The variety of sports involving racing motorcycles. FIM is the international sanctioning body for many such events.
As motorcycles vary greatly in design, there are several different types of motorcycle racing contest, including:
- Road racing in its purest form is racing on public roads, such as the Isle of Man TT course and some courses in Ireland. Due to the inherent dangers that these street venues often carry such as narrow lanes, curbs, and adjacent walls, most road racing is now carried out on purpose-built tracks.
- Motocross and its cousin supercross are held on dirt courses, usually featuring large jumps in which motorcycles are launched over considerable distances.
- Supermoto is a crossover motorcycle racing between road racing and motocross. The motorcycles are mainly motocross types with road racing tyres. The racetrack is also mixed between road and dirt courses, mostly handcrafted.
- Motorcycle speedway and ice speedway are held on oval circuits where riders slide their machines around turns.
- Motorcycle enduro racing is over long, unmade tracks, often through isolated terrain (e.g. Paris-Dakar rally and Six Days endurance race).
- Motorcycle trial is where participants ride specially-designed motorcycles at very slow speeds over a variety of obstacles.
Circuit Racing
Some of the most popular categories of circuit racing include:
- Grand Prix motorcycles
- Superbike racing
- Pocketbike Racing
- Dirt Track Racing