Television gave motorcycle culture something film never could: time. A two-hour movie shows you a ride. A seven-season drama shows you a life built around riding. The build shows went further and let people watch a machine come together bolt by bolt, week after week, which no film had ever tried.
There is no authoritative rider ranking of motorcycle television, so this is an editorial list with a stated method rather than a pretend community poll. Everything below is grouped by what the show actually is: drama, build show, adventure series, or racing. For the bigger picture of how TV fits into biker culture alongside films, clubs, and the riding life, our motorcycle culture guide lays out the full map.
How We Judged the Best Motorcycle TV Shows
Four editorial checks. They are not a numeric score, and a show does not need to lead every category. A drama can be worth watching without being mechanically precise, and a well-shot build cannot rescue a series that has nothing to say.
| Criterion | What we checked |
|---|---|
| Riding credibility | Whether real riding and real machines carry the screen time, rather than static bikes and cutaways |
| Build credibility | Whether the fabrication shown is functional work with a documented outcome |
| Cultural value | What the show recorded or changed about motorcycle culture |
| Craft | Story, access, and whether the series still rewards a full watch years later |
| Category pick | Why it leads | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Sons of Anarchy | Seven seasons of club structure, consequence, and Dyna-heavy riding footage | The scale of violence and criminal enterprise is written for drama, not documented from any real club |
| Biker Build-Off | Every bike had to be ridden to the rally, so nothing on screen was a trailer queen | Short episodes and a shallow bench of builders by the later rounds |
| Long Way Round | Genuine expedition riding with real mechanical failure on camera | It is a travel series first, so the motorcycle content thins out in the interview stretches |
| Motorcycle Mania | The clearest portrait of one builder’s hand fabrication on television | Three specials only, and it is a profile rather than a series |
The Dramas: Club Life, Long Form
Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014)
Network: FX. Creator: Kurt Sutter. Seven seasons, 92 episodes.
Nothing else in the category is close. Set in fictional Charming, California, Sons of Anarchy follows SAMCRO, the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original, through gun running, internal politics, betrayal, and a body count no real club would survive.
The series premiered on FX on September 3, 2008 and ended on December 9, 2014, running 92 episodes over seven seasons. Charlie Hunnam plays Jax Teller, the vice president and eventual president whose split between his father’s idealist vision and the club’s criminal reality drives the whole arc. Katey Sagal as Gemma Teller Morrow gives the show its center of gravity.
The bikes: SAMCRO rides Harley-Davidson Dynas almost exclusively. Enthusiast and production coverage identifies Jax’s main machine as a Dyna Super Glide Sport with T-bars, forward controls, and a reaper logo on the air cleaner, with other members on Street Bobs, Low Riders, and Wide Glides. Specific model years vary between sources, so treat any single year as unconfirmed unless a production document supports it.
We broke down the bikes across the series, Jax’s Dyna, Clay’s Road King, Tig’s Street Bob, the prospect Sportsters, in our Sons of Anarchy motorcycles deep dive.
What the show gets structurally right is the shape of club life: the prospect period, the patch, church, and the table. What it amplifies is everything else. Real motorcycle clubs run on codes the show captures in spirit while inflating the specifics for television. Claims that named 1%er club members appear as background riders circulate widely online, but no production credit or interview we could verify establishes who appeared or in which episodes, so this article does not repeat them as fact.
Mayans M.C. (2018-2023)
Network: FX. Creators: Kurt Sutter and Elgin James. Five seasons.
The Sons of Anarchy spinoff shifts to the Mayans Motorcycle Club on the California and Mexico border. EZ Reyes, played by JD Pardo, is a former golden boy turned prospect whose intelligence makes him both valuable and dangerous.
FX chairman John Landgraf announced at the winter 2023 Television Critics Association press tour that season five would be the last. The final season ran on FX from May 24 to July 19, 2023, across ten episodes. Mayans is darker and slower than its parent show, trading Charming for border-region cartel politics, and it never found an emotional anchor to match Jax Teller.
The bikes: Mayans ride Dynas as well, mostly Street Bobs and Low Riders, keeping visual continuity with the SOA universe. Green-and-black accessories and air cleaner covers separate them from SAMCRO’s setup.
The Bikeriders (2023 film, not a series)
Jeff Nichols’ film is not television, but it covers most of a decade of club life and plays like a limited series, so riders working through this list usually end up watching it. Reports of a series adaptation have appeared, but nothing has been ordered that we can verify, so treat it as a film recommendation only. We covered it in our best biker movies guide.
The Build Shows: Wrenches on Camera
American Chopper (2003-2012, revived 2018)
Network: Discovery Channel.
Before American Chopper, motorcycle building happened in garages where nobody watched. After it, building was prime-time entertainment and the Teutuls, Paul Sr. and Paul Jr., were household names.
The show followed Orange County Choppers in Rock Tavern, New York, building theme bikes for corporate clients, celebrities, and events. The real draw was the family conflict: father and son shouting across a fabrication shop, then somehow finishing a motorcycle by the deadline. Our profile of Paul Teutul Sr. covers what happened to the shop and the family afterward.
The bikes: OCC built softail choppers with radical rakes, big-inch S&S engines, and elaborate theme paint. Many were show pieces that saw limited road time. The metalwork and paint craftsmanship was real, whatever you think of the format.
The cultural impact is hard to overstate. American Chopper brought custom motorcycles into living rooms that had never thought about bikes. It also set the expectation that a build needs a sponsor and a theme, which is the part of its legacy the custom scene is still arguing about.
Biker Build-Off (2002-2009)
Network: Discovery Channel.
This is the build show most riders prefer, and the reason is structural. The series premiered on September 28, 2002. Two custom builders each got a budget and a deadline to build a bike from scratch, then rode those bikes to a rally where the audience voted on a winner.
The ride is the whole point. Every bike had to be rideable, so the format ruled out trailer queens by design. If a bike would not run, the builder got a window to fix it before disqualification, and on several episodes the competing builder waived the disqualification rather than win on a breakdown. That sportsmanship is a large part of why the show is remembered fondly.
Builders featured: Billy Lane, Indian Larry, Dave Perewitz, Eddie Trotta, Mondo Porras, Arlen Ness, and Russell Mitchell of Exile Cycles, among others. One round put Arlen Ness against his son Cory. Our piece on Billy Lane’s choppers covers one of those builders in depth.
The bikes: Traditional choppers, bobbers, pro-street builds, and radical customs. The range is what makes it an education rather than a highlight reel.
Motorcycle Mania (2001-2004)
Network: Discovery Channel. Three specials.
Jesse James and West Coast Choppers. Before American Chopper turned building into a family sitcom, Motorcycle Mania showed it as a craft. The specials followed James in his Long Beach shop, fabricating by hand, welding frames, and building bikes that were aggressive, functional, and stripped of decoration.
It is a profile rather than a series, and that focus is its strength. If you want to understand why a builder stays up all night finishing a set of pipes nobody ordered, this is the clearest hour of television on the subject.
The Adventure Shows: Long Roads, Big Miles
Long Way Round (2004), Long Way Down (2007), Long Way Up (2020)
Networks: Sky in the UK, Apple TV+ for Long Way Up. Stars: Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman.
The gold standard of the category. In Long Way Round, McGregor and Boorman ride from London to New York the hard way, east through Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Mongolia, and Alaska. Long Way Down runs Scotland to South Africa. Long Way Up covers Ushuaia at the southern tip of South America to Los Angeles.
These work because both riders are genuinely skilled and genuinely suffer. Mongolia’s ruts wreck their bikes. Mud nearly ends the trip. The support crew openly questions whether the route is possible, on camera.
The bikes: BMW says Long Way Round used R1150GS Adventures and Long Way Down used R1200GS Adventures. For Long Way Up, Harley-Davidson says the LiveWire motorcycles were production-based machines modified with prototype rotors, wheels, and tires from the then-unreleased Pan America, plus a custom windshield, rear shock, and triple clamps, and that both bikes were validated at the company’s proving grounds before shipping. Apple TV+ put the route at roughly 13,000 miles over 100 days through 13 countries.
A “Long Way Round effect” on adventure-bike sales gets repeated constantly. We could not find a public model-level sales record that isolates the series from the wider adventure-bike boom, so it stays an anecdote here rather than a fact.
Ride with Norman Reedus (2016-present)
Network: AMC. Star: Norman Reedus.
The Walking Dead star rides through different countries with a different companion each episode. Reedus is a genuine enthusiast, which is why the show carries more credibility than most celebrity riding projects. Season six premiered on AMC and AMC+ on September 10, 2023, with guests including Keanu Reeves and Johnny Knoxville, and the series has continued past it.
The format is relaxed and closer to a travel show than a biker show. The guests carry it. Peter Fonda appeared before his death in 2019, closing a loop back through the entire history of motorcycle cinema.
The Racing and Stunt Shows: Speed on Screen
TT3D: Closer to the Edge (2011)
Technically a documentary film, but it streams like a series and belongs in this conversation. It follows Guy Martin and other racers at the Isle of Man TT, a road course run at speeds no closed circuit allows. The racing footage is extraordinary. If you want to understand why people accept that risk, start here.
Evel Knievel Specials (1970s)
Networks: ABC and CBS.
Not a series in the conventional sense, but Knievel’s televised jumps were appointment viewing through the decade. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History holds his 1972 Harley-Davidson XR-750, describing it as the bike he used from December 1970 until his final jump in January 1977, weighing roughly 300 pounds, with takeoff speeds of 90 to 100 mph and airborne distances up to 165 feet. The museum also records that he fractured 35 to 40 bones over his career.
The 1974 Snake River Canyon attempt is often filed with his motorcycle jumps. It used a steam-powered Skycycle X-2 rocket, not a motorcycle, which is worth knowing before you argue about it in a bar.
MotoGP and race docuseries
Streaming platforms have moved into motorcycle racing documentaries, following the model Drive to Survive built for Formula 1. Production quality is high and the paddock access is genuine. Whether the format converts viewers into riders is an open question, but it is putting Grand Prix racing in front of an audience that previously thought racing meant four wheels.
Shows That Missed the Mark
Not everything with a motorcycle in the promo art earns your hours:
- Full Throttle Saloon - Bar drama with motorcycles in the background rather than a motorcycle show.
- Biker Battleground Phoenix - Manufactured conflict around the Phoenix bike scene.
- Outlaw Chronicles: Hells Angels - Interesting subject, but the talking-head format strips out the riding entirely.
How to Check Where a Motorcycle Show Is Streaming
Streaming rights move by country and by month, so any fixed list of services goes stale fast. Start from the rights holder rather than a third-party guide: FX and Hulu for Sons of Anarchy and Mayans M.C., AMC for Ride with Norman Reedus, Apple TV+ for Long Way Up, and discovery+ or HBO Max for the Discovery build catalog including Biker Build-Off. Confirm the title, year, and region inside the service before you pay for anything.
What Separates the Great Ones from the Forgettable Ones
The pattern across every motorcycle show that lasts is the same one that separates a good biker movie from a bad one.
Real riding and real building. Biker Build-Off built the requirement into the rules. Long Way Round filmed the breakdowns instead of cutting around them. Motorcycle Mania pointed the camera at a lathe and let it run.
Bikes that matter to the story. In the shows that hold up, the machine is not set dressing. SAMCRO’s Dynas tell you who the club is. Knievel’s XR-750 is the whole act.
Respect for the culture. The shows that fail use motorcycles as a costume for generic reality-TV conflict. An audience of riders spots that inside five minutes, which is why the build shows get rewatched and the bar-fight shows do not.
If any of these got you interested in club culture, our MC complete guide covers the real organizations. The Ghost Rider motorcycle breakdown is worth a look if you want to see where comic books and choppers collide. And if the build shows have you itching for a garage project, browse our patches and merch to outfit the shop wall while you wrench.
Sources
- FX - Sons of Anarchy - network page for the series, its seasons, and cast
- Variety - Mayans M.C. to End With Season 5 at FX - John Landgraf’s TCA announcement that season five would be the last
- Deadline - Mayans M.C. Wraps Series With Explosive Finale - the July 19, 2023 series finale on FX
- discovery+ - Biker Build-Off - rights-holder page for the Discovery competition series
- AMC - Ride with Norman Reedus Returns For Season 6 - network announcement of the September 10, 2023 premiere and guest list
- Harley-Davidson - Pushes EV Technology to the Edges of the Earth With the 2020 LiveWire - factory release detailing the Long Way Up bikes and their prototype Pan America components
- Harley-Davidson - Apple TV+ Unveils First Look at Long Way Up - route, mileage, and premiere details for the Apple TV+ series
- BMW - Long Way Round on a BMW R1150GS Adventure - factory release identifying the motorcycle and route
- BMW - Long Way Down on the R1200GS Adventure - factory release identifying the later motorcycle and Africa route
- Smithsonian National Museum of American History - Evel Knievel’s Harley-Davidson XR-750 - museum record for the 1972 XR-750, its use window, weight, and jump figures
- IMDb - American Chopper - production credits and episode guide for the Discovery build series
