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"Bikes are not 'nice'. Bikes are cool."
Fonzie to Richie, Happy Days

So you've got a badass. Or a loner. Or an Action Hero or Action Girl. Now (s)he needs a suitable way to get from Point A to Point B. Because walking isn't very impressive unless you're calmly walking away from the carnage you just caused, or slowly walking toward the carnage you intend to cause.

Now you could always go for a cool-looking car. But how about something more personal, and much more impressive?

Easy. Give them a Cool Bike. No, not a bicycle. The big, shiny, loud, sexy, purely awesome motorcycle. The motorcycle is to a modern character what the big black horse is to the Western or Fantasy character: an identifier, a mark of status, and above all, an accessory that adds to their overall coolness.

Ever since the end of World War Two, motorcycles have been seen as the absolute coolest way to travel. Whether they are traveling through the desert, city streets, a coastal road, or up a wall, the bike can promote an aura of awesome that is unmatched by any other everyday vehicle. Riding a motorcycle lends an aura of independence and attractive danger to the rider.

Cool Bikes come in different types, and the type of bike generally says a lot about the type of character who rides it. A chopped, stripped Harley is virtually almost always the choice of a Badass Biker, and it's also often the choice of the Sociopathic Hero and the Villain Protagonist, while a sleek crotch rocket is more likely to be ridden by an Action Girl, an older Kid Hero or a Jerk Jock. If the Harley is chopped or stripped or neither, the rider could be The Atoner, The Drifter, a major-league Action Girl, an Action Hero, a Supporting Leader, or The Ace. The Adventurer Archaeologist tends toward the lighter, more nimble dirt bikes, or even better, an old military bike. Big, heavy Goldwings and other touring bikes aren't usually cool, although their riders may think so.

The Badass Biker always has a Cool Bike. An Anti-hero is likely to have a Cool Bike. Action Girls may have Cool Bikes. Cool Bikes may also have an accompanying Cool Sidecar attached. See Monowheel Mayhem / One-Wheeled Wonder when awesome only needs one wheel.

Oh, and remember that you don't drive a bike; you ride it.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Most of Go Nagai's main characters ride and have cool bikes. Some examples are:
  • Bakuon!!: Raimu, story-wise. Splash pages from the manga has each of the girls drawn with one, although they have different bikes in-story.
  • Norman from The Big O rides a Cool Bike which comes equipped with a rocket launcher, and the bike in question seems to be pretty durable and maneuverable, given how it went toe to toe with freaking Megadeus in a highway chase scene and had not a scratch on it by the end thanks to Norman's driving.
  • The first appearance of Hyoma Nagare from Combattler V had him riding a bike and performing crazy maneouvers with it.
  • The first time we saw Kenichi Go from Voltes V he was practicing in a firing range by shooting AND riding at once.
  • Kaneda's red motorbike in AKIRA most definitely qualifies.
  • FLCL: Haruko's yellow vespa is also undeniably cool, which is interesting as it's a scooter.
  • Soul from Soul Eater too believes in the power of cool bikes, which is why he has one.
  • The Garland units in Megazone 23 combine Cool Bikes with Transforming Mecha.
  • Some of the D-Wheels from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds would probably fall under this trope, especially since some are designed to be some of the coolest wheels in the anime: one based on the ride of the hero in Ghost Rider, a dragster, a steamroller... After all, cool bikes MUST be the centerpiece on an anime which features card games on motorcycles.
    • Many of them have awesome names to boot, whether in the series itself, as with Dark Glass's "Delta Eagle" and Jack Atlus's "Wheel of Fortune", which in the dub has its name changed to "Phoenix Whirlwind", or in supplemental material. Some of the other names include the main character's "Yusei Go", which appears to be a reference to "Speed Racer", as well as Black Bird (which can "fly"), The Beast (dub-series only, unnamed in the original), Giganto L, T-666/Terrible Omen, and Bloody Kiss.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
    • Orbital 7, Kaito's little robotic assistant can turn into this.
    • Akari and Shark ride have some cool rides too.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V brings back the D-Wheel's. They are first introduced by Yugo, and later on, almost the whole main cast gets one.
  • Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (AKA, the third series of Robotech) has motorcycles that transform into Powered Armor.
  • The Motoslaves of Bubblegum Crisis also serve as small Transforming Mecha. Priss and Sylvie also ride cool regular motorcycles. And there's the Highway Star.
  • Beelzemon of Digimon Tamers has a cool, living bike called Behemoth. And if you aren't Beelzemon, it will possess you and ride all across the landscape.
    • And better, it wasn't made for him or anything like that. Beelzey was just the only one powerful enough to tame the cursed bike that had terrorized a town with its original rider (and then Guilmon, who knocked the original rider off only to become possessed himself.)
  • Smoker from One Piece has his Blower Bike, which is actually a large motorized tricycle with wide wheels, powered by his Devil Fruit.
  • Baxinger is made of this. Five motorcycles that shoot lasers, fly both in air and in space AND become the components to a giant robot.
  • The vehicles in RideBack are essentially Cool Bike meets Transforming Mecha.
  • Ditto the mecha in Viper's Creed.
  • In Devil May Cry: The Animated Series, Lady has a red 1974 Ducati 750 Supersport.
  • éX-Driver (or, to capitalize it properly, éX-Driver) is an anime about cars - the glitch-prone AI-controlled ones all normal people drive, and the old, all-manual sports cars the protagonists drive in order to catch the aforementioned AI ones. So it's all the more surprising when one of the protagonists turns up on a Ducati, which has a lot less trouble catching the runaway cars than the old cars do.
  • Moto-Mechazawa from Cromartie High School.
  • Jiggy Pepper from Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee has one that runs on the power of heart.
  • Jun the Swan's G3 from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. It has portable buoys that when lowered under the bike can allow it to ride on water surfaces. Later in the series, it gets a missile launcher.
  • The motorcycles ridden by Toho Heavy Industries' artificial humans in Biomega.
  • Heat Guy J: Daisuke Aurora has one massive ride, plus a Cool Sidecar for his android partner J to ride. It is loaded: massive engines for incredible speed, heads-up display, converts to an even more badass mode when J rides it, and it's amphibious!
  • Bakugan New Vestroia gives us Mira, a Badass Biker girl who rides a Subterra colored motorcycle in her first appearance.
    • Gundalian Invaders give us new forms of Battle Gear, the Mobile Assault Gear. And what do Drago and Talean ride? The motorcycle based ones.
  • Masumi Sera from Case Closed rides a Yamaha Artesia bike XT 400. The reason it's an Artesia? Mobile Suit Gundam, though maybe you didn't know that since Detective Conan is a mystery manga.
    • Yukiko also rides a Cool Bike on a trip to Gunma.
  • Blassreiter is all about cool bikes.
  • In Shirobako, Shun Watanabe, the studio's line producer, is a great lover of classic vehicles, and owns an old-school Ural bike with all the bells and whistles (including handle guards and the Cool Sidecar), which he uses to deliver the broadcast copies of Third Aerial Girls Squad to the TV stations around the Greater Tokyo area, and which also serves as a model for the Arupin's bike in Exodus.
  • Black Cat Detective: All members of the police force ride one extremely cool bike that can also transform into an even cooler flying bike.
  • Laid-Back Camp:
    • Rin's grandfather owns a Triumph Thruxton as part of his Cool Old Guy setup.
    • Rin herself downplays this trope. She's a bit of The Drifter, but since she's too young to ride a motorcycle, she rides a Yamaha Vino scooter.
  • In Venus Wars, Aphrodia's army resorts to the Hound combat bikes to fight Ishtar's Admiral A-1 tanks, with different flavors depending on the media:
    • In the original manga the Hounds are conventional bikes massing a tonne (thus requiring the rider to be quite strong just to use it as a normal bike) and equipped with rocket boosters, anti-tank rocket launchers, and an 80mm anti-tank rifle.
    • In the OVA, instead, they're monowheel bikes equipped with railguns.
  • Akudama Drive: Courier's motorcycle is equipped with grappling hooks, a railgun, and probably much more.
  • The FXA-08R Mega Rider in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ is a Mobile Suit support ship that doesn't quite have the space to hold the suits it carries. Instead, they sit on it like a giant hovercycle.
  • Great Teacher Onizuka: Onizuka, as a former Bōsōzoku, has a cool custom Kawasaki Z400GP, which he and his friends rebuilt from scrap in the prequel Bad Company. His best friend Ryuji rides a Honda CBX, though he got it unmodified as a gift. In GTO, Ryuji actually runs a motorcycle shop.
  • Many are featured in Ah! My Goddess. Most notable is the one owned by the protagonist, a BMW RS 54 Rennsport with sidecar modification.
  • In Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR-, Dia (as her secret identity Scarlet Delta) wields a dashing red and black motorcycle that wouldn't be out of place in your average toku show. In addition to simply serving as a mode of transportation, Dia's sister Ruby can become an Equippable Ally by fusing with it, powering it up and allowing Ruby to take control of the bike.

    Asian Animation 
  • Mechamato: MechaBot can mechanise with Amato's bike to form the Mechabike, which is not only self-propelled, but also has tyres which can adjust to be spiky enough to ride up a wall. With different modes and enhancements, it can ride on water and ice as well.

    Comic Books 
  • Judge Dredd has his Lawmaster, equipped with bulletproof tyres, Nitro Boost, on-board AI and bike cannon.
  • Ghost Rider's bike is cool mundanely. It's even cooler in Ghost Rider mode, what with the chains and skull and flames. And it leaves a trail of flaming tire tracks... and can ride up even vertical walls.
    • Johnny and Danny's bikes represent two distinct types - Johnny's is a chopper, while Danny's is a speed bike.
  • In Batman: Year 100, the Batmobile is reimagined as a souped-up motorcycle.
  • Barbara Gordon Batgirl rides a souped-up bike.
    • She uses it in her Batgirl (2011) solo book the whole time.
    • She gives Stephanie Brown (the third Batgirl) one in Batgirl (2009). Subverted in Batgirls, where she gives Steph and Cassie Bat-e-scooters, which they jointly decide are decidedly uncool. They get used to them though.
    • In Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl, Barbara owns a sci-fi bike which looks like an one-wheeled Batmobile in which she rode Supergirl back to Metropolis.
    • Tim Drake had a highly modified motorcycle as Robin and so too did the two Robins who followed after him, Stephanie and Damian. Though Steph had already had a bike from the very first panel she appeared in that one wasn't nearly as cool. Tim himself tricked his bike out even further as Red Robin.
    • Nightwing has the Wingcycle, which is normally awesome but in typical Dick Grayson fashion he also has a very lame looking sidecar he attaches to it at times. The man has some trouble with fashion.
  • The Flash: Hot Pursuit, an Alternate Universe Barry Allen who lacks his Super-Speed, rides a bike that is powered by the Speed Force. Its wheels appear to be made of pure speed energy.
  • Lobo: Doubling up as a Cool Spaceship, Lobo's spacehog, his custom Spaz-Frag 666 that acts as his personal transport everywhere from terrestrial locations to deep space. It can reach warp speed and once it was even a fully functional Time Machine. Can be also a Flying Arsenal filled to the exhaust with several of the deadliest weapons in the known universe and it even responds to his whistle commands.
  • The Spy Cycle from SpyBoy.
  • Post-Flashpoint Supergirl owned for a short while a rocket space bike named KR-1.
  • In the German comic Werner: Lots. The fact that Brösel is a motorcycle nut and draws extremely realistic (but often still wacky) bikes helps a lot.
    • Werner's bike in the first book, Oder was?, was a fictional Horex Regina made up in the fashion of US choppers of the 1970s, complete with a long springer fork and Iron Cross rear-view mirrors. Werner says he rides Horex because he gets sick from riding BMW. He also has a personal dislike against Harley-davidson.
      Toddl's T-shirt: On the 8th day, God created Harley Davidson
      Werner: He must've had a bad day.
    • In the second book, Alles klar?, he got the same Horex Regina 400 chopper that Brösel was working on, only in the state the bike would have been in, had it ever been finished the way it was planned, including a candle as a headlight. This was also the first book in which Brösel drew Harleys for almost all the other bikers, sometimes tricked out in ludicrous ways (fuel tank that's half aquarium, sidecar made of a small wooden door, an armchair, footrests, a wheel, and an ashtray, red lantern for tail light, and so on). In one story in the fourth book, Eiskalt!, it was equipped with gimmicks such as the Wurstblinker (sausage blinker - yep, a blinker that shoots sausages and other food items) which reappears in the tuned-up version in the first movie, Beinhart!
    • The fourth book also featured the "Red Porsche Killer", a Horex made for defeating a 1972 Porsche 911 S owned by Brösel's publisher and "manager" Holgi in a race. Four (!) Horex Regina 400 engines rebuilt out of aluminum and stroked from 400ccm to 610ccm each were built into a dragster frame painted metalflake pink. The "Red Porsche Killer" was built in real life and actually ran two races against said Porsche.
    • After years of riding Horex, Werner decided to build his very own motorbike in the late 90s. The heart of this machine was a 1000ccm (61cui) single which gave it the name "Satte Literschüssel"; when it was built for real, it turned out this behemoth had a displacement of 1444ccm (88cui), still in one cylinder only. The motor was so big that it became a supporting part of the frame. Other features included a fork mostly made of wood and a shovel blade for a seat. The Name "Satte Literschüssel" is also a wordplay with "Satelitenschüssel" which means Satelite Dish.
    • Around the same time, Andi built the tiniest bike of the Wernersen (Feldmann) fleet, the Notkessel. A motorcycle mostly made of stainless steel, even smaller than a Honda Monkey, but powered by a 175ccm Honda twin which looks almost huge in the tiny frame. Despite being quite tall, Andi can actually ride it, and it appears in some comics, too.
    • As revealed in the documentary book Die Kulteisen der Wernersens, Andi built quite a number of other more or less weird bikes before the Notkessel, for example the Vampire, a bike made of parts Andi just had lying around, including two complete BSA power plants.
    • Then there was the Dolmette (see Chainsaw Good) which wasn't designed by either Feldmann brother for a change but by an engineer from Dolmar (Hamburg). There's little that's cooler than a motorcycle with 24 working engines.
    • Another wacky idea was the Heizölkessel, based on a vibration-free parallel twin engine with two crankshafts prescribed by a doctor and acquired at a pharmacy. Due to a crazy bet against speedbikers, Werner rebuilt it to a turbocharged diesel and fit it into a comfortable chopper frame. This bike sort of came true, too: It is named Neander and built by a Kiel-based company. It does have a working two-cylinder, twin-crankshaft turbo-diesel with lots of horsepower, and it is currently the second most expensive production bike in the world.
  • Hawkeye: Clint Barton has a flying bike called the Sky-Cycle.
  • Werewolf by Night: Jack Russell rides one. And unlike his cars, he has thus far managed to not crash it once.
  • In Bazooka Jules super-thief, Eddie Daytona's motorcycle has sensors, weapons, and can repair itself.
  • In Shaman's Tears, Joshua Brand travels on a classic Indian Chief motorcycle.
  • In Poet Anderson: The Dream Walker, Ayo and the Anderson brothers use them to travel outside Genesis.
  • In the Sonic Universe storyline "Treasure Team Tango", Shadow brings in his Shadow the Hedgehog-based motorcycle to help give Team Rose a lift. When questioned why he has this, he sheepishly admits he's fond of it.
  • Batman and Batwoman get rocket-powered motorcycles in Part 2 of Night of the Monster Men. The bikes are powerful enough to restrain building-sized kaiju with cable barbs.

    Fan Works 
  • Evangelion 303: Asuka owns a very cool-looking red bike.
  • In From Fake Dreams Shirou gets Saber an enchanted, nitro-boosted 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa. She loves it.
  • Lightstorm rides one in Sailor Moon: Legends of Lightstorm. He can summon it with his utility belt, perform death-defying stunts with it while navigating the city, ride at tremendous speeds, and apparently doesn't need to fill it up with gas.
  • SAPR: Sunset uses a motorcycle that she built from spare parts, though it's described as being less cool and more of a horrific abomination of random parts.
  • The Guardians' flycycles/skybikes in The Keys Stand Alone.
  • Varric rides a black and silver Harley-Davidson in the Skyhold Academy Yearbook series.
  • In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Johto Elite Four member Karen rides a customized motorcycle that includes a Cool Sidecar for her Umbreon to ride with her. The handle bars look like the horns of a Houndoom, the wheels have a yellow trim that resembles an Umbreon's glowing circles, and its exhaust is adorned by a pair of model Murkrow wings.
  • Yang's motorcycle in A Girl and Her Bike is Bumblebee/B-127, a kickass alien robot warrior. It doesn't get much cooler than that.
  • There's a few in The Moon's Flash Princess:
    • Minako has a 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa, the fastest production bike ever made (see below). It was a present for Lila, with a side of riling Haruka up.
    • Lila has a Piaggio Vespa 150 TAP - that is, a scooter with a (deactivated) anti-tank coiless gun. According to Minako, in its original form it would have been too cool to be street legal - or legal at all.

    Films — Animation 
  • Aachi and Ssipak loves this trope seeing as how every character has a cool motorcycle or at least motorcycle-like vehicles. Special mention goes to the character of Geko, a badass cyborg who has a bike with plenty of weapons.
  • The Bad Guys (2022): Diane owns a sleek white motorcycle that can be disguised as a briefcase.
  • Cloud's Custom Motorcycle "Fenrir" in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Bonus cool points for having a built in sword rack.
    • The Remnants have some pretty sweet rides, too— naturally, there are at least two high-speed chase-battles.
  • In Incredibles 2, Helen's bike, the Elasticycle, has the ability to break up into two unicycles allowing Helen to stretch her body when riding.
  • In the 2007 TMNT CGI movie, in his Nightwatcher guise, Raphael rides a motorcycle covered with plate steel. Michelangelo himself comments on how awesome this is.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The BMW R 1150R Rockster used by Ben Affleck's character in Paycheck.
  • The Ducati 996 ridden by Trinity in The Matrix Reloaded film during the highway chase.
  • Marlon Brando riding a Triumph Bonneville in The Wild One is one of the events that started this trope.
  • Will Smith's character's Black MV Augusta F4 in I, Robot.
  • The Bike that is built into the front steering system of the Batmobile in The Dark Knight, referred to officially in the movie as the "Bat-Pod". It features built-in autocannons and apparently sports a gyro-stabilizer for the rider and engine, allowing it to make impossible turns, recover from wipeouts, and ride straight up a wall, flip over upside-down, and land upright again. We see it return in The Dark Knight Rises, and has the distinction of being the only Bat-vehicle that survives through more than one movie in the Nolanverse.
  • Batman: The Movie features the Batcycle, which comes equipped with a detachable, steerable sidecar.
  • Steve McQueen's stolen Triumph SR6 650 in The Great Escape. Pure Rule of Cool. There's nothing like that whole scene at all, in the book the movie was based on. But the chance to put Steve McQueen on a Triumph for a chase scene was simply irresistible.
  • Arnie's iconic black 1990 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
  • Possibly the best-known film motorcycle, Peter Fonda's "Captain America" chopper from Easy Rider. Both this and Dennis Hopper's more conservative chopper started life as Harley Davidson Hydra Glides.
  • The Lightcycles from TRON. They're fast, deadly, and fold right up into the handlebars for easy storage!
  • In TRON: Legacy, the motorcycle Sam rides in the opening is his own. It's later established that Sam inherited his dad's insanely-fast Ducati, fixes it after it's been sitting in a shed for 20 years, and is even more of a daredevil with it than his old man was. Likewise, the comic based on Tron 2.0 establishes Jet's ride of choice as one of these. It ends up saving their butts on the Game Grid.
  • Torque has plenty of very nice bikes, but the turbine-powered Y2K definitely takes the cake.
  • Fiona Volpe's BSA Lightning with the built-in missile launchers in Thunderball.
  • Arcee, Chromia, and Elita-1 from Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen.
  • The Delta Force has Chuck Norris on a dirt bike with dual rocket launchers, machineguns, and rear-facing grenade launchers. Twice.
  • In The Knowledge, this trope is inverted by the candidates of the legendarily difficult exam faced by those aspiring to drive London taxis. Most of them ride very basic mopeds while studying their routes.
  • The police hoverbike from Star Trek (2009). The trailer even made it seem as if the cop was a robot with a metallic voice. Since Trailers Always Lie, the cop in the actual movie had a normal voice.
  • Star Trek Beyond has one in the Franklin which Kirk makes sure to ride to raid the enemy base.
  • They don't ride motorcycles, but the bikes in Mystery Team ARE pretty cool.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • The green Harley-Davidson WLA Liberator that Captain America rides in Captain America: The First Avenger. It even comes with machine guns, and a rope-launcher, which Cap uses to great effect against motorcycle-ridng HYDRA mooks late in the movie.
    • Avengers: Age of Ultron:
      • Black Widow's bike drops out of the Avengers' quinjet and is capable of making the landing without too much trouble.
      • Captain America rides his own souped-up motorcycle into one of the battles with HYDRA, which he then throws at one of their tanks as an improvised projectile.
  • Young Boris's rather satanic looking bike from Men in Black 3.
  • In Return of the Jedi they introduce speeder bikes. Back then they may have been a reference to horses, but in the prequel trilogy and the expanded universe they are treated like motorcycles, complete with speeder bike gangs.
  • In Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over they have a race utilizing cool vehicles, specifically motorcycles. Kinda weird that they have that much experience driving and riding when most of them don't look old enough to get a permit, but hey, it's a video game.
  • X-Men Film Series
    • In X-Men, the motorcycle belonging to Cyclops, which Wolverine *ahem* borrows to get to the train station.
    • The Harley-Davidson Logan acquires at the Hudsons' farm in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
  • In Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, Nanny McPhee, of all people, owns one. It can fly, and travel at much faster speeds than its regular counterpart, without any harm to the occupants. It even includes a place for her stick, and a sidecar for the children.
  • In The Lost Boys the eponymous vampires also ride cool bikes. In the novelisation David's bike is explicitly mentioned as being a Triumph.
  • In G.I. Joe: Retaliation a motorcycle that splits apart and turns into explosive projectiles is used by Firefly to help break Cobra Commander out of prison.
  • Oblivion (2013) : Harper's motorcycle - which is collapsible so it can be carried on the Bubble Ship's storage space, has integral winch and sensors and is pretty rugged. Pity that it gets stolen early in the movie, and then soon after Harper gets it back it runs out of gas.
  • In the James Bond movie Skyfall the opening chase scene includes Bond and his quarry riding motorcycles through Istanbul, and even on the rooftops. It's hard to get much Rule Of Cooler than that.
  • The demon-possessed Norton Commando in I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle. Any Norton Commando is cool, but a man-eating demonic one is even cooler. Albeit evil.
  • In the Disney Channel Original Movie Up, Up and Away!, Warrior Woman's motorcycle can move as Super-Speed. We can assume that, besides Super-Strength, she also has Super-Reflexes, necessary to control that thing.
  • In the Babe Ruth biopic The Babe, the Bambino rides an early model Harley-Davidson.
  • In Battletruck, Hunter owns a high-tech, armored Suzuki bike that serves as his primary means of personal transport.

    Literature 
  • Alex Rider: In Eagle Strike, Alex investigates the book's Big Bad without MI6's approval, but Smithers sticks his neck out for Alex and gives him a tricked-out Canondale bicycle so he won't be defenseless. Aside from the frame and tires being engineered to be nearly indestructible, the seemingly incongruous bell is a control panel for five gadgets: the bike pump is a smokescreen, the water bottle is an oil slick, the handlebars contain a pair of heat-seeking missiles, the headlight is a magnesium flare, and last but not least, the saddle is an ejector seat...complete with a snarky message:
    If you can read this, you owe me a new bike.
    Smithers had a warped sense of humor.
  • A subversion in Durarara!!. Celty's Cool Bike is actually a Cool Horse disguised as one. You can tell by the fact that it makes no noise, only whinnies and it has the shadow of a horse.
  • In Snow Crash, Hiro Protagonist's smart bike has its own operating system and adaptive wheels that drive on any terrain. Meanwhile, Raven's bike has a hydrogen bomb built into its sidecar.
  • Sirius in Harry Potter had a flying motorbike, which he gave to Hagrid to help him get Harry from Godric's Hollow to his uncle's house. It appeared again in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where Hagrid used it to get Harry safely from his home to the Weasleys' house. In the end, Harry inherited it. A Triumph Bonneville and a Royal Enfield were used for the films.
  • The bike created by the Librarian, and ridden by Death in Soul Music. It actually falls to bits quite early on, but the idea of the bike remains, resembling light reflecting off a gleaming machine, only without the machine. Unfortunately, because it was created in accordance with rock music tropes, it isn't designed to slow down, much less stop safely. It's meant to crash at the end of the eighth verse. Eighth, as the whole sequence is an extended tribute to Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell, down to the silver black phantom bike, and because eight is a magically significant number in the Discworld.
  • In Robert Asprin's Phule's Company, CH (Chocolate Harry) gets official permission to use his personal hoverbike instead of a Legion vehicle.
  • Murphy occasionally rides around on a Harley in The Dresden Files. Harry claims it's because a motorcycle is actually a giant vibrator.
  • Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain: Penny's Light Bike is a futuristic Hard Light motorcycle that she can beam out of a device on her chest.
  • Manifestation: An escape scene in one chapter involves a cool bike that gets supercharged with magical energy, massively boosting its speed.
  • The Girl from the Miracles District: Nikita's bike, Pretty, has been modified to the point where Nikita removed its make logo because there was next to nothing left from the original vehicle. It's now much faster, sturdier, more nimble, and has a few tricks up its sleeve.
  • Percy Jackson briefly "borrows" a Vespa to get back to the troops in The Last Olympian. It has the added bonus of urban coolness very appropriate for the Manhattan setting, and getting Annabeth to hold on to him riding backseat.
  • The Reunion With Twelve Fascinating Goddesses has an Ether-powered motorbike that's used by Alua and later Tooi.
  • In the works of Kim Newman, the anti-heroic London vigilante Dr Shade rides a custom-made Norton. It's featured most prominently in "Sorcerer Conjurer Wizard Witch", demonstrating built-in boosters, flamethrowers, a flare gun that creates a cloud of smoke in the sky shaped like Dr Shade's laughing head, and various features to facilitate dramatic effect, like counterbalance systems and leg protectors that let the rider do extreme leaning turns without falling over or scraping all the skin off his leg.
  • Kino's Journey: Hermes, the sentient motorbike who is Kino's only companion and closest friend.
  • The Mouse Watch has the Pop! Cycle, a vehicle that is stored in a small tube, then instantly assembled by Nanomachines when the user presses a button.
  • Rebuild World: The Unscrupulous Hero Akira has a special talent for using these, but by necessity has some other vehicle a lot of the time instead, sometimes keeping a bike in the back of said vehicle. He goes through multiple models. The second and third models have remote gun mounts that allow his Virtual Sidekick to shoot enemies directly through it, or be tied to his gun’s sensors. His second bike onwards have the ability to run up sheer cliffs or ride along walls due to the advanced technology in them, and his third, the A3 Sylpheed, uses force fields to create an Improvised Platform path in front of it to grant Akira limited flight.
  • Futuretrack Five: When Kitson's father can't deter his son from being a biker, he smashes his deathtrap Racer bike and buys him a top-of-the-line Mitsubishi electric motorbike. Kitson names "her" Mitzi, and she becomes his primary vehicle for the rest of the book.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Kamen Riders are known for their Cool Bikes — that's where the "Rider" name comes from. The bikes were a much bigger part of the series in the earlier years; more recent seasons have it as The Artifact with only a few token appearances. It may have something to do with stricter road safety laws limiting filming. In order:
    • The Showa Riders' bikes typically just have custom cowlings, due to special effects limitations of the 1970s, though they're all faster and more powerful than standard bikes, sometimes allowing them to ride along walls and up cliff faces. X-Rider's can be used as an underwater vehicle and Super-1's actually flies using rockets.
    • Kuuga's TryChaser 2000 can combine with the sentient mecha-beetle Gouram, giving it extra armor and blades on the front. Partway through the series it's damaged and rebuilt as the BeatChaser 2000, which is also affected by Kuuga's Mid-Season Upgrade Rising Forms.
    • Agito's Machine Tornador can become a hoverboard. G3, Gills, and Another Agito have custom bikes (GuardChaser, Gills Raider, and Dark Hopper, respectively) modified to resemble them.
    • Kamen Rider Ryuki:
      • All the Riders have access to a common type of one-man vehicle called the Ride Shooter, taking the Rider through the portal to the Mirror World.
      • Ryuki's and Knight's Bond Creatures could also transform into motorcycles when in their Super Mode - still remaining very much sentient.
      • Alternative and Alternative Zero's own shared Bond Creature, Psycho-Rogue, could also turn into a motorcycle called the Psychoroader.
      • The American adaptation Kamen Rider Dragon Knight actually added more bikes to the show, by giving the characters their own awesome real-world motorcycles during non-spandex time and having them transform along with them when they became Kamen Riders. These largely (though not completely) replaced the Ride Shooters (renamed "Advent Cycles" here). There's an awesome scene near the end with six Riders, finally on the same page - even The Hero and the Evil Twin! - riding out of MIB headquarters unmorphed as a Cool Bike-riding, cool jacket-wearing squad, ready to kick butt and take names.
      • More bike awesome from Dragon Knight: Mirror World bike chase. The sneaky Torque found out that Xaviax is too smart for The Starscream, and new The Dragon, polite but sociopathic Strike, is hunting him. Torque rides for his life, and on the street, it looks like a guy riding crazily for no reason. Only we can see that in the reflections in doors and windows, Strike is right on his tail. Torque eventually thinks he's lost Strike, when several stories up, the reflected Strike emerges into reality and drops in right behind him.
    • Kamen Rider 555:
      • Faiz has the Auto Vajin, which can transform into a robot with its own AI; in this form one wheel is a Gatling while the other is a jetpack and its handlebar becomes Faiz's Laser Blade. Its highest-priority directive is not "obey Faiz."
      • Kaixa's Side Basshar includes a Cool Sidecar and turns into a walker mecha with tons of missiles that can deploy even more missiles.
      • Delta doesn't get a unique bike, but he's usually associated with the Jet Sliger, a behemoth with five large jet engines to give it its name and a truly overkill amount of weapons. Also, its wheels are spheres, and it can travel sideways if desired. Every Rider apparently has one but only Delta really uses his. (Faiz' Jet Sliger gets blown to scrap in its introduction episode during a battle with Delta. Kaixa presumably has one if the other two do, but it is never summoned.)
    • In Kamen Rider Blade, the BOARD Riders' bikes can all channel the power of the Rouze Cards, allowing the Riders to use them for special attacks. They're called the Blue Spader (belonging to Blade), Red Rhombus (Garren), Shadow Chaser (Chalice), and Green Clover (Leangle). Chalice's Shadow Chaser, like the later Dragon Knight, is an ordinary bike that changes when he does.
    • Hibiki is the subversion; he gets a completely unmodded Honda Valkyrie Rune (see below under Real Life). The bike is where the Disk Animals are stored. This presumably plays into the fact that Hibiki, unlike his fellows, is not a Badass Biker. (He's certainly a badass. He just can't ride all that well.)
    • Kabuto and Gatack have their own custom machines (Kabuto and Gatack Extender) which can transform into more battle-oriented forms, Kabuto's gaining a battering ram and Gatack's turning into a flying hoverboard; they're also affected by the Riders' Clock Up systems. The other Riders simply get slightly customized versions of the common Machine Zectron bike.
    • All the bikes in Kamen Rider Den-O double as the control units for their respective Cool Trains. Den-O's is the Machine Den-Bird while Zeronos has the Machine ZeroHorn.
    • Kiva's Machine Kivaa has the brain of a horse monster, turns invisible at high speed, and has an enhancement booster that nullifies wind resistance. It's also the only chopper-style Rider machine, and is generally awesome-looking. Ixa's Ixalion, despite the cool name, is simply a custom bike. Saga doesn't have a unique bike, but Taiga owns a Honda DN-01 that he uses exclusively as a civilian.
    • Decade's Machine Decader can transform into past Rider machines via AttackRide cards; Decade changes it into the Auto Vajin in the first episode and the Side Basshar in the Grand Finale movie.
    • Double's HardBoilder is modular, its rear half being swappable with jetski and flight wing attachments; it's also armed (machineguns in all forms, plus torpedoes for the water form). Accel is his own Cool Bike, and can combine with the sentient tank Gunner A for combat situations (he also owns a red Ducati called the Diablossa which he uses as a civilian). Skull's SkullBoilder is essentially the same as Double's bike without the option parts.
    • The Riders of Kamen Rider OOO, and even allies that aren't Riders, use Ride Vendors; mass-produced bikes that can be disguised as vending machines and are stationed throughout the city for easy access. Plus as vending machines, they can also dispense can-shaped helper robots called Candroids. OOO (and only OOO) can combine one of those robots, the Tora (Tiger) Candroid, with a Ride Vendor into an enhanced version called the Toride Vendor.
    • Kamen Rider Core from the Double/OOO movie was a monstrous... thing made from the dark memories of all Kamen Riders powered up by a few Core Medals. It could turn the bottom half of its body into a flaming motorcycle.
    • Fourze's Machine Massigler, fitting with the show's theme of space travel, is shaped like a shuttle and is spaceworthy; the Powerdizer exoskeleton can even transform into a launchpad for the Massigler. Meteor has his own ride, the Meteorstar, which is styled like a satellite.
    • Wizard's Machine Winger can combine with the Dragon Phantom to enhance the dragon's flight abilities, and more importantly act as a Restraining Bolt when it's being disagreeable.
    • The cast of Kamen Rider Gaim all get bikes, with two models available: the Sakura Hurricane and the Rose Attacker. They transform to and from padlocks, the collectible trinket of the year, and have the ability to cross dimensions from Earth to the Helheim Forest and back once they get up to speed. There's also a third hoverbike model introduced later called the Dandeliner.
    • Played with in Kamen Rider Drive, where Drive does not get a motorcycle but instead gets a Cool Car called Tridoron. The Rival Mashin Chaser and Drive's ally Kamen Rider Mach are the ones with the bikes; which are named Ride Chaser and Ride Macher respectively and can combine into a buggy-like vehicle called the Ride Crosser. Mach also has a full-fledged motorcycle theme going, using miniature Signal Bikes to transform and having a suit that looks like motocross gear. It's a breach of franchise tradition to deny the lead Rider a motorcycle, to be sure, but some fans have pointed out that the vehicles in some series were The Artifact anyway; and the car theme helps bring back the "man and his awesome ride" concept even if it's a different kind of ride than normal.
    • Ghost's Machine Ghostriker, which is a normal motorcycle that transforms alongside Ghost and can combine with the Captain Ghost miniature pirate ship to turn it into the Iguana Ghostriker, a giant iguana mecha. Specter has the Machine Hoodie, which holds the spirit of Harry Houdini; when Specter is channelling Houdini's power, the Machine Hoodie opens up to be used either as a jetpack or as a hoverboard.
    • In Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, bikes are rare, but they certainly make an impression when they do show up:
      • The main motorcycle seen, the Bike Gamer, is a Kamen Rider in his own right named Kamen Rider Lazer. He's able to act on his own but his best tricks requiring a Rider as a, uh, rider. It doesn't last because he soon gets more standard Rider forms which he uses almost exclusively afterwards. Other Riders (including Lazer himself, once he gets a good humanoid alternate form) can also use Lazer's Transformation Trinket to briefly summon a non-sentient version of Bike Gamer.
      • Genm's Sports Gamer is a BMX bicycle, but capable of Bike Fu attacks. It becomes armor and the wheels can be launched as weapons.
      • It hits critical mass on one occasion late in the series, where Lazer summons and rides Bike Gamer while wearing a set of Sports Gamer armor. It's a bike-themed Rider, riding his own alternate bike form, and wearing another bike.
    • Build gets the Machine Builder, a motorcycle that transforms from a smartphone. Also, his powers pair organic and inorganic materials, and a web series tie-in features him using a form where "motorcycle" is used as the inorganic half.
    • Zi-O and Geiz both have Ride Strikers, which transform from pocketwatches. Also, their Time Mazines are Transforming Mecha, whose secondary mode are massive futuristic motorcycles.
    • Zero-One has the Rise Hopper. Like Build's, it transforms from a smartphone, but there's a difference in execution; Build's phone would actively change size, while Zero-One uses his normal phone to summon a second, giant phone which then unfolds into a bike. (So why is the bike itself phone-shaped? Who cares; it's toyetic.) Kamen Rider Valkyrie also gets a major bike combat scene in the REALxTIME movie, using a regular motorcycle.
    • Saber has the Diago Speedy. In a series where the Transformation Trinkets are based on books, the Diago Speedy unfolds from a motorcycle magazine (and is named after a publisher of such magazines, De Agostini). Blades and Espada each have their own rides called Gatrikers; another phone gadget that becomes a three-wheeler equipped with gatling guns. The rest of the Riders also have Gatrike phones, but are never seen using them in the bike mode.
    • Kamen Rider Revice:
      • For the first time, the bike is tied to the franchise's Swiss-Army Hero gimmick. Kamen Riders Revi and Vice transform into different "Genome" forms together; and Vice's Ptera Genome form is a hovercycle that Revi can ride. And even better, it's not just CGI trickery (though they do use that too) — Toei partnered with an actual hoverbike manufacturer to feature a custom version of their bike in the show. Plus, as all the Genome forms are designed to resemble prior Riders, Vice's hovercycle form has a paint job that calls back to Faiz and the Auto Vajin.
      • Daiji also uses an unnamed standard-issue motorcycle on occasion for his job with Fenix; he's usually untransformed, but he does ride it once as Kamen Rider Live in the movie.
    • One of the perks of the "Boost" powerup in Kamen Rider Geats is access to a motorcycle called the Boostriker, which can turn into an animal robot that assists with Finishing Moves (generally a kitsune since that's Geats' motif, but a bull version is seen once when Buffa uses Boost).
    • Kamen Rider Gotchard revolves around "Chemy" Mons that were brought to life with the power of Alchemy, which includes a whole group of vehicle Chemies. One is Golddash, a motorcycle Chemy who serves as Gotchard's ride; there's also a spiked-wheel bicycle Chemy named Spicle in the set but it never makes a physical appearance. The series' Riders can Fusion Dance with pairs of Chemies to transform:
      • Gotchard's fusions end up pairing both bikes with animals, Golddash with a crab and Spicle with a whale, and Gotchard can choose to use any of his transformations in humanoid or non-human forms. The motorcycle/crab form ends up extremely heavily armored and can transform into a wheeled mecha-crab, while the bicycle/whale combo's humanoid form is never seen but its nonhuman transformation turns him into a giant bike with whale attributes (whale-sized, rubbery, and can spray water from a blowhole).
      • Valvarad can augment his armor with vehicle Chemies, and later as Kamen Rider Valvarad he fuses them with "Occult" (cryptid) partners. It's not clear if he'll actually use either bike fusion within the show, but his possible combos are bicycle/fairy and motorcycle/kraken.
      • At one point, a second Gotchard (normal Gotchard's future self) shows up with his own set of fiery "Daybreak" Chemies, and is shown riding in on Daybreak Golddash.
  • In Super Sentai and Power Rangers, most teams had at least one or two bikes. Some teams would get a full set of bikes for each member (the Sixth Ranger often being left out if there was one), while other teams only had bikes for certain members, forcing the others to ride on a sidecar equipped on one of the bikes or use a different vehicle. However, they were gradually phased out in the the late 90s and 00s in favor of more fantastical vehicles or upgrades to their mecha. This wasn't much of an issue for Power Rangers, where the teams mainly used teleporters in the early seasons and the bikes were only kept just for the toys. However, several seasons gave everyone (or almost everyone) a bike where Sentai did not.
    • Power Rangers also had no less than five flying bikes, each for a single Ranger in its season (Wes, Cole, Hunter, Ethan, and Will). They'd transform from motorcycles to various types of flying gear. Funnily enough, they seem to be the one piece of gear exempt from the Protagonist Powerup Privileges, as the latter three went to The Lancer instead of the Red Ranger. There's also Carter's Trans-Armor Cycle, which turned into that season’s battlizer no less.
    • Whether it's cool or not is up to the individual, but the most unique bike was the one belonging to the Omega Ranger / DekaBreak. It was a motor-unicycle! And those actually exist, some looking quite like the one in the show. Also, Omega Ranger's/DekaBreak's Humongous Mecha is a giant motorcycle that other robots can ride.
    • No Ranger in Power Rangers Samurai has a bike at all, or any vehicles for that matter, but their mentor Ji does. Mike even asks if he, as a traditional samurai, should have a horse instead; Ji only replies "Have you ever had to clean up after a horse?" Though the lack of transport for the team kind of begs the question of how they would actually get to the battlefield.
    • From the top:
      • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: All six get Shark Cycles, based on the Kakuranger bikes (of which there were originally three.) The Zyuranger bikes are seen in the background of one scene but not mentioned. The Dairanger bikes are toyline-exclusive.
      • Power Rangers Zeo: Zeo Jet Cycles for the starting five; the Gold Ranger prefers to use his energy streak ability to get places fast. Being an alien hero with a different origin, it makes sense that he would not have all the standard equipment created for the rangers of Earth. Sadly, one doesn't get made for Jason when he returns. Ohranger was the same (in terms of bikes, not the Gold Ranger's origin).
      • Power Rangers Turbo: Only the Blue Senturion has a bike; the car-themed Turbo team uses go-karts. Same for Carranger.
      • Power Rangers in Space: The Silver Ranger's Galaxy Glider can transform into the Silver Cycle. Same for Megaranger.
      • Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Only the male Rangers get 'em. The female Rangers aren't bothered by this, probably because of their ability to always somehow already be wherever the boys are arriving by bike. The main transportation for the team is the flying Jet Jammer vehicles, which all five get. Poor Magna Defender is transportation-less. The Red Ranger's bike can turn into the Red Capsular Cycle for a finisher; this finishing mode is the only bike to come from Gingaman.
      • Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue: The starting five all get bikes, but poor Ryan the Titanium Ranger is stuck riding the sidecar on Carter's bike. The sidecar could also be operated remotely for certain attacks. Also, the Trans-Armor Cycle is a bike that turns into armor becomes Carter's Super Mode. (The red bike and its Cool Sidecar are all that's from Go Go V).
      • Power Rangers Time Force: The futuristic Vector Cycles were stored in miniature form until needed. Back in the year 3000, we could see the generic versions of them used by non-Ranger Time Force officers. Again the Sixth Ranger lacks one, but the Quantum Ranger probably doesn't mind, since he gets a jet. Also, the Red Ranger eventually gets a more weaponized bike called the Stratacycle. None of these were in Timeranger.
      • Power Rangers Wild Force: All six get Savage Cycles based on their primary Zords (or in the case of Silver, it's the transformed state of his Zord and remains sentient!). When Cole's is destroyed, it's eventually replaced with a flying one given to him by Animus, based on the Falcon Zord. Gaoranger gave us the silver one only.
      • Power Rangers Ninja Storm: Cam made three Tsunami Cycles for the main trio; the Thunder Rangers stole the designs and made improved ones. Strangely, Cam himself doesn't get one, even though he's the one who invented them and there's a green Tsunami Cycle in the toyline. In Hurricanger, only the Thunder Rangers had them (and apparently, that was the original plan in Ninja Storm, as the commercials for the introduction of the Thunder Rangers described the Tsunami Cycles as theirs). Hunter of the Thunder Rangers also gets the Ninja Glider Bike, which turns into a gliding vehicle.
      • Power Rangers: Dino Thunder: Abaranger already had the Raptor Rider lizard mounts, but the CGI budget demanded that they were seldom seen outside of Abaranger footage. Enter the PR-exclusive Raptor Cycles for the primary colors, and ATVs for Tommy and Trent. The Blue Ranger, Ethan, also gets the Hovercraft Cycle. (Sadly, the teamup neglects to have an Ethan/Hunter hoverbike teamup).
      • Power Rangers S.P.D.: Bikes for the boys only, and this time, it does get a Lampshade Hanging. As does the fact that Red and Green's bikes (Power Rangers exclusives) have a lot of weapons the blue one doesn't. Also, the Omega Ranger has a unicycle-style bike, and if you want one of your own, you won't have to wait until 2025! Only Blue's bike and Omega's uni-bike were in Dekaranger. And of course, the coolest Cool Bike of all is the mecha version, racing in faster than any of the other machines (yes, even the flying ones) and able to be ridden by the Megazord as well as turn into one of its own.
      • Power Rangers Mystic Force: Both here and in Magiranger, there were Star Wars-style jet-bikes all around, except for the Sixth Ranger who gets a flying carpet. Unique to Mystic Force, the red one can turn into a more standard motorcycle. It'll be a while before we see bikes for everyone as standard Ranger equipment again.
      • Power Rangers Operation Overdrive: Neither Sentai nor Power Rangers gives everyone a personal vehicle while morphed, though Rangers gives a variety of vehicles for them to use while unmorphed. The Black Ranger, Will, gets the Hovertek Cycle, which can turn into a hovering vehicle.
      • Power Rangers Jungle Fury: Red has a bike that transforms into a finishing mode a la the Red Capsular Cycle. Yellow has a cheetah-themed bike she uses once when turned into a punk/gangster type by a Monster of the Week spell; sadly, it is only seen on that one occasion.
      • Power Rangers RPM: You'd think this vehicle-themed series would have more vehicles! Butt-Monkey Ziggy's little moped is all that exists in the way of bike-ish vehicles (while Scott and Dillon have cars instead). However, the Humongous Mecha are animal/vehicle hybrids, and it's Ziggy that gets the shark/bike hybrid. Watch out for its tail-whip strike! ...Which he first activates purely by accident.
      • Power Rangers Samurai: As said before, Mentor Ji is quite fond of his sweet ride.
      • Power Rangers Megaforce: We get no bikes in this one, but when Samurai's Jayden and Ji guest star, it's only natural that Ji's riding his.
      • Power Rangers Dino Charge: The new Dino Cycles aren't just fast, they've got tracking equipment. They're not Ranger-color-coded, instead being black and yellow like much of their equipment. They are actually created by combining two miniature unicycle-zords, a detail shared by Kyoryuger, where there are six of them total, one for each of the main five and a sixth used by the second Kyoryu Violet. In Dino Charge, we've seen them used by Rangers outside the main six, but it's unclear how many there are; you seldom see more than one or two riding them at once.
      • Power Rangers Ninja Steel: All six Rangers have Mega Morph Cycles, motorcycles that transform from shuriken. Only five are seen at first, but we do get a late-series scene with all six using them in one scene. Like in Dino Charge, they're non-personalized and the entire team gets identical ones. Ninninger didn't have anything like this, and this is the first time in a while that Power Rangers has added a set of team vehicles that Sentai didn't have.
      • Power Rangers Beast Morphers has Devon's Robot Buddy Cruise transform into a motorcycle. The Lion zord can also transform into a motorcycle to be ridden by Devon's Beast Racer zord. Same as Go-Busters.
      • Power Rangers Dino Fury in season two episode two the dino fury cycle (which is a drag racing bike for all intents and purposes) is introduced and It not only goes like a bullet every inch of it Screams style and check this out although she is not a ranger herself Solon The Dino fury Rangers female dinosaur mentor rides the dino fury cycle into battle in episode 16 Yes you heard that right a dinosaur riding a dinosaur themed motorbike only on power rangers.
  • Then Came Bronson, a loner Walking the Earth action-adventure show starring Michael Parks that ran for only one season in 1969 and '70. He does his wandering on a 1969 XLH 900cc Harley-Davidson Sportster.
  • Happy Days: The Fonz. In one episode, Richie acquires a bike of his own and asks Fonzie whether he thinks it's "nice". Fonzie's reply is the page quote.
  • Street Hawk was a short-lived 1985 Knight Rider ripoff which used a (non-talking) super-bike instead of a car. It is heavily armed, can boost assist for jumps and, when Mission Control is able to program a safe route under its control, can go over 300 MPH on urban streets with little threat of collision.
  • Dark Angel put its Action Girl protagonist Max on a black Kawasaki.
  • Spike gets one of these in Season Six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Reno Raines rides one in Renegade.
  • Tin Man : DG's ride of choice appears to be a vintage 40's era motorcycle. It's also implied by her interaction with Officer Gulch that she rides like crazy on it.
  • House MD series 2 has its medical diagnosis genius protagonist, Gregory House, buy a used 2005 Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade in Repsol race replica colours. He gets the bike at a good price as it's had an accident with very minor cosmetic damage that is not noticeable in later episodes. He adds to the coolness of the bike by stating its top speed as 180 mph, not 160 as presumed by his best friend, oncologist Wilson.
  • In the Babylon 5 episode "Eyes", Garibaldi and Lennier assemble from parts a black 1992 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-11. Garibaldi thinks it's too bad they can't ride it since they've got no gasoline, but Lennier had the forethought to install a power source of Minbari design. Ivanova says she's glad life on the station is back to normal ... then Garibaldi and Lennier go zooming by.
    • In Crusade, Captain Gideon goes for a cruise through an abandoned alien city on a flying motorcycle, complete with shades and a leather jacket. He ends up having to use the jetcycle to evade alien Attack Drones that try to shoot him down, escaping only because his bike was smaller than they were.
  • The Top Gear "1949" episode involves a race from London to Edinburgh (some 400 miles) in state-of-the-art vehicles of the time - Richard was ecstatic over choosing the legendary Vincent Black Shadow, but soon came to regret the decision over the long, long ride.
  • In the last episode of iCarly: Spencer is restoring a motorcycle for Socko's cousin Ryder, a 1964 Sterling, which is actually a Triumph like Fonzie's, but when Socko and Ryder get in a fight Socko lets Spencer keep it, who then gives it to Sam.
  • Sons of Anarchy is made of this trope. The titular bikers mostly ride custom Harley Davidson Dynas, with a few exceptions.
  • CHiPs. 'Nuff said.
  • While most of the main cast tend toward Cool Cars, Doug Penhall of 21 Jump Street instead rides a Triumph Bonneville.
  • (The Great) Biker Build-Off takes the idea, two bike builders, and makes a competition out of it: Who can make the cooler bike?
  • Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation gave Raphael a motorcycle. Despite Master Splinter's disapproval of the thing (A roaring loud engine is NOT HELPFUL when you trying to be stealthy), the idea proved popular enough to be used in the second cartoon. See below.
  • Every employee from Pizza has a scooter
    • DJBJ has a DJ Mobile.
  • In Galactica 1980 the colonial multicycles (motorbikes with flight capabilities) come achingly close, only to miss the target completely. Not unlike the rest of the series…
  • Doctor Who: in "The Bells of Saint John" the Doctor produces an antigravity motorbike from his TARDIS and rides it with his latest companion.
    Miss Kizlet: Really, Doctor? A motorbike. It hardly seems like you.
    The Doctor: I rode this in the Anti-Grav Olympics, 2074. I came last.
    Miss Kizlet: The building is in lock-down. I'm afraid you're not coming in.
    The Doctor: Did you even hear the word, "anti-grav"? [rides the bike up the side of the building]
  • Daryl's bike in The Walking Dead is a Honda 750 Nightwing he modified himself for a world full of zombies. It has acrossbow holder.
  • As in the comics (and in fact before the comics), Batgirl has a Batgirl-Cycle in the sixties Batman series. It's coolness factor is somewhat hampered by frills and bows, presumably because it's a girl's bike.
  • The Book of Boba Fett: The Mods all ride on swoops (the hovercraft equivalent to scooters or bikes) that are colorful and flashy while capable of performing quite impressive feats.
  • The Falcon in the Murdoch Mysteries episode "Murdoch Rides Easy", which can reach an astonishing-for-1910 speed of 75 miles an hour, and not even William Harley and Arthur Davidson themselves can figure out how. Murdoch's attempts to reverse-engineer this result in him inventing the nitrous oxide injector, but it turns out the bike's creator hadn't discovered this and was just lying about the speed.

    Music 
  • The cover of Judas Priest's Painkiller album features a metallic Winged Humanoid riding a draconic motorcycle with buzz saws for wheels.
  • Richard Thompson's song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is about a very cool bike.note 
    Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
    A girl could feel special on any such like
    Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
    It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
  • The late Taiji Sawada, who was a ''bosozoku'' Badass Biker that liked both Harleys and Hondas, was occasionally known to include his Cool Bike of the day in videos for X Japan in his tenure there, as well as in at least two photoshoots. It can be seen in the PV for Week End in the background of his character's death scene in the video, and it also makes an appearance in the Celebration PV.
  • Gilby Clarke's "Johanna's Chopper".
  • On the cover (and, by extension the movie poster) of Prince's Purple Rain.
  • The Happy Schnapps Combo's "Harley Davidson Polka."

    Pinballs 
  • The Light Cycles from TRON: Legacy, prominently shown on the cabinet side art.
  • In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the Terminator can be seen riding a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy during the video for "Chase Loop".
  • The Bat-Pod in Stern Pinball's Batman, prominently featured on the sides of the cabinet.
  • The Evel Knievel pinball shows Evel riding his famous Harley Davidson XR-750.
  • The protagonist's futuristic bike in Space Riders, complete with tapered nosecone, tailfins, and rocket thrusters.
  • Naturally, the various Harley Davidson pinballs feature Cool Bikes from the company.
    • The first game includes a FXSTC Softail front and center.
    • The original table from Sega Pinball has models of the FLSTS Heritage Springer, FLSTS Springer Softail, and FXDL Dyna Low Rider on the playfield.
    • Stern Pinball's "2nd Edition" and "3rd Edition" releases use models of the 1999 FLSTF Fat Boy, the 2000 FLSTF Fat Boy, and the 2001 FLSTS Heritage Springer.

    Professional Wrestling 

    Tabletop Games 
  • The WOPR from WarGames Defcon 1 has one of their earliest units being the Tri-bike, a drone motorcycle armed with twin machine-guns. It also has it's own built-in flare launcher which is used for summoning airstrikes for massive damage.
  • Warhammer 40,000 is full of Cool Bikes of all sorts. The Space Marines field Assault Bikes and their cousins the Attack Bikes with their partner sidecars. A machine able to carry one or two fully-armored Space Marines into battle at incredible speeds and provide plenty of arms for battle fits the bill. The Eldar and Dark Eldar are still able to field Jetbikes. Sleek and speedy, able to hit you before you even know it works well with either Eldar. Meanwhile, Orks can find incredible fun in their ramshackle Warbikes. Fast, deadly, and most importantly, loud, they are the epitome of the Speed Freeks.
  • Macho Women with Guns has only three character classes ... and one of them is Motorcycle Nun.
  • Steve Jackson Games' catalog once contained a fictitious entry for Kung Fu CB Mamas on Wheels vs. the Motorcycle Aztec Wrestling Nuns. Despite not actually being a real game, if it did exist, it would have had one side entirely on Cool Bikes.
  • Crimestrikers has several kinds.
    • One of the standard Crimestriker vehicles is the Thrillseeker, a motorcycle that can convert to flying mode.
    • The Rapid Pulse, G.T. Overley's custom ride, is an enclosed cycle-like vehicle. It's inspired by Visionaries' Lancer Cycle and Shadow Strikers' Smokescreen.
    • Audrey Claymore has a hovercycle, the Prairie Protector.
    • Trix Condello has her own mini-hovercycle, the Trixter.
  • Rifts has tons of these. Street Bikes, Off-road Bikes, Jumping Bikes, Transforming Bikes and well over a dozen Hover Bikes. At least half of which are armed or have that option.

    Toys 
  • From LEGO:
    • LEGO Technic and LEGO Racers have produced many fine and crazy bike sets.
    • Millennia from Slizer had two forms, one of which was a large, wide-wheeled bike ridden by his small robot form.
    • RoboRiders were bizarre cyborg motorbikes, and the front wheels are also the ammunition.
    • The Furno Bike and Speeda Demon's ride from Hero Factory.
    • The Destral Cycle from BIONICLE. So cool, it was the only one in their universe, and a villain stole it so that only he could ride it.
  • Hot Wheels have also made many Cool Bikes over the years. Special examples include the Ferenzo, the X-Blade and the Pit Cruiser, amongst others.

    Video Games 
  • Ashes 2063: Scav, the Player Character, owns an EZE Tesla-Glide '79, a chopper that most minor characters you can speak to have only praise for and some show interest in buying it off him. It's his go-to for crossing the wasteland, and fast enough to cross large gaps in roads, sometimes without needing a ramp. In Episode 2, Afterglow, it gets even better: after it's stolen and you get it back from the Roamers, a raider gang with a heavy focus on vehicles, he has attached machine guns to the handlebars and replaced the engine with a biofuel-based one that's much easier to find fuel for.
  • Asura's Wrath: Yasha's Corvette Lone Wolf is an Ace Custom jet bike with enough power to equal the Septentrion flagships used by the other deities.
  • Bayonetta gets to ride a Cool Bike for a little while midway through the game. Later, so does Jeanne when she rides up the side of a rocket to rescue Bayonetta and stop the awakening of Jubileus.
  • While the titular character of Black★Rock Shooter has been depicted with a motorcycle plenty of times in the music videos, a properly characterised version of her finally gets her hands on one in the videogame. This version of it, called the Black Trike, has both energy blasters and a pair of pretty big blades built into it for BRS to use against any Armaments that stand in her way.
  • Crash Fever has Jeanne, Pisces, and Belial ride one. Pisces' Helicoprion functions as a chainsaw.
  • Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series: The Brotherhood of Nod's attack bikes are motorbikes, with rocket launchers attached to them.
  • In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Crash gets to use a chopper to race against his rivals in the racing levels.
  • Dead Rising: It's a tradition in the first 3 games to beat a boss battle in order to gain one of these sweet rides.
    • Dead Rising: Isabela's boss fight is on a chopper, which Frank can use joyride through the mall after defeating her. There's another motorcycle in the remote parking garage (meant to be used in a late-game mission) but Isabela's bike is the most accessible due to being located in North Plaza, which houses ramps and obstacles the player can have fun with.
    • The Slicecycle from Dead Rising 2 combines this with Chainsaw Good, with two chainsaws attached to either side of the bike for maximum undead dismemberment. While Chuck drives a pre-built one in Terror is Reality, he can also MacGyver his own by duct-taping chainsaws to a dirtbike, after defeating fellow TiR contestant Leon Bell (who uses one in his boss battle).
    • The RollerHawg from Dead Rising 3 is the improbable combination of a motorcycle and a steamroller, able to flatten any zombies in its path as well as burn them. This is first used by the leader of a biker gang in a boss battle, after which Nick is free to build his own.
  • Devil May Cry series:
  • Distorted Travesty 3 takes those cool jet bikes from the opening of Mega Man X2, and lets us actually play with them.
  • Environmental Station Alpha: A joke bike item appears hidden inside the Derelict Ship after defeating Mwyah. It looks funny, increases your speed, and adds Cool Shades to the robot's picture in its menu. Although you can use it to run over enemies, it doesn't protect yourself from Collision Damage. Hitting some of the bosses at the Boss Rush with the bike results in surprisingly high damage, though, again, you're also hurting yourself in the process.
  • Everything or Nothing: James Bond's Q-Bike.
  • Extreme-G for N64 is centered around racing impossibly cool bikes.
  • Final Fantasy VII, the bike chase after escaping the Shinra building.
  • Final Fantasy VIII. The Galbadian Army doesn't use paratroopers. They use motorcyclists who ride out of the tops of buildings, then deploy jetpacks in mid-air.
  • Final Fantasy XIII. Snow's bike is composed of not one, but two women called the Shiva Sisters, Styria, and Nix.
  • Freedom Planet: Taken to ludicrous amounts with Carol's (as of yet) unnamed motorcycle. It functions as a platforming power-up more so than a vehicle. It makes sense for it to allow Carol to travel faster and run enemies over when at full speed, but it can also do double jumps whose flipping damages enemies, ride up and down walls, climb ladders, and bounce from jump pad to jump pad, and it never ever runs out of fuel. The only downside is that it's destroyed once it takes enough damage, but Carol can ride on it again if she finds a fuel canister somewhere.
  • Full Throttle is a game that uses All Bikers are Hells Angels and Badass Biker as its bread and butter; naturally, this trope is abundant. Main protagonist Ben's already cool bike eventually gets the (limited) ability to fly, even.
  • Ghost Rider (2007) have you playing as Johnny Blaze, just like the film, with a similar fiery motorcycle. And the game upgrades the motorbike until it's capable of shooting fireballs!
  • Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned: Being a game centered around a whole collection of badass bikers, has no shortage of cool bikes, ranging from classic 1950s/1960s-style Easy Rider and modern custom choppers to exotic Italian and Japanese crotch rockets.
  • Grand Theft Auto V: The online multiplayer mode, in addition to having a slew of cool motorcycles from the single-player game to choose from, introduced the Oppressor in the "Gunrunning" update. The Oppressor is distinct from other motorcycles in that it can take to the air and glide.
  • Jedi Academy: The Flare-S Swoop is a Star Wars version of a sport bike, with mounted blasters. In the Zonju V mission, the protagonist rides it in a fight/race to the death with the Star Wars version of Hells Angels.
  • In Kathy Rain, the titular character has her maroon chopper, which she has nicknamed "The Kathymobile". Big Beau, the boss of the biker gang of her old hometown, Black Hats, looks it over and comments with geniune admiration on some the modifications she has made to it.
  • Kenka Banchō 2: Full Throttle lets you purchase Bland-Name Product versions of classic bosozoku motorbikes, such as the Kawasaki Z400FX, Honda CBX400F, and the Kawasaki Zephyr, and even lets you customize their cowls, fenders, paint and tails. Other non-customizable motorcycles include scooters such as the Yamaha Jog / Majesty or Honda Forza, cruisers as Yamaha DragStar or Honda Steed, sports motorcycles such as the Yamaha FZR and the fictional YSK250RR, or others such as police-custom Honda Cub and FZR.
  • Kingdom of Loathing: Playing as the Avatar of Sneaky Pete gives you access to Sneaky Pete's trusty motorcycle, which has a built-in AI and a soothing female voice. As you level up, you can trick out the motorcycle with a variety of gadgets. As for its name, that's up to the player.
    "Wait, you're telling me Sneaky Pete--that cat who lived hundreds of years ago--had a robot motorcycle?"

    "Would you not agree that having a robot motorcycle is cool?" the motorcycle replies. "Sneaky Pete was more than cool. He was the embodiment of cool. He could not have failed to have something as awesome as me."
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The final reward of the Champions' Ballad DLC is Master Cycle Zero, a canon counterpart to the bike seen in Mario Kart 8. You can summon it from anywhere and naturally traverses terrain far better than the horses you've been riding. It's also Link's own Divine Beast.
    • The Master Cycle Zero returns in DLC for the prequel Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity as an additional weapon set... for Zelda, not Link. In-game blurbs suggest that she's really embraced the biker lifestyle.
  • Lollipop Chainsaw: The fourth boss, Lewis the Rock and Roll Zombie, has a bike that can transform into an elephant Mini-Mecha, at which point Nick stops caring about the weird shit he's seen.
  • Mario Kart:
    • Mario Kart Wii introduced bikes to the series. Especially cool ones include the Sneakster, Spear, Wario Bike, and Jet Bubble.
    • As part of a DLC pack for Mario Kart 8, not only does Link join the roster but there's also a new bike called the Master Cycle, which kind of resembles a horse. In German, it's known as The Eponator after Link's horse Epona. The Deluxe rerelease also adds the Master Cycle Zero from Breath of the Wild.
  • Mega Man X: The second game introduces the Ride Chaser, the bike variant of the Ride Armor with built-in guns. They also lack wheels - they hover off the ground. The fourth game makes them cooler with a damaging dash move and lets you ride it on the water as well (much like a jetski). And in the eighth game, they even come with moves that fit your characters.
  • Mercenaries 2: World in Flames introduces several motorcycles, including one with mounted miniguns.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: EVA's BMW R75 with optional Cool Sidecar, and the way she rides it would put Evel Knievel to shame.
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: The Triumph Bonneville ridden by Big Mama/EVA and the Speed Triples ridden by her subordinates in Act 3; it helps that they're also real-world cool bikes.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Raiden uses a motorcycle to escape from Denver. It was actually left there by his rival, Jetstream Sam, when he first arrived in Denver.
  • Mischief Makers: Lunar's mech, Cerberus Alpha, is a motorcycle that can fire missiles and lasers and also transform into a mechanical wolf that runs as fast as it rides.
  • No Man's Sky has the Pilgrim, a souped-up chopper with spherical wheels that can tear across alien landscapes at an impressive speed. Players can customize their Pilgrim's stats and paint jobs to suit their needs.
  • No More Heroes: Travis's bike, the "Schpeltiger".
  • Otomedius: Even in a World of Action Girls, the main heroes are Human Aliens riding the customized flying bikes modeled after the fighter planes in Gradius series, complete with weapons that can perform Beam Spam. In later stages, they can fly in space.
  • In Persona 5, Makoto Nijima's initial Persona is Johanna, a sentient bike that shoots nuclear death at people. In Royal, her final Persona Agnes also fits.
    Yusuke: A Persona...?
    Ryuji: No, dude... That's a bike...
  • PlanetSide 2 has the Flash, a quadbike with massive Character Customization potential. Unarmed by default, it can carry several flavors of mounted weapons, has a seat on the back for drive-by-shooting, can fit a Nitro Boost that lets it climb walls or a cloaking field generator, and repair itself. Visual customization is possible through Revenue-Enhancing Devices, like glowing Tron Lines, sweet new wheels, custom bodywork, and so on. The ATV was also present in the original Planetside albeit as three separate "variants" with no customization and only one seat.
  • Pokémon:
    • Pokémon Colosseum: Main protagonist Wes has a hoverbike monstrosity that could count as this. It has a massive engine in front that looks like it was ripped out of an eighteen-wheeler, and no wheel or any visible hovering mechanism in the front, leaving it held up by Rule of Cool alone. It even has a sidecar that his Espeon and Umbreon ride in (Rui takes the seat once he rescues her).
    • It's just barely cool, but Michael in Pokémon XD has a scooter of his own that he rides around Orre. It eventually upgrades into a hovering model as well.
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield turns the standard bike into one by giving it Rotom-powered speed boosts and the eventual ability to cross water.
    • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has the cover Legendaries double as motorcycle transportation. Befitting the theme of past vs. future, Koraidon is based on a 1950s chopper and Miraidon is based on the touring motorbikes we see today. We also meet their present-day counterpart Cyclizar, which commonly serve as mounts in the region.
  • Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal: The NPCs say that your bike can slide around everywhere and can walk on all kinds of roads.
  • In Progress Quest, one of the playable races is "Enchanted Motorcycle", and it can get one of many Fantasy Character Classes. And since you fight just about every D&D monster in the game...
  • Road Rash 64 has the "Insanity Mode" bikes named "Executioner" and "Hammerhead". Both bikes can travel upwards of 200mph. A skilled player can utilize their speed to jump over entire sections of some courses with them (including bypassing long winding turns and mountains). The Executioner appears to be a V-24 engine with wheels and a seat. The Hammerhead is a more high-tech bike that appears to have more of a jet engine. The bikes are, in fact, too souped-up for regular gameplay, but can be obtained from the beginning with a cheat device such as the Gameshark. In order to even hope to do well on most regular tracks with them, the player will have to lay off the throttle for most of the game. Jumping over a car at full speed may cause the bike to fly so far off the course that the player will not catch back up to the other racers.
  • Robopon has Cycool, a robot motorcycle that you can ride around on.
  • Saints Row 2 introduced a selection of cool bikes, from Harley Davidson choppers to Japanese racing bikes. The coolest, however, would have to be the Kaneda, the ride of choice for Ronin leader Shogo, which features neon trims and the ability to ride up walls.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog gives Shadow his very first motorcycle.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) gives Shadow a second motorcycle to use in some levels. It returns in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing as his standard vehicle.
  • Starcraft: While they end up being useless once you can build Goliaths and Siege Tanks, the Vulture units definitely qualify.
  • Speed Power Gunbike: The titular Gunbikes, which are transforming motorcycles that can turn into all-terrain and powerful robot modes as well.
  • SXPD from the Little Chicken Game Company is set in a B & W dystopian future comic book. You are a rookie of the SXPD, a lethal motorcycle division of the police, so you get an armoured motorbike with twin machine guns and some anti-vehicle rockets.
  • Syndicate (2012) has flying jet bikes for the Aspari syndicate.
  • TerraTech: The player can build bikes, generally to serve as light, high-speed attackers. They can mount cannons, missile launchers, booster rockets, and everything the player fancies, although too many will overload the wheels.
  • Test Drive Unlimited 2 features three bikes as a new DLC pack: the Trope image Harley above and both a Ducati Diavel Carbon and a Desmosedici RR that can pull off wheelies. Unfortunately, they require Atari Tokens to unlock. Meaning you have to pay real money for them.
  • Lara Croft drives a Norton in Tomb Raider I, a Ducati in Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary, and a custom made all-terrain bike in Tomb Raider: Underworld. It also shows up in the movies, with Angelina Jolie driving a Yamaha in one movie and a Suzuki in another, and Alicia Vikander riding a Triumph while being pursued in a 'fox hunt'.
  • Tourist Trophy is a spin-off of Gran Turismo full of Cool Bikes, similarly ranging from Joke Bikes like 250-400 cc scooters, to mundane sport-tourers and dual-sports, to nice classic racers, to great supersports and superbikes, to awesome GP125 and 250 race replicas and hyperbikes like Suzuki Hayabusa, to frikkin awesome Suzuka 8-hour spec racers.
  • Twisted Metal: Mr. Grimm is always driving some variant of a weapon-equipped motorcycle. Always.
  • Uphill Rush: Both the first and second games start with a bike level, with the second game especially having a potential fast and cool-looking bike. Though this is strangely averted in the third game, where a bike is the worst vehicle for Cup 1 and 2, apparently being worse than a horse, a skateboard, rollerskates, and a cow.
  • Wells: George M. Wells has a motorcycle that he can ride on in the game.
  • World of Warcraft: The Mekgineer's Chopper and Mechano-Hog in Wrath of the Lich King, then the Champion's Treadblade and Warlord's Deathwheel in Warlords of Draenor.
  • X-COM: Apocalypse: The Hoverbikes. Nothing like watching massive Flying Saucers fall down with ease before the might of a Hoverbike Swarm.

    Visual Novels 
  • In The Fruit of Grisaia Amane owns a heavily modified American chopper-style motorcycle named "Bobataro"!

    Web Animation 
  • Shrapnel
    • Averted in the first episode of KILL CONTRACT, since the "- piece of shit." bike won’t even start.
    • Played straight with Alouette’s white motorcycle.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • World Domination in Retrospect: It's not a motorcycle, but Psycho Gecko's tricked out scooter is full of hidden weapons that can thoroughly demolish police or do-gooders. Even if it is pink and has a feathered hat with the words "The Minstrel" underneath, never underestimate Gecko when he's on his Minstrel Cycle.
  • RWBY: Yang rides a motorcycle named Bumblebee. As the name suggests, it has a yellow paint job to match Yang's Color Motif. In Volume 2, she get's into a cross-city chase with a Humongous Mecha whilst riding it.

    Western Animation 
  • Robin in Batman: The Animated Series rides one of these from time to time. He gets cool bikes across the DC multiverse.
  • Biker Mice from Mars, where the Cool Bikes used by the protagonists were not only cool, and armed to the teeth, but sentient as well.
  • From Code Lyoko, Ulrich's "Overbike". A mono-wheeled, flying bike with a reactor. Virtual, but certainly cool. It has a real-world close equivalent. Main difference is the color. (And that it doesn't fly, obviously.)
  • Danny Phantom: in the first draft Danny was supposed to ride a Harley and Johnny 13 does.
  • Zoom's bike The Chopper in Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5, so called because it's both a motorcycle and a helicopter!
  • David gets one of these from Doc in Invasion America. You don't get much cooler than a bike that you pilot with your mind, and which doubles as a hovercraft.
  • The first episode of Loonatics Unleashed has Tech Coyote summon six motor bikes to the harbor by remote control. It's just one button: summon; the bikes ride themselves to the scene. Once the Loonatics mount them and get underway, they convert in transit into flying bikes. Upon these, the Loonatics engage the Ice Viking longboat, which can also fly, and shoot a Freeze Ray at them.
  • M.A.S.K had several: Condor, Piranha, Vampire, Iguana and Bullet.
  • In the later seasons of ReBoot, the virus Megabyte gets an upgrade from cool limo to Cool Bike, which is later acquired by Andraia. In her own words: "Now that is a nice bike!"
  • Most people only remember the short-lived 80s toon Spiral Zone for the numerous armed bikes belonging to both heroes and villains.
  • The SWAT Kats Cyclotron. Launches right from the Turbokat... Comes in both one and two seat varieties, has all sorts of weapons, fires miniature versions of a lot of the Turbokat's missiles. And it has a jet engine. In one episode, the Swat Kat's navigate a flooded area of Megakat city on jet ski variants of the Cyclotron.
  • As the team's resident badass, Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) had a bike.
  • Both Prowl and Oil Slick from Transformers: Animated. Prowl is a Japanese-style racing bike, Oil Slick is a positively demonic looking chopper.
  • Arcee's vehicle form in Transformers: Prime, ridden by Jack on a regular basis. It's loosely based on her live-action film incarnation, which was in turn loosely based on her Energon incarnation (times three.)
  • The Tornado Z in Zorro: Generation Z.
  • Kai's sword of fire from Ninjago is revealed to be able to transform into an even cooler motorcycle, the Blade Cycle.
  • C.O.P.S. (Animated Series) features Highway's Bluestreak Motorcycle and and the C.R.O.O.K.S.' Air Speeder.
  • The Spider-Cycle from Ultimate Spider-Man.
  • Following suit from the original Batman animated series, Robin from Teen Titans rides one.
    • As does Red X.
  • Motorcity: Chopper Mutt in the finale.
  • Legends of Chima has the Speedorz, one wheeled motorcycles that make the sound effects of their tribe's beasts.
  • In the Grojband episode "Soulin' Down the Road", Mina rides a motorcycle with a sidecar.
  • In the Poet Anderson: The Dream Walker short, all of the main Dream Walker characters have rad futuristic bikes.
  • Rex, from Generator Rex, can create the "Rex Ride", an orange and grey floating motorbike.
    • Valve also has a Cool Bike that is grafted onto his body.
  • In Gargoyles, Brooklyn, Broadway and Lexington, despite being Winged Humanoids capable of gliding high above the New York skyline, become enamored with motorcycles and elect to build a genuinely badass custom chopper... which Brooklyn accidentally wrecks the first time he takes it out for a spin.
  • The fifth season of Samurai Jack has Jack arrive riding a badass bike with spiked wheels.
  • Storm Hawks has flight capable motorbikes called Skimmers. They usually fly with a jet-propulsion system, but some have a helicopter lift like Piper's. A Whole Episode Flashback revealed that smaller versions were pedal-powered.
  • The aforementioned Lancer Cycle from Visionaries, which is also magically powered.
  • The Ratcatcher in Darkwing Duck. While not as obviously modelled on his face as the Thunderquack, it has a distinctly duckbilled front fender.
  • The incarnation of Casey Jones that appears in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) has the extremely rare instance of having a Cool Bicycle, thanks to the fact he's tricked it out with a grease slick, flamethrower, jousting spikes, firework cannon, and missile launcher.

    Real Life 
  • Although all bikes are generally cool, there are some models that are quintessentially cooler than the rest. If you have one of these, you're likely going to spark up a conversation with bikers:
    • BMW R90/S, K1200R, R1200R and R1150R Rockster
    • Triumph Bonneville, Daytona, and Speed Triple
    • Ducati, any of them, but particularly the Monster and the Desmosedici
      • Ducati engines use desmodromic valve gear. That type of valve gear is really complicated and expensive. No other manfacterer uses it. They're also immune to valve float and Ducati engines don't tear themselves apart when exceeding redline.
    • Harley-Davidson, particularly the Softail Fat Boy as made infamous by Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Harley's mystique as a symbol of Americana and iconic design has made the brand a Cult Classic, spawning clubs, ministries and gangs revolving around Harleys among other things. Also of note is of its engines, some of which have been Long-Runners like the Big Twin (aka the Knucklehead, Shovelhead, Panhead and Evolution) being produced from 1936 to 1999 and Sportster engine, which was first introduced in 1957note  and is still being sold to this day, albeit updated to keep up with modern standards.
    • Victory Motorcycles, The Rival to Harley-Davidson; its parent company Polaris Industries now also owns the Indian Motorcycles marque, eventually discontinuing the Victory line to focus more on Indian.
    • Boss Hoss, for when you need to fit an entirely unreasonable engine to a bike. Of particular note is the "Super Sport", which stuffs a goddamned V8 into a bike.
    • KTM, particularly the SuperDuke
  • The Can-Am Spyder built by BRP. One look at it will tell you why.
  • "MV Augusta's" F4 and Brutale bikes. They only make a handful of these per year, by hand.
  • The BMW R75 and Zündapp KS-750 couple from World War II were more about utility than coolness, yet they were the workhorses of the Wehrmacht, they had an automobile-like powered rear axle, locking differentials, offroad gears and usually could go where no sane driver of a Jeep or Kubelwagen would ever attempt to.
  • An entire class of motorcycles designed for the same purposes as the WWII Wehrmacht bikes flourished in the Eastern Bloc from the late 1950s to late 1970s. Some were even direct copies of the R75. Others used a much simpler design, with big two-stroke, one-cylinder engines and chain drive. In rural areas, their simple design, easy to fix on the roadside with hand tools, provided much needed mobility for people when public transport was too unreliable and cars were financially out of reach. Czech CZ or Jawa, Russian IZh, KMZ or Minsk, East German Simson or MZ. The fashion of the bike and sidecar faded when cars became more accessible and provided more comfort in that harsh climate and roads.
    • Including the Chinese Chiang Jiang.
  • The modified "Indian" Scout used by Burt Munroe at the Bonneville salt flats; it still holds the land speed record for motorcycles under 1000cc.
  • Most Indian motorcycles of the late 1930s to the early 1950s, but above them all the Indian Four. One can hardly be more Diesel Punk than that.
  • Henderson four-cylinder motorcycles were among the earliest brands to hit regularly 100 mph in full road trim, which made them the favorite brand of police forces in the 1920s. Before Harleys, Moto Guzzis or even Indians.
  • The legendary Vincent Black Shadow, widely considered the world's first superbike, with a top speed of 125 MPH, which was insane for its time period but has since been topped by other bikes. Hunter S. Thompson loved the bike in question and famously wrote about it in his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
  • Enclosed motorcycles, for those who like a more futuristic look, like the Peraves Monoracer or the TECA Technologies concept bike.
  • The Honda Valkyrie Rune. Oh, the Honda Valkyrie Rune...
    • It's predecessor, the Valkyrie F 6 C, set the stage as a production bike with a rather radical concept- take the 1500cc flat-six engine out of the then-current Goldwing, hop it up a bit (to the tune of 100 horsepower), then strip off nearly all excess weight by putting into a frame of a standard cruiser. What your left with is a bike that will do nearly everything- renouned Goldwing smoothness and reliability on long rides, but a lot more punch if you grab a handful of throttle.
      • Not all that radical, more a return to its roots. The original GL1000 Goldwing was designed as a muscle bike. Due to its smooth, torque-happy engine, low-maintenance shaft drive and comfortable riding position many long distance riders started fitting theirs out with fairings and saddlebags. Honda took notice and started offering the Wing as a full-dress touring bike from the factory.
    • There's also its successor, the 2nd Gen Valkyrie, where the design changes and improved power-to-weight ratio (mainly by fitting the larger displacment engine from the 1800cc Goldwing) have firmly shifted the bike into the "Power Cruiser" or Muscle Bike territory.
    • Then there's the Honda NM4, also known as the "Vultus"note  in some parts of the world. The result of what happens when Honda tells their engineers and designers to go ahead and make a Cool Bike, originally with the intent of displaying their skills as a concept bike, and they decide to build a tribute to Kaneda's motorcycle and other futuristic designs. Honda realized it was realistic and practical enough to go ahead and put it into mass production.
  • Speaking of cool Honda bikes, the 1978 Honda CBX stands out amongst other classic Japanese bikes with an advanced DOHC 24-valve inline 6-cylinder engine. While the chassis wasn't particularly special, the exhaust note is sure to turn heads as it straight up sounds like an F1 car. No really, take a listen...
    • 6-cylinder bikes in general have coolness built right into them, literally. The Benelli Sei, the Honda CBX, the Kawasaki Z1300 are greatly sought after by classic motorcycle enthusiasts for a good reason. Nowadays though, 6-cylinder engines are mostly used on cruisers or muscle bikes. However, they have made a comeback in the last decade with Honda's new Gold Wing GL1800 and its close rival, the BMW K1600.
  • Dodge Tomahawk. It uses the exact same engine that the Dodge Viper sports car does. What sort of engine is that, you ask? A V-10. A very high-displacement V-10. Despite giving the bike the highest top speed of any motorcycle (350 MPH), this unfortunately makes the bike a case of Awesome, but Impractical, as the weight and size of the engine meant that it had to have 4 wheels side-by-side and the fuel tank had to be mounted way at the front to avoid the heat the engine gives, and has a fuel economy figure of about 60 feet to the gallon.
    • You could be forgiven for believing it safer to just take the warhead off a missile and ride that instead. (It'd probably still be just as safe with the warhead left in place.)
  • If you want a somewhat practical alternative to the Tomahawk, Boss Hoss motorcycles produces a line of special high-performance motorcycles and trikes powered by Chevrolet "Small Block" or "Big Block' V8 engines. Despite their sheer size, power and weight, they are surprising comfortable to ride thanks to a combination of high build quality, low engine vibration and semi-automatic transmission with a reverse gear. Certainly a rare example of Awesome, and practical. As practical as needing a car-sized fuel tank just to have the same range as smaller motorcycles.
  • Bimota's Tesi line of motorcycles, especially the Tesi 3D, with its much sleeker looks compared to its predecessors - The idea behind the design seems to be to put as much emphasis on its two-wheeled-ness as possible without impairing its functionality as a speedbike.
    • The unique front suspension (technically called a hub-center steering system) also serves a practical purpose: the traditional front suspension, consisting of telescopic forks, have a constantly varying rake (degrees from vertical) as the bike pitches forwards and backwards, which can upset the bike's handling. The hub-center steering system maintains a constant rake, preventing this.
  • One does not talk about cool bikes without mentioning a Confederate.
  • The 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa one of very few street-legal motorcycles in the world capable of going faster than 300 km/h. The main reason for this is because in 2000 all the motorcycle manufacturers agreed to have safety measures to prevent bikes from going above that when they realized that few people can safely handle bikes going faster than that.
  • The legendary British motorcycle maker Norton returned in The '90s. They made a new Manx, but they also presented the Nemesis A, only a prototype of which was made. It had a 1.5-liter V8 that allegedly produced 280bhp with natural aspiration, and it was unveiled before speed governors became mandatory, so it's safe to say that the Nemesis A would have mopped the floor with the Hayabusa and basically anything short of...
  • The MTT Turbine Superbike, also known as the "Y2K Turbine Superbike", is one of the few commercially jet engine powered motorcycles. As cool as this sounds, with its up to 410 shaft horsepower engine and aggressive looks, it's subverted in the sense that it's really loud, produces really hot (1400F degrees) jet wash, and is treated as something of a Dancing Bear in the land of motorcycles. Jay Leno has got one.
  • For sheer specs alone, the Kawasaki Ninja H2R deserves a mention. It packs an inline-four, supercharged, 998cc engine that produces a whopping 310 bhp of power - making it the most powerful road-homologated bike ever. This handily beats most entry level sports cars and makes it as fast as most high-end supercars. Oh, and its looks reek of pure badass.
  • The Lightning LS-218, an electric bike with a claimed top speed of 218 mph, which would make it the world's fastest production motorcycle.
  • The Arc Vector, also electric but more bells and whistles than you shake a stick at. 0 to 60 in 3.1s, but the controls are where the amazing happens. Keyless, reliant on the supplied helmet, which contains a HUD that replaces onboard dials and readouts. The rear facing camera is fed to the HUD and haptic feedback in the supplied armoured jacket provides other warnings eg imminent loss of grip or approaching traffic from behind. The price, though. £90k sterling, about $115k US.
  • The Münch-4 TTS, also unofficially known as the Münch Mammut, was one of the coolest bikes you could ride in The '60s, and it became the father of the modern big bike. Its inspiration came when its later designer, Friedel Münch, took a glance under the hood of a NSU Prinz 1000 TT, looked at the air-cooled four-banger and decided, "This needs to power a bike." It went into small-scale production in 1966. It was huge for its time, there's no denying that. But in spite of its size and weight, the 1968 version with 1,200ccm and 88bhp easily outran everything the Brits and Italians sold, even leaving Vincent Black Shadows in the dust while fully loaded. Naturally, Jay Leno has got one.
    • Münch returned for a short time with the Münch Mammut 2000. A bike made from the year 2000 on—and with a roughly 2,000ccm turbocharged (!) engine and 260bhp. It must have been one of the first bikes with a speed governor, and the engine produces so much power that you may think the clutch is slipping at 3,000rpm when it's actually the rear wheel.
  • As the previous paragraph goes to show, if German individuals design motorcycles, they usually go completely and utterly bonkers.
    • For example, there have only ever been Germans hunting for the biggest single-cylinder bike world record.
      • First, there was Franz Langer of Fulda who built a bike based on the legendary NSU Osl kingshaft bikes that topped out at 750ccm. His first creation had a full liter.
      • The Werner comics introduced the "Satte Literschüssel" with another alleged one-liter single that's so big it's part of the frame. When it was Defictionalized, it turned out having 1,444ccm, beating Langer. Oh, and it has got a fork that's mostly made of wood.
      • His reaction was the "NSU Bison 2000", basically a two-liter Osl. (German article about the bike)
      • Unbeknownst to both Langer and the makers of the "Satte Literschüssel", an even bigger single was in the making by Claus Mees the blacksmith who also happened to have made the leaf spring for the Literschüssel's shovel blade seat. "Hannibal der Gewaltige HG 3000" ("Hannibal the Enormous") was built around a 30-pound piston that Mees found at a junkyard. It has got 3,034cui, and it's so heavy that it requires a sidecar to move. (And another German article)
    • Speaking of Werner, it has got some more bikes that were either Defictionalized or made before their comic appearances. As mentioned in the Comics section, the four-engine Horex "Red Porsche Killer" and was Defictionalized like the "Satte Literschüssel", the "Heizölkessel" with its twin-crankshaft turbo-diesel inspired a Real Life diesel chopper, and the "Dolmette" with its 24 chainsaw engines was made as a nod to Werner and ended up in one of the stories.
    • Probably only a German (and Werner fan) would build a bobber with a 550ccm stationary diesel evaporator engine.
    • The Panzerbike. Whatever you may expect now is spot-on. 12 cylinders. Some 800 horsepower. But as the name indicates, the engine was salvaged from a Soviet tank, and the rest of this 5-ton monster is made entirely of military junk.
  • The Vespa 150 TAP: a normal Vespa 150 scooter that the French licensed manufacturer reinforced and equipped with a 75mm recoiless rifle and six rounds to provide mobile anti-tank firepower to the paratroopers. The rifle is supposed to be dismounted and fired from a tripod, but in emergency it can be fired from the moving scooter.


 
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In the streets of Oahu

Magnum and Juliet give chase to a suspected MSS agent. Magnum uses a Ferrari 488 Spider while Juliet uses a dirt bike.

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