The Hellas Rally Raid is throwing it back.

On Friday, organizers announced the creation of a classic bike category for motorcycles built before 1996. With the next race being on May 25–31, 2026, that means bikes in the new class will be at least 30 years old when it takes place.

The vintage bikes will share the bivouac with everyone else, but follow a separate route from their modern counterparts.

Hellas is breaking relatively new ground that hasn’t been tapped into even by other rally raids. While historic classes are growing in popularity (most notably with the Dakar Classic), motorcycles have yet to be included in most of them. The Morocco Desert Challenge is the only major rally with a Vintage Bike category, which was introduced in 2025. Otherwise, most historic rallies including Dakar are still currently reserved for cars and trucks.

The class is among a swath of major changes planned by Meletis Stamatis and his team for 2026. They have also split the M5 category into M5 and M6 to allow for bikes as powerful as 1300cc and a new parc fermé for bikes at the end of marathon stages. Dakar Rally-winning navigator Dirk Von Zitzewitz also joined the organization in August to oversee the Adventure Raid.

Jacopo Cerutti is the twice reigning champion.

Featured image credit: BMW Group Classic