Dual-sport motorcycle

A dual-sport motorcycle is a type of street-legal motorcycle that is designed for both on and off-road use. The terms all-road and dual-purpose are also used for this class of motorcycles. Dual-sports are equipped with street-legal equipment such as lights, speedometer, mirrors, horn, license plate mounting, and muffler and can, therefore, be registered and licensed.

Evolution of dual-sports

The concept of a versatile motorcycle equally at home on dirt and pavement is as old as motorcycling itself. Most roads were still unpaved when motorized bicycles first appeared around 1900. In a sense, all motorcycles at that time were dual-sports, intended to be used on dirt as well as pavement. Advertisements well into the 1920s depict motorcycles on dirt roads, raising clouds of dust. By 1940, most roads in developed countries were paved and motorcycles had become heavier and more oriented to the street. In the 1950s and 1960s British manufacturers such as Triumph and BSA offered versions of their relatively light street motorcycles with high exhaust pipes, and called them scramblers.