What is a Street Tracker?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

X-Rated: Custom Triumph Scrambler 400 X - Make it More Scrambler: Triumph 400 X from STG Tracker…   In 2023, Triumph introduced the Scrambler 400 X to their lineup. While it uses the same 39.5-bhp single-cylinder engine as the Speed 400, the Scrambler […]

Joy Machine: Kawasaki W650 Vintage-Style Tracker - Built for the Next Generation: Jay Shang’s Kawasaki W650 Tracker…   The Kawasaki W650 is one of our favorite “neo-classic” motorcycles of the modern era, even if it’s now over 25 years old itself. Introduced in […]

The Attitude of a Rodeo Bull: Yamaha “FTX500” Flat Tracker - Oldie But Speedy: Championship-Winning TX500 Tracker from Fuch’s Workshop…   In 1972, Yamaha introduced their first middleweight four-stroke twin, the TX500, later to become the XS500. Whereas the TX/XS650 resembled the British twins of yesteryear, the […]

Neo-Retro Tracker: Yamaha MT-25 “Rusa” - Dicky Bastian’s Yamaha MT-25 Street Tracker…   The Yamaha MT-25 is a 250cc liquid-cooled parallel-twin naked bike — a close sibling of the 320cc MT-03. Both of these lightweight twins offer the modern streetfighter styling of […]

Urban Flame: “Dohwa” Yamaha SR400 - A Blaze-Green Scrambler from Deus Korea x Garage94…   Deus Ex Machina is one of the most recognizable, revered names in the custom motorcycle world. In 2006, the brand opened their first space in Sydney, Australia […]

Pulls Like a Tractor: 1978 Yamaha SR500 Street Tracker - For Sale: Marty Coblentz’s BSA-Inspired “Thumpstar”…   When Yamaha introduced their air-cooled 500 singles in the late 1970s — the XT500, TT500, and SR500 — many enthusiasts saw them as a Japanese version of the British […]

750 Bonnie: 1978 Triumph T140 Desert Sled - Malle Miler: Simon Lancaster’s Triumph 750 Desert Sled…   In 1973, Triumph introduced the T140 Bonneville as an upgraded, more powerful version of the oil-in-frame T120 (650cc) Bonnie. The original T140V carried the “V” designation for […]

Competition Hot: 1970 Harley-Davidson Ironhead XLCH Street Tracker - XLCH Sportster Street Tracker from Japan’s LOCAL Cycles…   Introduced in 1958, the Harley-Davidson XLCH was the stripped-down, high-compression “Competition” variant of the Ironhead Sportster. It was kickstart-only, which helped make it some 25-30 pounds lighter […]

The Poetry of Motion: 7 Trackers & Scramblers from ArtRide 2026 - ArtRide XI: Where Art and Motorcycles Collide…   The annual Wheels & Waves Festival in Biarritz, France, hosts some of the wildest two-wheeled spectacles on the planet: Punk’s Peak, El Rollo Flat Track, The Race of […]

Flying V: 163-whp Harley Street Bob Street Tracker - V-Twin Torque Monster from former Top Fuel pilot Wayne Pollack of Flying V Racing…   We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Some of our favorite builds come from former racers. This absolute ground-pounder […]

Bike Shed Show 2026: Trackers & Supermotos - From “Street Hacks” to “Chequered Pasts”… We’re back with more coverage from the 2026 Bike Shed Moto Show, which was absolutely thrumming with custom bikes of all shapes and sizes. Most recently, we showcased some […]

One Moto Show 2026: Trackers & Supermotos - We’re back with another round of bikes from the 2026 One Moto Show in Portland, Oregon. Last time we shared some of the scramblers and adventure bikes on display at the event. Now we’ve got […]

One Moto Show 2026: Scramblers & Adventure Bikes - 17 Years and Still Swingin’ the Hammer…   The One Moto Show 2026 — the 17th annual edition of the event — was another one for the books. Organized by Thor Drake and the team from […]

KICKBACK 2026 Round III: Scramblers, Trackers, Supermotos! - The 33rd KICKBACK Custom Classic Bike Show wasn’t exclusive to superbikes, streetfighters, and cafe racers — many machines with “knobblies” were in attendance, too. Desert sleds, scramblers, street trackers, even a motard or two.  We […]

Project Cobra: ’72 Suzuki T500 Street Tracker - Vic Shield helps a good mate ride again…   The Suzuki T500 — known as the Cobra, Titan, or Charger — appeared in 1968, marketed as the “the sports cycle that couldn’t be made.” At the […]

For a full list, go here.