After one other 12 months full of new metallic, rigorous testing and numerous miles on roads and circuits right here and overseas, the Visordown Awards return to focus on the bikes that genuinely stood out in 2025.
This 12 months’s outcomes have been revealed stay at MCL25, marking not solely the end result of twelve months of unbiased analysis but in addition the beginning of an thrilling new partnership. For 2026, the UK’s main bike insurance coverage model, Carole Nash, will formally be part of because the title sponsor of the Visordown Awards, strengthening our shared goal to champion the bikes that matter to actual riders. Collectively, we are going to proceed to check, scrutinise and have fun the machines that transfer the business ahead.
Carole Nash are delighted to be introduced because the proud sponsors of the 2026 Visordown Awards. With over 40 years of expertise within the motorcycling business, their goal is to get riders out on the street with appropriate bike insurance coverage cowl for his or her pleasure and pleasure. There could not be a greater alignment with the Visordown Awards 2026. We stay up for celebrating the numerous producers who commit such ardour, dedication and time bringing the motorcycling neighborhood collectively, with excellent bikes and merchandise all year long. We’re additionally excited that one of many awards in 2026 can be judged by you – the viewers – alongside knowledgeable panels from Carole Nash and Visordown. We stay up for sharing extra particulars on this all through 2026. Here is to all of the very worthy winners of 2025. We stay up for celebrating the following section of winners in 2026.
Listed below are the bikes that earned their place on the high.
Finest Tremendous Bare – Triumph Pace Triple 1200 RX
Triumph Pace Triple 1200 RX
It’s received to be. It’s the best-handling Pace Triple I’ve ridden, simply probably the most thrilling, and doubtless the quickest round a observe. It’s a correct thrill trip, and if you happen to’re into your observe days or simply get pleasure from a motorbike that fights again a bit, the RX delivers in spades.
For those who’ve ever thought your Pace Triple RS was only a bit too well-behaved, the RX is your barely unhinged, rowdy cousin. It’s extra dedicated, extra succesful, and far more enjoyable if you happen to’re the type of rider who enjoys a motorbike with a little bit of angle. The brand new RX feels just like the Pace Triple you purchase if you need one thing that’s more than pleased to struggle again when provoked. It’s wild, quick, and unapologetically aggressive. It’s the Pace Triple turned as much as eleven.
Finest Sports activities Bike – Ducati Panigale V4 S
Ducati Panigale V4 S
Past the lap instances, it’s clear that Ducati has made substantial progress when it comes to really feel and dealing with. The 2025 mannequin is extra steady, planted, and considerably simpler to trip. The place the earlier model might need required calming shortshifts, particularly when exiting quick, sweeping corners, the brand new Panigale calls for full throttle, unleashing each little bit of its Italian horsepower with out hesitation. This newfound confidence interprets into sooner lap instances.
The developments in rider aids and braking expertise are actually exceptional. No Ducati superbike has ever been this simple to trip persistently and safely. You’ll be able to push the bounds, relying closely on the bike’s rider aids—a shift in mindset that lets you do belongings you wouldn’t ordinarily try. The Panigale flatters the rider, enhancing lap instances and making observe using extra satisfying. In brief, it makes you quicker.
Finest Sports activities Tourer (Beneath 1,000cc) – Triumph Tiger Sport 800
Triumph Tiger Sport 800
One other triple within the Tiger vary means it swells to a frankly baffling ten bikes (if you happen to embrace the Tiger 850 Sport and the assorted editions of Tiger 900s and 1200s), but it surely does a minimum of imply there’s now a defacto sports activities tourer to select from, and never an ADV that has been tailored for all times on the street.
With its 17-inch wheels, sporty tyres, suspension and punchy engine, the Tiger Sport 800 turns into the Hinckley manufacturing facility’s apparent alternative for these in search of glorious on-road efficiency with out compromising on consolation, vary or baggage carrying capability.
It’s a extremely completed machine in its personal proper, and easily taking a look at it as a bored-out model of the model’s current Tiger Sport 660 can be doing it an enormous disservice. It’s fairly presumably Triumph’s most versatile on-road touring bike because the days of the 1050 Sport or the Dash GT.
Finest Sport Tourer (Over 1,000cc) – Kawasaki Ninja 1100SX SE
Kawasaki Ninja 1100 SX SE
If you’re in search of a extra conventional tackle the sports activities tourer, Kawasaki’s Ninja 1100SX continues to be a mannequin that may’t be ignored. It’s the longest-living mannequin within the phase for a purpose, and whereas visually it’s little modified for 2025, beneath the pores and skin there’s sufficient occurring to pique the curiosity of current Ninja 1000 homeowners and people trying to ditch a wristy sports activities bike with out shedding out on thrills or efficiency. It’s a motorbike that merely evokes confidence if you trip it. The chassis, suspension, brakes and engine all work collectively superbly to create a using expertise that may be as thrilling or relaxed as you want.
Do I want the bike had adopted its taller sibling into the world of semi-active digital suspension? Sure, in a approach, I do. I for one would have handed again the Brembo stoppers and Ohlins shock and swapped them for the Showa digital suspension, and I’ve a sense quite a lot of riders would do the identical. Not solely is the Showa equipment extraordinarily good on the street, it additionally opens up adjustments to rear preload on the push of a button, that means you can flick from solo using to two-up with baggage with out having to guess what number of clicks of preload you require. Possibly Kawasaki is simply ready to shock us all with an SX + mannequin in 2025, I suppose we’ll have to attend and see.
Finest Fashionable Basic – Triumph Pace Twin 1200
Triumph Pace Twin 1200
The Pace Twin 1200 has huge boots to fill now that the Thruxton is unfortunately no extra. However fill them it will possibly, because it feels rather more like a correctly sorted efficiency bike than the Thruxton ever did. And it isn’t only a comparability between this bike and its older sibling, for me the Pace Twin all the time felt like a little bit of a confused mannequin, prefer it was by no means fairly positive if it was a sporty roadster or a straight-forward neo-retro.
What Triumph has achieved with the 2025 replace, and due to the introduction of the brand new RS model, is firmly clear up that confusion. On the one aspect, you will have the Pace Twin 1200, a neo-retro with sufficient poise and talent to entertain any rider of any skill and expertise degree. And on the opposite aspect of the storage, we have now the Pace Twin 1200 RS, a motorbike that’s with out a shadow of a doubt a correct retro sports activities bike. It’s extra succesful and exact, and if you push on, it is extra rewarding to trip.
To sum up the 2 fashions I believe the easiest way to explain them is by saying that the inventory Pace Twin can do 90 per cent of the issues its sibling can, with nearly as a lot poise and management. The RS’s social gathering trick although, is that if you push on to search out that closing 10 per cent or so, you’re not going to search out the restrict on the higher-spec bike. It’s fairly spectacular simply how succesful it’s now.
Finest Journey Bike (Over 1,000cc) – BMW R1300 GS
BMW R1300 GS
Though we discovered for ourselves that the GS does very nicely for itself off-road, it’s on the asphalt the place it actually shines. For bombing throughout a number of international locations in in the future after which offering extra leisure than you may count on on the different finish, few bikes do it higher.
The one drawback is, you’ll want some pretty deep pockets. The bike begins at £16,470, however most will find yourself spending much more than that. Our check bike had the ‘Choice 719’ ticked, which provides the attractive ‘Tramuntana’ Auerelius Inexperienced Metallic paint and gold wheels mixture, a consolation seat, electrical windscreen, pillion package deal and billet pack for an additional £2,820. Must you wish to add the Dynamic Package deal on high of that so as to add the quickshifter and the adaptive suspension, it is an additional £1,660.
Get carried away within the configurator, and you may quickly inflate the value past £25,000. Not precisely chump change, however the GS has by no means been an affordable bike, and in any case, BMW bikes stay in a bizarre microcosm separate from a lot of the bike business. Individuals are completely satisfied to pay these costs, as confirmed by the R1300 GS persistently topping UK gross sales charts because it was launched. After spending a number of thousand miles on a brand new GS, we utterly perceive why.
Finest Middleweight Bare – Ducati Streetfighter V2
Ducati Streetfighter V2
Having sampled Ducati’s V2 engine within the Panigale on observe earlier within the 12 months, I used to be trying ahead to attempting it once more however in its extra road-focused kind. And what a street trip to take it on. Our group headed out at 9am from the coast of Almeria in Spain and coated round 120 miles of Spanish mountain roads with a number of miles of motorway thrown in for good measure. It was an awesome mixture of roads to check out this new 890cc V-twin, particularly as we have been greeted with sapphire-blue skies from the second we left, with the solar persevering with to shine all through our six-hour trip.
Ducati has began from scratch when designing this new engine, and it has resulted in a Streetfighter that’s utterly completely different to the earlier mannequin. Moderately than charging in and changing the outdated Superquadro 955cc V2 engine with extra energy and a slap within the face, Ducati has taken a second to rigorously think about what it’s that prospects need and the efficiency that’s truly wanted from a motorbike to create an all-round package deal that’s extra scalpel-like, lighter and extra useable however nonetheless with sufficient gutsy efficiency to make it helpful on the street. I used to be impressed by the Panigale V2, however now we have now the choice of bringing lots of these new options right into a Streetfighter package deal – a package deal that saves you round £1,000.
So this road-focused distinction may simply take your fancy greater than the marginally pricier and racier Panigale. We’ve seen simply how standard bare bikes have turn into over time and though that is on the extra premium finish of the market, you might be getting a superb package deal and lots on your cash when it comes to the electronics and {hardware}. So to me, as we’ve examined it at the moment, it is a wickedly candy dealing with street bike however if you happen to do the occasional observe day, I don’t doubt that this wouldn’t be quite a lot of enjoyable to mess around with, particularly on tracks like Cadwell or Oulton Park, as a result of it has all of the tools it must carry out on the circuit too.
Finest Highway-Centered Sport Bike – Yamaha R9
Yamaha R9
All in all, the brand new R9 is a riot. Granted, at locations like Silverstone, you’ll be getting dropped on the straights a good bit, however that entrance finish feeling you’ll get from the bike will greater than make up for it’s straight line shortcomings. And that’s to not say that the R9 is sluggish, fairly the alternative the truth is, however in comparison with a 200bhp-plus sports activities bike, you’ll be left barely behind.
What I discovered fascinating at Donington was how shut the R9 seemed to be compared to some track-day R6s. It’s a good remark that I used to be evaluating my using to the opposite riders (and never the bikes they have been using), however I got here throughout a variety of R6s on the observe, and the newer bike felt greater than a match for the riders I used to be dicing with. The R9 was noticeably punchier out of the corners, the truth is, whereas I used to be already cranking on the throttle to get down the following straight, a number of of the R9-mounted riders would nonetheless be feathering the throttle. For me, that once more highlights how rather more forgiving the brand new bike is in comparison with inline four-cylinder tremendous sport choices.
Finest Cruiser – Harley-Davidson Low Rider ST
Harley-Davidson Low Rider ST
Wish to look cool crawling alongside the seafront? Low Rider ST. Wish to get pleasure from curving roads whereas conserving your license? Low Rider ST. Wish to go to Austria? Low Rider ST. I wouldn’t select it for my each day commute, but it surely may do this, too, if you happen to’re the kind to commute on a £21k bike.
The bike’s price ticket could also be its solely Achilles heel. However presumably I’m solely saying that as a result of I personally don’t have the £21,295 wanted to satisfy its beginning worth. In reality, the Low Rider ST might be value what Harley desires for it.
Certain, yow will discover the identical options in a extra reasonably priced package deal. However that bike received’t look, sound, and really feel like this one.
That bike received’t be the form of machine that you simply’ll be inclined to carry on to for all times, the type that you simply’ll brag about within the outdated people’ residence, the type that your children will maintain up footage of you using and say: “Look how cool my dad was.”
The Low Rider ST will provide you with all that and extra.
Finest A2 Bike – Honda GB350S
Honda GB350S
After round 500 miles and two weeks of use, the little Honda has been the proper bike to ease into the 2025 using season. It’s a machine that appears nearly purpose-built for crisp spring mornings and hazy late afternoon journeys to the native biker cafe. Take the GB350S for what it’s, and settle into its relaxed manner, and also you’ll by no means be disillusioned.
Quick, it might not be, however it is rather entertaining to trip and with attraction and character in abundance. It is exhausting to not crack a smirk each time I trip it. Including to that feel-good issue is the associated fee, each to purchase and run. For a shade beneath £4,000 you might be getting a significantly accessible bike, that doesn’t scrimp on kerb enchantment, is as simple to trip as a bicycle and appears completely sensible. My solely actual remorse just isn’t snagging one for a few weeks longer.
Finest Worth Bike – 2025 – Honda CB1000 Hornet
Honda CB1000 Hornet
It was EICMA 2023 when Honda first revealed the idea for the CB1000 Hornet, and it seemed candy, with about the fitting equipment on it, and with an engine that’s extensively considered among the best inline four-cylinder items of the late 2010s.
However there’s something else that the Hornet does beautifully nicely, and it is a trick I’m unsure I’ve skilled on some other modern-era Hondas. It’s that this bike appears like a enjoyable bike. By that I don’t imply it’s a motorbike that you could have enjoyable on when you trip – as just about any bike can do this. What I imply by that assertion is that this appears like a motorbike that wishes to have enjoyable. It’s completely satisfied to tug wheelies, and slither into corners. It’s a significantly fast bike that does not take itself too significantly. I get the impression that making the rider smile from ear to ear whereas using the brand new CB1000 was firmly on the Honda design crew’s to-do checklist. The truth that whereas they ticked that field in addition they created the most effective worth tremendous bare you should buy appears like a really completely satisfied accident!
Visordown Bike of the 12 months – Honda CB1000 Hornet
Visordown bike of the 12 months award
One of many areas the place the CB1000 Hornet stands out probably the most is its worth, as Honda’s range-topping bare undercuts lots of its rivals when it comes to worth. The usual mannequin at present prices £9,099, with the higher-spec SP variant priced at £10,099. These are each very aggressive figures in at the moment’s marketplace for any 1000cc bare, and are cheaper than Yamaha’s MT-10 (£14,320) and Kawasaki’s new Z1100, for instance, which prices £11,099 in customary trim, whereas the SE variant is priced at £12,699.
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