The first internal combustion, the petroleum-fueled motorbike was the Daimler Reitwagen, which was built in Germany by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in 1885. Hildebrand & Wolfmüller introduced the first series production motorbike in 1894.

Honda (28 percent), Yamaha (17 percent), and Hero MotoCorp (all from Japan) were the top three motorcycle manufacturers in the world by volume in 2014. Motorcycles are considered utilitarian in poor countries due to reduced pricing and better fuel economy. Except for car-centric Japan, the Asia-Pacific and Southern and Eastern Asia regions account for 58 percent of all motorbikes in the world. Motorcycles had 37 times the amount of fatalities per vehicle mile traveled than cars, according to the US Department of Transportation.

There are three types of motorcycles: street, off-road, and the dual purposed cycle. There are numerous sub-types of motorcycles for various uses within these categories. Each type of motorcycle has a racing counterpart, such as road racing and street bikes, or MX and dirt bikes.

Cruisers, sportbikes, scooters, and mopeds are among the various forms of street bikes. Many varieties of off-road motorcycles are built for dirt-oriented racing classes like motocross, and therefore are not street legal in most locations. Dual-purpose bikes, such as the double model, are built to go off-road while still being legal and comfortable on the road.