traditional in-line fours.
What’s clear is that research and development (R&D) investment into sportsbikes have been cut. Yamaha’s R-series of sportsbikes, for example, share the same platform as the naked MT range and are almost identical, but for the bodywork.
Smaller sportsbikes are built to a price, with less exotic specifications than might be expected, while high performance unfaired bikes are no longer the de-specced poor relations and share equal billing with the faired versions. Riders looking for the speed rush are often better served by a Streetfighter or Tuono, than they would be a Panigale or Ninja, with the high ‘bars offering more comfort, more control and more attitude than they’d find on a full blown race replica.
Last year’s sales figures certain confirm that British motorcyclists are no longer in love with sportsbikes like they once were, but with plenty of second hand superbikes still out there and with manufacturers continuing to develop smaller and more accessible new machines, it would be a massive exaggeration to suggest that the sportsbike is dead and buried.
Photos: Ducati, Triumph, Yamaha, Zero Motorcycles
