The bad news that we were talking about a month ago has continued, and now data from the UK’s Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA) shows exactly how bad it is.
Statistics released late last week show that the number of new bike registrations in the United Kingdom was down a stunning 19.3 percent in 2025 against the year before.
Keep in mind, too, that 2024 wasn’t exactly great. A number of brands were on the ropes, and several UK dealerships were forced to close their doors for good that year.
Jumping back to the recent data: in total, some 93,922 motorcycles, mopeds, and tricycles were sold last year, according to the MCIA. Compare that to 116,399 in 2024.
Interestingly, one of the hardest hit capacity segments is the one that so many manufacturers seem to be diving into at the moment: bikes of 500cc capacity or less, such as the (excellent) Royal Enfield Himalayan 450, the (somewhat less excellent) BSA Bantam 350, the expanding line of Triumph 400 models, or all those bikes that Suzuki says it’s going to make but hasn’t yet.
These ‘smaller’ bikes are largely being hailed as the savior of motorcycling, but in 2025, at least, it doesn’t appear that consumers were necessarily singing from the same hymn sheet.
Registration of bikes with a capacity of 126 to 500cc dropped 21 percent in 2025 over the previous year. Things weren’t much better further up the ladder, with bikes of 501cc-750cc suffering a 20.6-percent hit.
The least affected capacity was bikes of 751cc-1000cc, which saw only an 8.4-percent drop in registrations.
Meanwhile, in terms of style segments, the hardest hit in 2025 was the so-called ‘Custom’ sector. Generally, MCIA uses that term to mean ‘cruiser.’ Registrations were down 26.1 percent there.
Harley haters should be careful not to read too much into that, though, because MCIA doesn’t differentiate between capacities when it gives numbers for segments. So, for example, it says that the best-selling “custom” in December 2025 was the China-made Zontes ZT125-C (which looks unabashedly similar to a Honda CMX500 Rebel). How many cruiser fans would really call that bike a cruiser, though?
Still, with the MoCo having shuttered even more dealerships in 2025, it’s clearly not good news.
The next hardest-hit segment was modern classic, which saw a 23.7-percent decrease in registrations.
The least-affected segment was the confusingly named ‘competition’ sector, which apparently refers to road-legal enduro, trials, and trail motorcycles. That segment took a 9.2-percent hit in 2025 when compared to 2024.
Side thought: Since the MCIA doesn’t seem to make a distinction in its segment statistics between a Zontes ZT-125C and, say, a Harley-Davidson Street Bob, I wonder what the line is between an enduro bike and the wide range of machines that fall into the adventure category (which was down 14.4 percent in 2025).
The only real gains in 2025 came in the EV segment, and even there the good news was mixed. Overall, registrations in the segment were down 12.5 percent. But they were up in certain capacities. For electric bikes producing 5kW to 11 kW (roughly 6.7 bhp to 14.7 bhp), registrations were up 6.5 percent. For electric two-wheelers producing 12 kW to 35 kW (16 bhp to 47 bhp), numbers were up 1.3 percent.
Of course, take it all within context. That boost in the 12kW-35kW category came from the sale of just one more vehicle in 2025 than in 2024.
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