Best and worst motorcycle trends of 2024

Zack Courts: Unexpected updates, weakling second gears

Positive: When the news came in of Suzuki revamping its DR-Z dual-sport, Dustin looked across the office and said, "I didn't have that on my Bingo card." Well said, and it got me thinking that we saw a few more surprises in model updates than usual. New Yamahas, Aprilias, and at least one new KTM are exciting but also fairly predictable. BMW, Ducati, Honda, and Suzuki went in some odd directions. The new DR-Z4 isn't spectacular in terms of an update, I think we all just assumed part of the DR-Z charm was that it felt just like a new bike from 25 years ago. I'm even more shocked that Ducati has made a whole section of its catalog less aggressive than last year. The move to a more docile and cheaper V2 lineup seems to go against everything the company has ever said. I'm intrigued. Just like I am about BMW's F 450 GS — I thought for sure the Bavarians were going to rest on the G 310's flimsy laurels for a while yet.

All of that pales in comparison to the big news: Honda's electro-turbo V3. Any Highside/Lowside podcast listener will tell you that I have been harping on the idea of mid-sized turbocharged motorcycles for a while now. Nothing proves my genius like this incomplete concept with no foundational information whatsoever. If Spurg asks, I'm still taking it as a win, and I'm thrilled to see so many surprising new bikes debut this year.

Negative: There is a cancer spreading in the motorcycling world. Power in second gear is failing. Aprilia's RS 457 and RS 660, midrange power cut in second gear. Yamaha's MT-09, midrange power cut in second gear. "Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear," wrote Shakespeare, "where little fears grow great, great love grows there." I couldn't have said it better myself, Billy. I love second gear, it is often one of the most enjoyable places to spend time. And to see it like this, molested and beleaguered by those who hath sworn to protect our liberty; my heart can only bleed from so many wounds.

The point is, these are Euro regs harshing our groove, which require bikes to be ridden at around 30 mph in second and then accelerate past a microphone. U.S. regulations call for a noise measurement at half the rpm of peak power. That's why the BMW M 1000 R I rode this year has two maps available, one for max power and one for smooth midrange — it is hindered by U.S. law. The Aprilias and Yamahas, clearly that design is being driven by Euro standards. I expect we'll see more of this in the future and I'm already working on the bumper stickers: SAVE OUR SECOND GEARS.

Ari Henning: Wings, and stronger than a '90s trend

Negative: I'm a bad-news-first kinda guy, so let's start with the worst trend: wings. They crept from the MotoGP paddock onto open-class sport bikes in the late twenty-teens, and now they're spreading like mold. The fact that "naked" bikes (Ducati Streetfighter V4) and slower, small-displacement machines (CFMOTO 450SS) have them prove it's a fad. And the wing revolution is only beginning. The long-awaited Yamaha YZF-R9 will have them, and many Aprilias are getting angled appendages for 2025, as well. Next up, wings on wings as the King of the Baggers bike's batwing fairing sprouts airfoils! Facepalm.

Positive: For good news, something decidedly less modern. Sport bikes from the 1980s and '90s — as well as their pastel- and neon-tinged colorways — are gaining popularity. It's great to see Kawasaki ZX-7Rs, Honda CBR900RRs, Suzuki GSX-R750s, and other broad-tanked, round-headlight legends returning to the street, and I absolutely love the look of Kawasaki's 40th Anniversary Ninjas.

Dustin Wheelen: Rider aids and rider aids

Positive: 2024 was the year of automatic transmissions. By July, Honda, BMW, KTM, and Yamaha all announced new semi/fully automatic systems for various models. Many of which genuinely surprised us Common Treaders. I marveled at the smooth gear shifts and overall flexibility of Honda's E-Clutch. Common Tread contributor Joe Jackson was just as impressed by BMW's Automated Shift Assist (ASA) when testing the R 1300 GS Adventure.

Offering more automatic transmission options only stands to attract clutch-fearing beginners. They also allow aging motorcyclists and disabled riders to stay in the saddle. You have to admit that that's a good thing, whether automatic transmissions are your cup of tea or not (I still prefer a manual clutch myself).

Negative: 2024 was also the year that Bosch debuted its second-gen Advanced Rider Assistance System (ARAS). When it comes to radar-based riding aids, there's a thin line between useful and useless. If you ask me, manufacturers are currently toeing that line. For example, I'm a big fan of adaptive cruise control (ACC), but adaptive cruise control stop & go (ACC S&G) — which shifts gears, brakes to a stop, and accelerates away from a stop — is too intrusive for my taste. That's why I hope ARAS doesn't keep trending toward semi-autonomous features. I think we can all agree that riding a motorcycle is fun. Scratch that, it's a fact. Turning more and more of it over to a computer only seems to go against that fact.

Lance Oliver: More motorcycles than you think, more deaths than we want

Positive: When those of us in the motorcycle media talk about the health of the industry, we usually report on sales of new motorcycles. I'm guilty, myself. But that's just part of the story. Most of us don't buy a new motorcycle every year but we do ride our motorcycles every year. And we buy tires, brake pads, tombstone-themed helmet side plates (or some other farkle), and that's also part of the industry.

So here's a different stat that conveys the state of the U.S. motorcycle industry: There are more registered motorcycles in the United States in 2024 than in any year past, the extension of a longstanding trend. You can read both negative (we're not riding enough to wear out our bikes) or positive (there are more of us than meets the eye) meanings in that, but one clear factor is that motorcycles of recent decades have been so good and reliable that they last longer and we're holding on to them. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reports that the average age of registered motorcycles is now more than 14 years. Again, I'm more guilty than most. Having whittled my personal garage down to two, I realized this summer that the average mileage on my personal motorcycles had surpassed 80,000. Manufacturers and dealers may prefer we junk our old bikes and buy new ones, but the fact that there are more motorcycles on the road (or at least parked in the garage with a current registration) than ever suggests the industry is not as bad off as we sometimes think. And that our motorcycles are pretty damn good.

Negative: In 1997, 80% of those who died on U.S. roadways were people inside a vehicle, whether a car, truck, bus, etc., and 20% were outside — motorcyclists, pedestrians, bicyclists. Ever since, the insiders have gotten safer and the outsiders in more danger. Now, more than a third of the deaths are among us vulnerable users. And what's worse yet — as I reported recently — the numbers are getting worse for motorcyclists. Preliminary figures from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed that fatalities dropped in the first half of 2024 for virtually every category of road users (including pedestrians and bicyclists) except motorcyclists.

The reasons are many, some proven, some theoretical. The reality many of us don't want to admit is that we far too often kill ourselves. And, final caveat, these are just preliminary numbers for half a year, so they could be an aberration. Still, the long-term trend is clear and it doesn't appear to be changing in 2024. And there's no worse trend in motorcycling than dying while doing it.