What is a supermoto? Well, there was a time in the late nineties and early noughties where the pinnacle of two wheeled excitement was a supermoto. It’s a simple formula; choose a dirtbike, fit uprated and stiffer suspension, a smaller front wheel and road tyres and what you end up with is a nimble, lightweight, wheelie-popping superbike-slayer.
With short, off-road gearing and torquey single or twin-cylinder engines, supermotos are ideal bikes for winning the traffic light GP around the city centre – plus, you can embarrass superbike riders on a twisty B-road scratch at the weekend.
Supermotos actually originated in America in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s thanks to a TV show called Superbiker. The idea was to pit the best riders from different racing disciplines against one another on a track that combined short circuit, flat track and motocross sections.
The show’s popularity and large prize fund attracted the biking royalty of the day (Eddie Lawson, Kenny Roberts and Håkan Carlqvist to name a few) who modified their own bikes for the job. The field generally included a mixture of Japanese crossers and American V-twin flat trackers with smaller front wheels and fatter tyres fitted and the racing was close and exciting.
When the concept came to Europe, the Superbiker name was translated as Supermotard and the bikes became known as supermotos spawning the race discipline we know today. The supermoto riding style is epitomised by the way the riders ‘back it in’ to corners – a technique where the rear wheel is allowed to break traction while the front brake is applied on the way into a corner.
It wasn’t long before manufacturers began to build their own SM models alongside their MX and enduro machines. The Suzuki DR-Z400SM is a great example of this kind of supermoto. Then, keen to capitalise on the trend, some manufacturers devised bigger-engined supermoto-inspired road bikes such as the Ducati Hypermotard or KTM 690 SMC R.
The craze for supermotos may have died away but roadsters like the KTM Dukes Yamaha MTs and Triumph Street Triple are still flying the flag. These bikes retain some of the drama, scalpel like handling and fun that the supermoto category offers – even if they’re not really supermotos anymore.
Supermotos are razor-focused, desperately impractical and in some cases expensive, but you’d be hard pressed to find a biking niche that offers more fun for a sunny Sunday blast. Here’s MCN’s list of the best new and used supermotos on the market right now.
