In Rider Rewind, a special section in 2024 issues that celebrates moments in Rider?s 50-year history, we showcased Motorcycles of the Year for 1990-2006 in the October issue and for 2007-2023 in the November issue.

Our May 1990 issue included our Touring’s Top Ten Awards, the precursor of the Motorcycle of the Year award.

For the past 35 years, Rider?s editors have reviewed the annual batch of new and significantly updated motorcycles and narrowed them down to a handful of finalists. The Motorcycle of the Year is the bike we believe best fulfills its intended purpose and advances the state of motorcycle design, performance, and function.

Our May 1990 issue states “Among the eight motorcycle and two miscellaneous categories, there will be no ties, no honorable mentions. Just Touring’s Top Ten as determined by the Rider staff.”
In the early days, we published the Touring Top Ten, which included the best seven motorcycles in various categories, two general categories (such as Top Innovation), and a Motorcycle of the Year. We limited motorcycles to those in the current model year, and production timing used to be so early that we published the Touring Top Ten in the May issue.

As the magazine?s mission expanded, our annual awards evolved. In 1999 ? our 25th anniversary ? they became Rider?s Top Ten. In 2003, we adopted our current format of selecting a top tier of finalists and one winner. Production timing has changed such that the MOTY...