For the most part, motorcycles are inexpensive when you compare them to cars. Two wheels instead of four, smaller engines, significantly less metal required to build them, and no need to make seating for five is often enough to keep prices low. After all, motorcycles are just simple machines with transportation in mind, and maybe a bit of fun, right? Well, that’s not the case with all bikes.
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Some bikes are so purpose-built that they’re essentially race-prepped machines. They offer carbon fiber body work and race-bred suspension, and sometimes they don’t even qualify as street legal. On the other side of the spectrum, there are motorcycles with features like big stereos, heated seats, tons of storage, and big customizable digital screens — all the creature comforts that make for an excellent long-distance ride.
Both extremes are the bikes we’re interested in here — the ones you’d expect to see parked in a driveway on a modern-day episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” or the ones that are a few nuts and bolts away from lining up at the start line to MotoGP. To clarify, these aren’t the most expensive bikes on sale today. For that kind of list, we’d probably have to dive deep into the customization process with small custom manufacturers like Arch, whose prices often knock on the door of $100,000. Instead, these are some of the most expensive bikes, from some of the biggest motorcycle manufacturers that currently sell bikes in the United States.
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