What is a Street Tracker?

Mule Sportster Tracker
“Stealth” Street Tracker by Mule

There are many evolutions of the modern motorcycle, as you know. Many of these evolutions are modern takes on classic styles of bikes. One such homage is the Street Tracker. These ultra-sleek machines are reminiscent to the glory days of flat track racing, featuring the pared down look of a dirt track racer, but offering everything you need to be street legal. Whether it’s your own build or bought from a custom shop, a street tracker will turn heads anywhere.

The First Street Trackers

Modern street trackers can trace their ancestry to the AMA Grand National Championship racing series. During the 1960s and 70s the series was the premier motorcycle racing championship, and many of the events took place on dirt ovals of varying lengths:  The Mile, The Half, and Short Track. It was a time when legends like Dick Mann and Kenny Roberts were tearing up tracks everywhere. These racing giants loved their bikes and wanted to ride them on the streets as well, so modified the racers by adding lights, mirrors, a horn, front brakes, and eliminating the need to ‘bump-start the bikes. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for race fans to develop a desire for their street trackers.

XR750 Tracker
Harley’s Legendary XR750: The Greatest Source of Inspiration for Street Trackers

Factory Street Trackers

Manufacturers have not jumped on the street tracker bandwagon. Well, Harley Davidson has tried. The maker produced the XR1000, paying homage to its racing XR750. The bike was prohibitively expensive and sold poorly. Harley gave it another go with the XR1200, but production only ran from 2009 to 2013.

Triumph, it’s been rumored, filed a 2012 trademark application for the name “Street Tracker,” so a factor tracker from the Brits could be on the way. This does seem like just another effort by manufacturers to capitalize on a trend in the custom bike-building world, naming a bike after a whole genre of customs.  We’re reminded of the Ducati Streetfighter and Scrambler, other genres of custom bikes subjected to the same process.

XR1000 Street Tracker
Harley XR1000 Street Tracker: The XR750 Influence is Evident

Custom Street Trackers

Street trackers typically have a set of wide bars to match the ones needed for additional leverage on a flat track. From the handlebars, you move back to the gas tank. A street tracker typically looks best with a small tank. The best example for the look of the tank can be seen by looking at the immortal Harley-Davidson XR750. The tank should move easily into a narrow seat. The rear fender is minimal, just enough to cover the taillight, and often made of fiberglass from a retailer like Omars Fiberglass or Hot Wing Glass. Typically you run 19 inch wheels, equally sized front and rear. Traditionalists use wire spokes to reduce weight, but you can use cast wheels just as well.

XS650-Tracker
Michel van Rossen’s XS650 with 710cc engine

Once those mods have been completed, some builders add a number plate and fork guards, though these can be a bit much, overdoing the illusion that you’ve been sliding on a dirt track all day. The most common tracker platforms are the Yamaha XS650, various Triumphs like the T100, and the Harley-Davidson Sportster.

XS650 Street Tracker
Our Editor-in-Chief’s 1981 Yamaha XS650 Street Tracker

Mule: King of the Street Trackers

Richard Pollock of Mule Motorcycles is the undisputed king of the custom street tracker. His father was an electrical engineer at Cape Canaveral, and Pollock has said that he’d like an aerospace inspector to be able to look his bikes over and give them the thumbs up. Truly, his builds look like the engine bays of Indy racers. Operating out of his shop in San Diego, California, he has almost singlehandedly defined the street tracker aesthetic, hand-building bikes that are highly functional in every way, unadorned machines that earn their beauty instead of dressing up for it.

Mule-Street-Tracker
HD-Based Tracker by Mule Motorcycles

Sideburn, Dirt Quake, and the Resurgence of Flat Track

Sideburn, based out of the UK, is THE magazine when it comes to flat track racing and the culture surrounding it. As they say themselves:

The world’s finest, most glamorous, most colourful, most informative, global-reaching go fast, turn left magazine. All right, the world’s only go fast, turn left magazine. The place where every weekend is a dirty weekend.

Sideburn created an event called Dirt Quake, where everyday riders can take their bikes out on a flat track for real bar to bar racing. The events include classes for what they call Inappropriate Road Bike (IRB), Street Trackers, Choppers, Ladies, Harleys, and even a Snowmobile class. The events have been a huge success, and are now international, having migrated to the US of A. You can find out more on Sideburn‘s website.

The resurgent interest in dirt track can also be seen in the inclusion of AMA Pro Flat Track in the 2015 X Games in Austin, Texas. Without a doubt, flat track is on the way UP.

Street Trackers on BikeBound.com

Below is a sampling of the street trackers we have featured here!

Yamaha WR450 Street Tracker Ready to Race: Yamaha WR450 Street Tracker - Street-Legal 450 Framer from Ted Gail…  In flat track racing, a “framer” is a race bike consisting of a purpose-built frame installed with the rider’s engine of choice. In the old days, you often saw […]
CCM 400 Scrambler Urban Darter: CCM 400 “Dragonfly” Scrambler - Tracker to Scrambler: Rebuilt FT35s from Revel Customs…   As many of you may know, British motorcycle manufacturer CCM (Clews Competition Machines) was founded by off-road racer Alan Clews in the early 1970s. The company […]
Ducati Hypermotard 1100 Custom Hyper Hooligan: Ducati Hypermotard 1100 Custom -   Transformed Hypermotard from Brazil’s Benta Handmade…   When the Ducati Hypermotard 1100 debuted in 2006, it was a motorcycle quite unlike anything the world had seen in production form — a supersized supermoto packing […]
Yamaha SCR950 Street Tracker Le Petit Démon: Yamaha SCR950 Street Tracker - El Rollo-Racing SCR from HardHeads Motostudio x Altísimo Cromo…   Introduced in 2017, the Yamaha SCR950 is one of the most underrated production bikes of recent years. The steel-tube frame, 41mm forks, and 942cc 51bhp […]
Yamaha SR500 Flat Tracker Fast and Left: Yamaha SR500 Flat Tracker - A First Flat Tracker from Workshop43…   Yamaha’s 500cc singles are some of the most versatile motorcycles ever built. The XT500 became a darling of the off-road world, taking home trophies in the big African […]
Top 10 Trackers and Supermotos of 2024 - Here at BikeBound, we’re big fans of street trackers, flat trackers, and speedway bikes. So are you, our readers, as flat track-inspired builds continue to be some of the most popular builds we feature. In […]
Honda GL200 Tiger Revo Custom Street Tiger: Honda Tiger Revo 200 Custom - Honda Tiger Revo: A Handmade Transformation for Urban Streets…   The Honda GL200, also known as the Honda Tiger Revo, is a 200cc single-cylinder street bike popular in Indonesia. Production began way back in the […]
Suzuki GT750 Street Tracker Holy Smoke: Suzuki GT750 Street Tracker - “Intoxicating in the best kind of way…”  In the late 1960s, Japanese motorcycles were quickly evolving from utilitarian transportation into sporting machines that put a premium on performance and acceleration. Honda introduced the CB750 — […]
SR400 Reborn: Yamaha “SR540MX” Tracker - The People’s Choice: 540cc Dirt Tracker from GM Motorcycles…  The Yamaha SR400 remains one of the most beloved machines in motorcycling. It arrived on the scene in 1978 as an easy to ride single-cylinder street […]
Honda FTR250 Street Tracker POP-2: Honda FTR250 Street Tracker - A Colorful, NS750-Inspired Street Tracker from Ryo Denda Design (RDD)…   In 1986, Honda introduced the FTR250, a 249cc production street tracker styled after the legendary RS750, the purpose-built flat tracker that won four straight AMA […]
BMW F650 Funduro Custom Tracker Featherweight Funduro: BMW F650 “City Tracker” - Minimalist BMW Thumper from Versor Przemek…   In 1993, just over 30 years ago, BMW introduced the F650 Funduro, their first single-cylinder (and chain-drive) motorcycle since the the 1960s. The bike was developed in partnership […]
Honda SLR650 Custom Very Mean RFVC: Honda “SCR720R” Supermoto - From SLR650 to “SCR720R” with Finland’s KMPH…   Introduced in 1996, the Honda SLR650 was designed as an affordable, road-oriented city bike based on the same 644cc RFVC single-cylinder engine as the NX650 Dominator. For decades, […]
Harley Pan America Scrambler Tracker Harley-Davidson Pan America “Super Scrambler” - Black Cycles Australia scrambles Harley’s adventure bike…  In 2020, the Harley-Davidson Pan America arrived as the first all-American adventure bike, packing a 1250cc 150-hp “Revolution Max” V-twin and electronically-adjustable Showa suspension. The motorcycling world was […]
Kawasaki KZ750 LTD Custom Un-LTD-ed: Kawasaki KZ750 Street Scrambler - Slipstream Creations’ first Kawasaki build…  When Honda released the CB750 in 1969, Kawasaki head engineer Ben Inamura didn’t focus on rivaling Honda’s 750cc four, but beating it. Three years later, the 900cc Kawasaki Z1 appeared…and […]
Yamaha FZ-09 Street Tracker Trigger: Yamaha FZ-09 Street Tracker - Triple-Cylinder Super Hooligan Street Tracker from Triston Rue…  In 2014, Yamaha introduced the original FZ-09, a naked middleweight packing a feisty three-cylinder crossplane “CP3” engine good for 100+ horsepower and 60 pound-feet of torque. Known […]

 

 

For a full list, go here.

4 Comments

  1. troy simmons simmons

    So awsome!!!!!!!!!!! You have to love that bike!!!!!!!!

  2. My Street Tracker two Stroke Brasilian.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDUf3cDLhv4

    • bikebound

      Beautiful. Email us some build information (in English, if possible) and at least five photographs, and we will feature your build on the blog: taylor @ bikebound.com. Cheers!

  3. Bruce Herrington

    This has been a great article on Mule Motorcycle and the Trackers.

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