Motorcycle Trivia
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101 free Motorcycle trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
53 free Motorcycle trivia questions with answers. Motorcycle trivia gets far more interesting once you leave the brochures behind. These 101 questions cover the first petrol-powered machine of 1885, the best-selling motor vehicle ever built, the cylinder angle behind the most famous exhaust note in the world, and the sound a company once tried to trademark. The quiz also takes in racing and riding: the Isle of Man mountain course and its unhappy record, the year the TT lost its world championship status, MotoGP's engine rules, Evel Knievel's bone count, the neurosurgeon whose research put helmets on riders' heads, and half a million people descending on the Black Hills every August. Every answer was checked against a primary reference before publication, so the dates, capacities and statistics here are accurate rather than pub wisdom. Difficulty runs from easy warm-ups to a few that will only fall to someone with oil under their fingernails.
30 of 101 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was the first internal combustion, petrol-fuelled motorcycle?
The Daimler Reitwagen
The Daimler Reitwagen of 1885 was built as a test bed for Daimler and Maybach's new petrol engine, which they meant for carriages.
Q 02Which 1894 machine was the first series production motorcycle?
The Hildebrand & Wolfmüller
The Hildebrand & Wolfmüller was designed by former steam-engine engineers, so its engine drove the rear wheel directly through connecting rods, as a steam engine would.
Q 03Which star rides a stolen motorcycle toward the Swiss border in the 1963 film The Great Escape?
Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen did most of his own riding and even put on a German uniform to chase himself, though stuntman Bud Ekins is widely credited with the famous fence jump.
Q 04Which machine is the biggest selling motor vehicle of all time?
The Honda Super Cub
The Honda Super Cub was designed so it could be ridden one-handed, leaving noodle-shop delivery riders a free hand to balance their orders.
Q 05Per mile travelled in 2024, US motorcyclists died at roughly how many times the rate of car occupants?
About 27 times
About 27 times: 28.00 deaths per 100 million miles against 1.05 for cars, because a crashing rider lacks the protection of an enclosed vehicle.
Q 06In Easy Rider, what was Peter Fonda's stars-and-stripes Harley chopper called?
Captain America
Captain America, the chopper Fonda rode, was stolen along with Dennis Hopper's bikes before the film was even released.
Q 07Why did rivals oppose Harley-Davidson's engine-sound trademark?
Their V-twins sound similar
Their V-twins sound similar, rivals such as Honda and Yamaha argued, and after almost six years of opposition Harley-Davidson dropped the application in 2000.
Q 08Which company bought Harley-Davidson in 1969, presiding over a period of quality problems?
American Machine and Foundry
American Machine and Foundry later sold the company back to 13 Harley executives led by Vaughn Beals, who improved quality and turned the business around.
Q 09Why was the first TT held on the Isle of Man?
Racing ban
A racing ban on Britain's roads sent organisers to the island, whose authorities agreed to close public roads for the race.
Q 10Why were the 2001 Isle of Man TT races cancelled?
A foot-and-mouth outbreak
A foot-and-mouth outbreak was destroying cattle across mainland Britain, and there were fears the TT's visiting crowds would carry the disease to the island.
Q 11Why did the Isle of Man TT lose its world championship status after 1976?
Top riders boycotted it
Top riders boycotted it, calling the Mountain Course too dangerous for world championship racing.
Q 12Whose record 26 Isle of Man TT wins did his nephew pass in 2024?
Joey Dunlop
Joey Dunlop also drove across Europe with aid for Romania and Albania, charity work recognised with an OBE.
Q 13Which 1960s advertising slogan sold small Japanese motorcycles to Americans?
You meet the nicest people
You meet the nicest people, the ads promised, showing housewives and other respectable riders and recasting a pastime tied to black-jacketed outlaws.
Q 21What was Evel Knievel's real first name?
Robert
Robert Knievel reportedly shared a 1956 night in jail with a man called Awful Knofel, which led to the nickname Evil Knievel, later respelled Evel.
Q 22Which canyon did Evel Knievel try to cross in a rocket-powered cycle in 1974?
Snake River
Snake River Canyon was his fallback after the government refused to let him jump the Grand Canyon, and the early parachute left him drifting back to earth.
Q 23After crashing at Wembley Stadium in 1975, what did Evel Knievel tell the crowd?
He would never jump again
He would never jump again, he promised, then walked off rather than take a stretcher; that October he jumped 14 buses at Kings Island in Ohio.
Q 14Which Italian company makes the Vespa?
Piaggio
Piaggio had built bomber planes, and with its Pontedera plant wrecked by bombing it turned to a simple, cheap scooter to get postwar Italy moving.
Q 15What does the word 'Vespa' mean?
Wasp
Wasp is what vespa means in Italian, and the scooter is said to have been named for its narrow waist, like the insect's.
Q 16What did the Vespa's designer, Corradino D'Ascanio, think of motorcycles?
He hated them as bulky and dirty
That dislike is exactly why the scooter has a step-through frame and enclosed engine. He was an aeronautical engineer by training.
Q 17Which 1953 film sent sales of the Vespa scooter soaring?
Roman Holiday
Roman Holiday had Audrey Hepburn's runaway princess ride a Vespa through Rome with Gregory Peck, and the scooter's sales soared afterwards.
Q 18What did the company behind Yamaha motorcycles make for decades before building its first motorcycle in 1955?
Pianos and organs
Pianos and organs were its trade from the 1880s, which is why the Yamaha logo still shows three crossed tuning forks.
Q 19Which rider won a record 15 Grand Prix motorcycle world championships?
Giacomo Agostini
Giacomo Agostini shocked racing by leaving MV Agusta for Yamaha in 1974, then won the Daytona 200 on his first ride for his new team.
Q 20How did the 2002 Grand Prix rules favour four-stroke bikes?
Bigger engines
Bigger engines, up to 990cc against 500cc for two-strokes, let four-strokes dominate, and two-strokes soon vanished from the premier class.
Q 24What injuries did Knievel suffer in his famous Caesars Palace crash?
A crushed pelvis and femur
A crushed pelvis and femur were among his injuries, yet the crash, which actress Linda Evans helped film, made him more famous than ever.
Q 25Why did US states repeal helmet laws after 1976?
Congress lifted a penalty
Congress lifted a penalty that had pushed all but three states into universal helmet laws by 1975, and states soon began repealing them.
Q 26Whose fatal motorcycle crash spurred research that made British Army despatch riders wear helmets?
T. E. Lawrence
T. E. Lawrence swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles, and Hugh Cairns, a neurosurgeon who attended him, went on to prove what crash helmets could do.
Q 27Whose 1952 journey across South America on an old Norton motorcycle is told in The Motorcycle Diaries?
Che Guevara
Che Guevara was still a medical student, and when the bike broke down he and a friend went on by boat and on horseback, seeing poverty that marked him.
Q 28Why did British racing star Barry Sheene drill a hole in the chin of his crash helmet?
To smoke on the grid
To smoke on the grid, Sheene cut the hole; he had smoked since childhood, a habit blamed for the cancer that killed him in 2003.
Q 29In which US state is the Sturgis rally held?
South Dakota
South Dakota's Black Hills hosted the rally even during the 2020 pandemic, and health officials in many states later traced virus cases back to it.
Q 30What did Sturgis ban in City Park during the rally?
Camping
Camping there ended in the early 1980s, over residents alarmed by rally crowds by one account, or over fire outbreaks by the rally's own timeline.