[ebonho]

Standard/Street Naked.

These are the purest elements of biking, and have seen and done it all for more than a 100 of the 130 odd years that motorcycles have been around.

Nothing else makes me feel more connected.

And all 7 bikes I've owned have been standards / street nakeds.

P.S. Technically, commuters and retro classics are also standards / street nakeds.

And cruisers and tourers overlap a lot and are built on the low rider relaxed laid back theme.

Similarly dirt and enduro and adventure and supermoto are built around the same tall off the ground theme.

On the other end a street fighter is usually a sport without the fairing.

So I personally look at bikes in terms of how I sit on them. How my body is in relation to the bike and the road.

With that as a backdrop, there are basically 4 types of bikes.

Standard.

Sport.

Cruiser.

Off-road.

I don't buy into the classification by use paradigm at all, because every bike with the right rider can do everything.

Cheers, Doc

[SoumenD]

Voted for adventure sport.

With the never ending digging work in and around cities these days can’t think of anything else.
I need that suspension setup of xpulse/GS310R for our crater filled roads in my next bike. Then again for local commutes in chockablock city traffic automatic scooters also make a lot of sense.

Am actually on the verge of changing my current ride that’s 13 years old now and seriously confused between which way to go(automatic scooter or adv commuter). To add to my woes the current prices of two wheelers are eye watering. I bought the RTR160 back in 2007 for 65k , while today a humble Jupiter disc brake variant would cost me ~90k on road

[adityak7]

There is nothing more sexier than a proper sports bike.
But if the question is what would I buy if I had the chance to, then my vote would go for Street Naked - Lack of additional weight, easier flickability, enough power on hand and comfortable ergonomics for a good ride all favour a street bike over the other types.

Having owned and ridden a cruiser, sports and a street naked, I would go again for my Honda CB300R any day.

Here's a pic for your viewing pleasure.

[rajshenoy]

This should be a multiple choice as few others pointed out as well. If i were to pick just one, Retro classic would suit my style of being laidback and unhurried(To enjoy the journey instead of the destination). They also have a strong sense of character(perhaps also because i grew up watching them).

A millennial might end up choosing a street naked or fully faired sports bike though.

Will i buy one today ? Well, I so much wish but controlling my itch for now.

Point to note : Looking at the poll trend, no wonder Royal enfield is going so well in our market

[KPR]

A cruiser any day for relaxed riding and to take care of my back in the long run.

[surjaonwheelz]

Originally Posted by ebonho

P.S. Technically, commuters and retro classics are also standards / street nakeds.

With that as a backdrop, there are basically 4 types of bikes.

Standard.
Sport.
Cruiser.
Off-road.

I was echoing the same sentiments and drafting my post when Doc posted this

Any bike can be a Commuter, I commute with my INT650 as it's my only bike after the CL350 which enabled me to commute earlier.

I know people who commute on Tiger 800

Cruiser - big metal stuff, but with the nature of the chassis it's one of the lease comfortable, though it might look comfortable. This was born out of smooth American freeways! Cruisers have the minimum suspension travel.

Adventure Sport - SUV of bikes and the current genre in favor for our roads in general. But even these can't take our potholes! This is the settlement phase of one's riding stage OR these bikes are so costly that you are settled in life before you can get one! Here you need super skills or training and practice to use these machines to their full potential or as advertised!

Tourer - Now this is a purpose based classification, apart from the Goldwing & K1600 which can put a rider to sleep with its crazy creature comforts none are tourers in true sense and we don't have that infrastructure for these Grand Tourers!
If you have road based tyres on an Adventure bike, it becomes an Adventure Tourer. If a sports bike is less committed and more comfortable it becomes a Sports Tourer. Also we have Hyper Tourers ('Busa, 14R)

Commuter - Any bike. Unless you want to classify the smaller capacity machines under this. Even for that you'll need a separate thread, eco, executive, sports & retro commuters!

Sports - This is the poster boy image of superbikes! If you imagine an illustration of a young boy stooped over a sports bike, then a sports tourer, then a street naked (bye bye clip-ons), then an adventure and finally a Cruiser with legs forward is the perfect evolution of bikers!
From the threads of Odeen (GSX-R), Narula (10R) & Krishna (R1) you need commitment to ride and maintain these superbikes! The speed and thrill these machines can give must be extra terrestrial.

Street Naked - We all start here, the neutral stage! Karthik has summed it up aptly in his flowchart. This category can be further divided into Hyper naked, Sports naked and Retro naked all of them will have a counter part in the Sports category. These are practical till you're hit by wind blasts at high speeds!

Retro Classic - This is a look based classification. The Bonneville range is the ideal example. I would like to categorize my INT650 as a Roadster! There are some modern machine's in this category worldwide, like CD's favorite Z900RS, Katana etc.
The small capacity ones like the CB350 & Jawa 300 are just riding the wave. Jawa is a modern engine (Mojo) in old clothes (Jawa). Honda has restricted itself to the competition. Same for RE with the Meteor, introduce 4 valves and move ahead and set a new benchmark, no?
This category is for the unhurried tribe of riders, who want to go places in style (retro of-course) and without red lining the scene!

Dirt - Offroad/Dual sport, this what India needs right now, road legal off-road machines which are affordable to buy & repair. Bajaj had the SX-Enduro based on the KB100. Every Bullet owner wanted to convert their Standard into one after visiting Rider Mania or thought of it atleast once!
Hero is serving this category with the Xpulse but credit goes to RE for the Himalayan for re-opening this category. Sadly the Himalayan gets more thrashing on forums than on the Himalayas. The CRFs, KLRs or the SVs never came to our shores and now even if they come they won't be affordable! KTM took so long to change the clothes of the 390 that inflation hit them.

Overall, one bike do it all sentiments prevail, I assume by the complaints/rants/criticism I hear/read.
"Tiger too heavy for off-roading"
"Wind blast on my naked"
"Top speed is low on the retro/offroad bike"

Boss you're on the wrong bike! Enjoy what you do OR do what you enjoy (with your bike). The choice is yours!

I wish we all riders have the infrastructure to sustain a multi-bike garage till then one bike for all categories even if we have to compromise some.

Cheers,
surjaonwheelz

[aargee]

Originally Posted by ebonho

I don't buy into the classification by use paradigm at all, because every bike with the right rider can do everything

Words of wisdom & absolutely well said!! It's the rider that makes a difference. Offroading or Touring, can be done on CT100 Boxer or the original Boxer

[tchsvy]

For me one is never enough! A scooter for errands, a cruiser for weekend rides, a sports tourer for long highway rides and retro for office commute. Oh, I would also like to have a Daytona or an R6 for those track days!

As for the poll, I chose retro bike, reason? CB350!

[Skyline_GT]

Voted for Cruiser Nothing ever has fancied my attention so much as Cruiser motorcycles.
Ended up buying a Standard 350 in 2018 and it has been one of the most comfortable budget cruiser one can buy in the current two-wheeler market.

[v12]

Retro Classic all the way - just like Crazy Driver, it would be the Z900 RS all the way for me. That would really be one motorcycle I would keep forever.

Close second comes a commuter bike or scooter. A beater bike. Currenty I use the Rx100 as a daily ride, but the practicality offered by a Scooter is unmatched by any motorcycle.

[ebonho]

Originally Posted by surjaonwheelz

I was echoing the same sentiments and drafting my post when Doc posted this

Good post!

You're exactly right about cruisers actually being poorly anatomically designed.

First of all the weight is off your ischial tuberosities (sit bones) and now more towards your coccyx (tailbone) ... which is a vestigial fused bone from when we had tails and not designed to be sat on (look at any animal and tell me if it sits on its tail).

Secondly your pelvis is now rotated such that every shock to the bike goes straight up your spine.

Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, once your feet go ahead of your knees, your legs cease to be weight bearing coiled springs to support your body. In effect the cruiser is the recumbent of the cycle space.

If you go back to my classification by sit angles to the 4 broad classes, you will see that the street naked or the standard, the original motorcycles (and cycles ... incidentally, roadster is a cycle terminology which is borrowed into motorcycle classification ... our black cycles are roadsters classically) were actually the most anatomic ... and second most leaned forward, second only to the sport.

From there if you wanted to go fast, and race, you crouched over the tank. And that's how sports bikes were born.

In the evolution (or more accurately ... differentiation/specialization) tree, as your spine gets straighter and more back ward, it's first sport, then standard, then dirt/adventure/off-road, and finally cruiser/tourer.

Cheers, Doc

[quickfox11]

Voted for Sports. Or so called sports tourer. Always felt more connected with the bike.

On one of my rides to Goa, I was riding my friend's R15. Loved it on the highways, loved it on the curves. It was the broken patches which made me cry. While returning, another friend lost his glasses and I had to ride his Duke 200. Enjoyed it on the twisties and even tattered tarmac. But as soon as we hit the highway, I just wanted to go back on a Sports bike.

But it's a difficult pole because sometimes we have love-hate relationships with certain brands/models irrespective of the category. If you place one of each kind in front of me and ask me to choose, I would probably end up choosing based on the bikes 'behavior' rather 'type'!

Anyways, here's my current love..the YZF R3

[Mafia]

damn!

one tough poll!

can't select just one style.

If you can atleast allow for 3 choices.

Selected street naked as option 1, adventure and cruiser as option 2 & 3

and classic retro as option 4

[bblost]

The Scrambler:

And my reason is because it looks so awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJpVm4J6Lus

[kozhissery]

I use my bike for long distance traveling and like to sit in a relaxed manner, so the choice boils down to cruiser or adventure tourer. My bet goes to Adventure Tourer as I can take the off-beaten path without having to worry much.