TM motorcycles are back in the U.S., and we were delighted to get a 2026 MX450Fi for our upcoming 450 shootout. We have a long history with TM motorcycles going back over 30 years and we were bummed when the previous importer packed up and moved back to Europe two years ago. Now, Cam Mitchell of 71 PowerSports has taken up the job.
TM isn’t like any other company. It’s a family owned business out of Pesaro, Italy and isn’t a subsidiary of any larger company. All the motorcycles are hand-made–you can tell when you look at the welds on the aluminum frames that no robots are involved. Accordingly, that makes them more expensive than most other bikes. For 2026, 71 Powersports is taking orders for custom built bikes. You choose the bits and parts you want and then a bike is built in Italy and air-freighted in.
For our shootout we would have preferred a base model of the 450, but we had to take what was already here in the U.S. That happened to be the bike that came over for Stuart Edmonds to ride in the Motocross of Nations for Ireland. It was a Corse Edition, which has a number of high-end parts in addition to various non-production items that Edmonds bought with him from Ireland. Afterward, the bike went to Get Dirty Dirt Bikes where Dave Turner replaced all the bodywork and made it into something a real-world customer could order. The base price of the 450 is $12,199, and the Corse livery adds another $1600. That includes upgrades to the brakes, fork clamps, chain guide and engine cases. Our test bike came with Bridgestone tires.
The 450 is already a fairly exotic motorcycle. It has the fuel tank located under the seat and the airbox on top. The fork is a KYB while the shock is made in-house by TM. The front brake is a Brembo and the rear brake is a Nissin. The EFI system is by a company called eMoticom.
Our last TM 450 test was way back in 2013. That bike had the fuel tank in the traditional location but it did have electric start and EFI. You can see that the current bike is an evolution of that one. TM isn’t a company to throw away an entire motorcycle and start over.
When you ride the 2026 TM, it isn’t like any other bike on the track. It has a combination of old-school power delivery with modern output. Right off the bottom it’s a beast and puts out enough torque to go head to head with anything in the class. As it climbs, it does have kind of an old world feel as if it’s turning a lot of flywheel mass. It peaks out with output that’s typical of most of today’s 450s, but when it’s done, it’s done. This isn’t a bike that likes to be over-revved.
Another distinctive trait is the sound. For bystanders, it isn’t that different from any other 450, but from the rider’s perspective it has a sort of howl. With the intake pointing up, you can hear air rushing into the motor.
The rider layout is spread out. This is a large motorcycle and not especially light. On our scale it’s 241 pounds with the fuel drained. It’s an even 10 pounds heavier than the Yamaha YZ450F, but only a couple of pounds more than a Kawasaki KX450. In overall handling, we consider it a very stable motorcycle. This is remarkable because the rear suspension is stiffer than the front, giving it a nose-down feel. If a Pro were to race the TM, he would probably want to make the fork stiffer to balance things out. For the average guy, the shock should probably be softer.
In the shootout, the TM never sat for long. It was clearly a bike that generated a great deal of interest and no one came back with a negative attitude. To check out our 2026 450 MX Shootout and see how the TM stacked up against the others, check out our Youtube channel next week or hang out at the newsstand for the February, 2026 print edition of Dirt Bike.
See you next time!