Standard bike (vehicle class)

Standard bikes, commonly known as outside drifting bikes or outward drifting bikes, are a class of bikes that are able to drift. Introduced as just drift type (「ドリフトタイプ」) bikes in Mario Kart Wii, they have become one of the four body classes in Mario Kart 8, distinguished from sport bikes.

Due to their ability to drift, they in general handle in a similar way to karts since their introduction in Mario Kart Wii. In both Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8, they can be distinguished from sport bikes by looking at the usually more upright posture of the character riding them.

Mario Kart Wii
Standard bikes are introduced as drift type (「ドリフトタイプ」) bikes in Mario Kart Wii. They are not explicitly distinguished from sport bikes in the vehicle selection screen and as such, the player needs to look at the posture of the rider to understand whether the selected bike is a standard bike or a sport bike. All the chopper bikes (Wario Bike, Shooting Star, and Phantom) drift out while performing a manual drift, so they're categorized under the standard bike vehicle class.

The main distinguishing feature of standard bikes is their ability to drift like karts, unlike karts however as soon as they start drifting after landing from a jump they quickly slide toward the outside of the turn for a brief moment, leading to slightly different lines. Furthermore, their turning capability (angular velocity) while drifting is in general significantly lower than that of karts.

Like all the other bikes in the game, they are unable to charge Super Mini-Turbos, but the rider is able to perform wheelies on the player's input to temporarily increase their top speed.

Since in Battle Mode it is only possible to choose the Standard Kart and the Standard Bike, standard bikes are the only class of bikes that can be used in Battle Mode.

Mario Kart 8 / Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Standard bikes return as one of the four body classes of Mario Kart 8, alongside karts, sport bikes, and ATVs. In this game, they are given a proper name, and are fully distinguished from sport bikes in that they have their own distinct icon on the vehicle customization screen.

Just like in Mario Kart Wii, standard bikes are able to drift, but in Mario Kart 8, their drifting behavior is identical to that of karts and ATVs, and much like those vehicle classes, they are able to charge Super Mini-Turbos (and Ultra Mini-Turbos in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe). In addition, players are no longer able to perform wheelies with standard bikes, although purely cosmetic wheelies are performed during mushroom and dash panel boosts. Furthermore, standard bikes generally have average-to-good handling statistics, leading to them having good to best turning capability while drifting as a consequence. Like karts and ATVs, but unlike sport bikes, standard bikes can also perform firehops and slides in the original Wii U version of Mario Kart 8.

When riding them, the characters perform the same animations that they perform on ATVs, with the sole exception of the drifting animations. Furthermore, since CPU-controlled characters are always able to ride the Standard Bike, standard bikes are the only class of bikes that are used by all CPU-controlled characters in both Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Gallery
Names in parenthesis are European variants.