Brits say Skyfall has the greatest motorcycle movie scene of the 21st century, but did they get it right?

Ask ten of your biker buddies to name the greatest motorcycle scene ever put on film, and you'll probably get ten very different answers. Some will head straight for Steve McQueen’s daring escape from the Nazis, while others will point to Tom Cruise drag racing a jet on either a GPZ900R or a Ninja H2. A few (myself included), might even throw Mad Max into the mix - although not this Z50J Jim Goose replica. But according to a new survey, one scene stands above the rest.

Research commissioned by motorcycle insurance specialist Carole Nash has crowned the opening chase from Skyfall as Britain's favourite motorcycle movie scene of the 21st century.

The sequence, which sees Daniel Craig's James Bond chasing an assassin across the rooftops of Istanbul before launching onto a moving train, claimed 18 per cent of the vote, narrowly beating two entries from the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Tom Cruise's spectacular cliff jump and motorcycle duel from Mission: Impossible 2 finished second on 16 per cent, while the frantic Paris chase aboard a BMW R nineT in Mission: Impossible - Fallout completed the podium with 15 per cent.

Britain's favourite motorcycle movie scenes

1 Skyfall (2012) Istanbul rooftop chase

2 Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) Cliff jump and motorcycle duel

3 Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) Paris chase

Perhaps more interesting than the winners themselves is the influence these films have had on riders. Almost six in ten people surveyed, 59 per cent, said watching a memorable motorcycle scene on screen made them want to ride a bike themselves.

To people who already ride, that is hardly surprising. Motorcycle chases have long been one of cinema's great crowd-pleasers, mixing speed, skill and just enough Hollywood physics to make us all believe we could pull off a stoppie through a crowded market... if only we had the right bike.

Bond also came out on top when respondents were asked which motorcycle-riding character they'd most like to head off on a road trip with. Nearly a third picked the spy from No Time To Die, comfortably ahead of Batman from The Dark Knight and Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible.

The two-wheeled road trip buddy we'd all apparently choose

• James Bond (No Time To Die) - 32 per cent
• Batman (The Dark Knight) - 19 per cent
• Ethan Hunt (Mission: Impossible) - 16 per cent

The survey also asked which movie motorcycles people would most like parked in their own garage, and it's a list that spans more than half a century of cinema.

Leading the wish list is the Kawasaki GPZ900R Ninja made famous by Maverick in Top Gun, alongside (weirdly), the Harley-Davidson Street 750 from Captain America, Trinity's Ducati 996 from The Matrix, the Triumph TR6 Trophy ridden by Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, and Peter Fonda's legendary Harley-Davidson Captain America chopper.

Whether Skyfall really deserves top spot is another matter entirely. Bond's Istanbul chase is undeniably spectacular, but motorcycle cinema has given us everything from the impossible acrobatics of Mission: Impossible 2 to the timeless cool of The Great Escape. And if we're opening the debate beyond the 21st century, plenty of riders will argue the greatest motorcycle scene was filmed decades before Daniel Craig ever twisted a throttle - I’m looking at you, Jim Goose, racing across the badlands on your KZ1000…

So we'll throw it over to you. Has the British public nailed it, or is there a motorcycle movie scene that should have been giving its Oscar speech ahead of all these options?

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