Supermotard: the off-road bike on slicks that conquered the tarmac

Racing & circuitsSupermotard1979 to today

Born in 1979 on the Californian Carlsbad circuit, supermotard owes everything to an ABC show, Superbikers, dreamed up by promoter Gavin Trippe to pit motocrossers, flat track riders and road racing champions against each other on one and the same track. Kent Howerton pocketed the 11 000 dollars promised to the winner of the first edition. The recipe comes down to a mix of tarmac and dirt, an enduro base refitted with 17-inch wheels and a 320 mm front disc. Once it crossed over to Europe, the discipline became a world championship in 2002 and crowned Frenchman Thomas Chareyre eight times.

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Superbikers: when a TV show invents a discipline

Most motorcycle disciplines are born of a need, a stretch of terrain or a gang of enthusiasts. Supermotard, for its part, was born of a television idea. In 1979, British promoter Gavin Trippe sold the American network ABC a concept meant for the show Wide World of Sports : bring together on a single track the stars of every motorcycle sport speciality and see which of them comes out on top. The event was called Superbikers and was held at Carlsbad Raceway, near San Diego, California.

The entry list for that first edition, run at the end of 1979, is dizzying. You find motocrossers such as Kent Howerton, Jeff Ward and Sweden's Hakan Carlqvist, the reigning 250 motocross world champion; flat track specialists such as Mike Kidd, Steve Eklund and David Aldana; top-flight road racers with Kenny Roberts, then the 500 world champion, Freddie Spencer and Eddie Lawson ; and even Peter Collins, world speedway champion in 1976. The purse was indecent for the time: 11 000 dollars to the winner out of a total prize fund of 20 000 dollars, at a time when winning a national championship round paid a few hundred dollars. It was Howerton, the motocrosser, who walked away with the cheque.

Over the following editions you also come across Wayne Rainey, Bubba Shobert and Ricky Graham, and Superbikers becomes the date everyone is hoping for. Then the ratings erode, supercross monopolises the attention of the American public, and ABC pulls the plug on the programme in the mid-1980s — most sources place the last edition in 1985, a few in 1986. The discipline goes to sleep in the United States. It does not know it yet, but its second life is waiting on the other side of the Atlantic: the European riders who came to race at Carlsbad took the idea home in their luggage.

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The mixed track: tarmac, dirt and a jump

The whole appeal of supermotard lies in its mixed track. A typical track uses an asphalt stretch — often a real karting or motorcycle circuit — then switches with no transition onto a dirt section , compacted, dotted with obstacles borrowed from motocross and, almost always, with a jump. You then come back onto the tarmac to complete the lap. In a one-minute lap, the rider changes worlds, grip and riding logic twice.

The proportions are not left to chance. Supermoto tracks generally run between 50 and 75% asphalt, the rest being dirt; the international benchmark sits around 70% tarmac to 30% dirt, and French regulations allow a range of 50 to 80% hard surface. That dose of dirt changes everything: it stops the race from becoming a simple speed event and demands a versatility that neither circuit racing nor motocross alone calls for.

Another consequence: speeds stay reasonable. You rarely go beyond 160 km/h in supermotard, a long way from the top speeds of a road racing circuit. So the spectacle comes not from outright velocity but from density — late braking, permanent slides, passes at corner entry, a jump landing followed by braking on tarmac. It is probably the discipline where you see the most things happen per metre covered.

🏍️ The look of off-road riding, its dirt and its jumps, also inspires wall decor: take a look at our Motocross Wall Art.

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The machine: an off-roader refitted with 17-inch wheels

Back in the ABC days, with no rubber suited to this unprecedented mix of dirt and tarmac, the entrants rode on recut flat track tyres — 19 inches at the front and 18 at the rear on Howerton's winning machine, the original knobblies having proved far too unstable on asphalt. The modern supermotard machine was built afterwards, following a recipe of formidable simplicity: you take anenduro or motocross base and re-shoe it.

The founding move is the switch to 17-inch wheels, sometimes 16.5 inches at the front in competition, which make it possible to fit road tyres — semi-slicks or genuine racing slicks, up to 7 inches wide on the sharpest machines. Then comes braking: with rubber that finally grips the tarmac, the original 260 mm disc is no longer enough. The standard for the discipline is an oversized 320 mm front disc, mounted on an offset bracket and paired with a beefed-up caliper. The suspension is shortened and stiffened, the gearing revised, but the skeleton remains that of a dirt machine. The choice of rubber becomes a racing subject in its own right from that point on.

The result is a bike of indecent lightness: around a hundred kilos , for a four-stroke single of 450 cm³ putting out something like 60 horsepower on today's factory machines. That power-to-weight ratio, combined with wide bars and off-road ground clearance, explains why supermotard is so often described as the best riding school there is: the bike forgives little, but it warns you a lot. On the road, that same marriage of dirt and tarmac gave birth to a whole family of machines, cousins of the scrambler and the streetfighter in riders' imaginations.

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Foot forward: the technique stolen from flat track

Supermotard's visual signature is instantly recognisable: at corner entry, the rider stretches the inside leg out in front, foot off the footpeg, body shifted to the inside, while the rear wheel drifts. This move comes neither from circuit racing, where you hang a knee out, nor from motocross: it is inherited directly from American flat track, where riders have been sliding on a steel shoe since the discipline's earliest decades, between the wars.

Technically, the supermotard slide comes from a precise combination. The engine braking of the big single, added to the forward weight transfer caused by hard braking, lightens the rear until it lets go. The rider then goes with the movement, steers the machine on the rear end and uses that outstretched leg as a balancing pole — and, if grip disappears completely, as an emergency prop. The front brake, here, is not just there to slow you down: it places the bike.

It is this grammar that has spread far beyond the discipline. Many road racers now train on supermotard or dirt track machines precisely to learn how to manage a line when the bike lets go. The discipline built a generation of riders at ease with sliding, at a time when the off-road streak was fading from road racing paddocks.

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France takes over supermotard

France was the ideal host country. As early as 1981, a first race inspired by Superbikers was organised at the Carole circuit, in the Paris region, on the initiative of Philippe Debarle. A Trophée de France Supermotard of five rounds started in 1983, put together by Philippe Vassard and Alain Brochery through their company Sekoïa, before becoming a full French Championship at the end of the 1980s. The word itself — "supermotard", a very French contraction of super and motard — then took hold as the European name for the discipline, where the Americans speak of supermoto.

That soil produces champions. When the FIM finally created a world championship in 2002, it was a Frenchman, Thierry Van den Bosch, who took the very first crown. A second category, S2, ran alongside S1 from 2004 to 2009, before the world series went back to a single class in 2010. And from there, one name crushes everything: Thomas Chareyre, eight-time world champion between 2010 and 2020, the discipline's absolute record holder. In France itself, Sylvain Bidart swept up eight national titles and was even crowned United States champion in 2009.

Because the Americans had ended up coming back: the AMA launched its own AMA Supermoto Championship in 2003, won three years in a row by multiple motocross champion Jeff Ward in 2004, 2005 and 2006, before the series stopped after the 2009 season — of which Bidart was, as it happens, the last winner. The X Games also hosted supermoto from 2004 to 2009, giving the discipline a slice of TV exposure that echoed its origins.

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Supermotard today

The world championship still exists. Renamed FIM S1GP, it runs a tight, very European format: the 2026 season lines up six rounds spread across five countries, from Albaida in Spain on 29 March to Mettet in Belgium on 11 October, by way of Sardinia, Piedmont, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Germany's Marc-Reiner Schmidt reigns there unchallenged with five consecutive titles from 2021 to 2025.

Alongside the individual world championship, the FIM Supermoto des Nations, created in 2006, plays the role that the Motocross des Nations plays for dirt: a contest between national teams. And there, French domination is overwhelming — thirteen wins on the board, the latest in 2024, with long unbroken streaks. In France, the Fédération française de motocyclisme has run the national championship directly since 2010, with seven rounds a year and more than 300 riders entered; supermotard has been recognised there as a high-level discipline by the Ministry of Sports since 2021.

The fact remains that supermotard is still a niche passion, without the media coverage of MotoGP or of supercross. That may well be its strength: a discipline that lives on Sunday karting circuits, where you meet as many riders who come from off-road as road racers who have come to learn how to slide. Forty-seven years after Carlsbad, Gavin Trippe's idea still stands up: put everyone on the same mongrel track and we will soon see who can really ride.

🏁 To bring the off-road spirit home, our Motorcycle Posters & Prints cover dirt just as well as tarmac.

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Summary table

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FAQ — Frequently asked questions

• What is the difference between supermotard and supermoto?
  None in substance: they are two names for the same discipline. "Supermoto" is the American-born term and the FIM's official name, while "supermotard" is the word coined in French-speaking Europe when the discipline took root there in the 1980s.
• Why do supermotard bikes have 17-inch wheels?
  Because that is the standard size for road tyres. Refitting a motocross or enduro machine with 17-inch wheels makes it possible to run semi-slicks or slicks, the only tyres able to exploit the grip of the asphalt sections of the track.
• Why do riders stick a leg out in corners?
  It is a technique inherited from American flat track. The engine braking of the big single and the forward weight transfer make the rear wheel let go: the outstretched leg acts as a balancing pole to control the slide and, if needed, as an emergency prop.
• Does the supermotard world championship still exist?
  Yes. Created in 2002, it is contested today under the name FIM S1GP. The 2026 season features six rounds spread across five European countries, from Spain at the end of March to Belgium in mid-October.
• Who is the most successful rider in supermotard history?
  Frenchman Thomas Chareyre, with eight world championship titles taken between 2010 and 2020. Since then, Germany's Marc-Reiner Schmidt has strung together five crowns from 2021 to 2025. In the French championship, Sylvain Bidart holds eight national titles and was also crowned United States champion in 2009.

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