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!

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 […]

Handbuilt Show 2026: Scramblers, Trackers, Roadsters - We’re back with another gallery from the 2026 Handbuilt Motorcycle Show, which took place during MotoGP weekend at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. “Handbuilt” remains one of the biggest, most prestigious, and […]

Indoor Smoker: 1963 Bultaco Sherpa S Flat Tracker - Two-Stroke Bultaco Flat Tracker from an AMA Hall-of-Famer…   In 1959, Francisco “Paco” Bulto introduced the first Bultaco, the 125cc Tralla 101 (“Whiplash”), which proved itself immediately in the Spanish Road Racing Championship. The Bultaco won […]

The Seventy: Aermacchi-Harley 250 Tracker - Two-Stroke Italo-American Street Tracker from Fuchs Workshop…   Back in 1912, a firm called Nieuport-Macchi was founded to build Nieuport airplanes under license for the Italian military. Sometimes in the 1920s, as production shifted to seaplanes, […]

Absolute Weapon: “Patriot” Buell Street Tracker - Buell Firebolt-Powered Street Tracker from Hot-Dock Custom Cycles…   Keiji Kawakita of Hot-Dock Custom Cycles has nearly six decades of riding experience under his belt. In 1984, at the age of 30, he founded his Tokyo-based […]

Remembering a Legend: Steve Wise and his Superbikers RC500 - Holy Grail Honda: Steve Wise’s Legacy Lives on at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum…   AMA Motorcycle Hall-of-Famer Steve Wise, who passed earlier this year, has been called the greatest all-around motorcycle racer in American racing […]

Big Single Thunderbike: Honda XL600S Tracker - Honda XL600R Thunderbike from Fuchs Workshop…   Last week we had the pleasure of featuring the #48 Honda 650 flat tracker of professional racer Niko Sorbo, built by Italy’s Fuchs Workshop to compete in the Thunderbike […]

Sorbo’s Thunderbike: Honda Dominator 650 Flat Tracker - From Fuchs Workshop: Niko Sorbo’s Honda Thunderbike, “Rusinella”…   More than two decades ago, Massimo Rinchiuso of Italy’s Fuchs Workshop began preparing track bikes. Today, his Ravenna-based workshop specializes in hand-shaped aluminum bodywork, 3D design, CNC […]

The Dirtster: Ironhead Sportster Street Tracker - “Retirement planning should include cool hobbies…”   There are those who work their whole lives looking forward to retirement, only to realize they don’t know what to do with their newfound free time. Jeff Holsey of […]

Hooligan V-Twin: Honda NV400 Scrambler / Tracker - A V-Twin Honda Hooligan from GDZH Custom Cycle…   The Honda NV400 was a small-displacement V-twin cruiser sometimes known as the Steed or Shadow 400. The liquid-cooled 52-degree V-twin produced 33-35 horsepower, and the bike weighed […]

Suzuki BS125 “MANTA” Two-Stroke Street Tracker - A 10-Year Odyssey: The ZeroVector S1 MANTA…   We love seeing a somewhat forgotten, unexpected platform targeted for a full transformation. That’s certainly the case with this Suzuki BS125, a single-cylinder two-stroke that was made and sold […]

True Gold: 1953 Harley-Davidson KK Flat Tracker - Factory Hot Rod: Hermann Koepf’s Brakeless K-Model Flat Tracker…   In 1952, Harley-Davidson introduced the Model K series in a bid to challenge the British parallel-twins that had become so popular on both the street and […]

For a full list, go here.