Do people commute on dirt bikes?

[vacationer]

So, I've only ever had scooters, and I was looking around for a new one recently when I realized I didn't understand what the difference was between a scooter and a dirt bike. Do people commute on dirt bikes? What makes scooters more popular for road travel?

[Lucass2T]

Where to begin...
I used to have a streetlegal dirtbike, a Honda cr500 supermoto (dirtbike with street tires).
It was pretty fast, loud and made some heads turn. Thats about it for the pro's.
People usually don't daily dirtbikes because the don't have lighting, horns, blinkers, mirrors, no electric start etc etc. A dirtbike is a bike made solely and only for racing. Scooters are made for girls and elderly people.

[aeroxbud]

Not really as when you measure rebuilds in hours used, not miles. It's very expensive and time consuming maintenance.
A trial bike could be though. Something like a suzuki DRZ400,Yamaha XT600.

[90GTVert]

A dual sport or supermoto may be used for commuting legally in many areas, but not a true dirt bike.

A supermoto is more or less a dirtbike with accessories like lights and horn to make it legal and usually much more street friendly tires. If you go looking for supermotos, you still have to pay attention because there are supermotos that are built for racing (like a dirt bike, but for paved racing) and there are supermotos that are what I described... which may be a bit of a compromise coming from a manufacturer to make it more sensible for road use. Some people do their own supermoto conversions, and I think the legality of that and requirements will vary by location.

Dual sports can look pretty similar to a dirt bike or supermoto, but they are definitely a compromise. They generally come ready for road use. They are not as capable as a dirt bike off road and engines may vary, but they are much more suited to road use than a dirt bike.

One pro that Lucass didn't mention about these types of bikes is that they tend to be very light. Not necessarily very light compared to scooters that most of us are used to, but light compared to motorcycles. You don't get many amenities or storage on any of these and the more offroad oriented may be kick start only.

[aitch]

Do you live and work in the forest?