Sport bikes grew 13% in a market that shrank 7.6%
US motorcycle sales fell in 2025, but not evenly. Every segment that grew did so at the small end, and the aftermarket follows.
New motorcycle and scooter sales in the United States fell 7.6% in 2025 compared with 2024, according to figures released by the Motorcycle Industry Council. Read alone, that number tells you the market contracted. Read by segment, it says something considerably more interesting.
Sport bike sales grew 13% over the same period — and, per the MIC, all of that growth came from models under 750cc. Adventure bikes under 600cc rose 10% year over year. Midsize trail bikes above 125cc were up 9%.
Meanwhile the traditional large-displacement segments moved the other way. Touring fell 13%. Cruisers fell 6%.
The MIC's own summary of the shift is that customers are moving toward smaller, more affordable, versatile and performance-focused machines, while the large-displacement on-highway categories continue to decline.
Early 2026 complicates the picture rather than reversing it. The MIC reported new motorcycle and scooter sales up 4.2% in the first quarter among leading brands, with touring posting the largest first-quarter unit increase of any category since 2022 — a segment that had just finished a bad year.
Why this matters if you are modifying a bike rather than buying one: the aftermarket follows the parc. Parts development, fitment coverage and competition all concentrate where the bikes are. A growing sub-750cc sport segment means more options, and more price competition, for exactly those machines over the next few years. If you ride something in a shrinking segment, the opposite applies, and parts for it get harder to find rather than easier.
It is worth being clear about the limits of these figures. The MIC's quarterly reports cover leading brands rather than every manufacturer, and its detailed dataset — the Motorcycle Statistical Annual — is a paid industry publication, priced at $3,000 for non-members. The numbers above come from the MIC's public reporting and trade coverage of it, not from that publication.
Sources: MIC reports 2025 motorcycle and ATV retail sales decline, Powersports Business — https://powersportsbusiness.com/top-stories/2026/02/05/mic-reports-2025-motorcycle-atv-retail-sales-decline-as-buyers-shift-to-smaller-models/ US motorcycle sales dropped 7.6% in 2025, RevZilla Common Tread — https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/us-motorcycle-sales-dropped-76-in-2025 MIC Q1 2026 report, Motorcycle & Powersports News — https://www.motorcyclepowersportsnews.com/motorcycle-q1-report-2026/