Streetfighter (motorcycle)

For other uses, see Street Fighter (disambiguation).
2009 Ducati Streetfighter

A streetfighter, muscle bike, or supernaked is a type of high-performance motorcycle. It is typically a large-displacement sport bike with the fairings and windscreen removed.[1][2] Beyond simply removing fairings, specific changes that exemplify the streetfighter look are a pair of large, round headlights, tall, upright handlebars such as those on a motocross bike, and short, loud, lightweight mufflers, and changes in the sprockets to increase torque and acceleration at lower speeds. Streetfighters is also the name of a UK motorcycle magazine.[3]

Later streetfighters used custom-built frames intended to overcome the weakness of the tubular steel frames of the early 4-cylinder superbikes of the 1970s and 1980s. Many of these frames turned out to be "beautifully crafted pieces of metallurgical art," perhaps only unintentionally.[4] Many were also originally racing machines.[5]

Made popular by European riders,[6] this type of custom motorcycle gained worldwide popularity, and motorcycle manufacturers responded in the late 1990s by adopting the terminology[7] and producing factory-built streetfighters, beginning with the 1994 Triumph Speed Triple[8] and the 1999 Honda X11,[9] up through the 2009 Ducati Streetfighter.

  1. ^ Wallis, Michael; Clark, Marian (2004), Hogs on 66: Best Feed and Hangouts for Road Trips on Route 66, Council Oak Books, ISBN 978-1-57178-140-6, Streetfighter -- Also known as a 'hooligan' cycle, this is a sports-bike stripped of all superfluous bodywork.
  2. ^ Doeden, Matt; Leonard, Joe (2007), Choppers, Lerner Publications, ISBN 978-0-8225-7288-6, streetfighter: a type of superbike customized for maximum speed and performance.
  3. ^ Streetfighters, WorldCat, ISSN 0961-9453
  4. ^ Seate, Mike (2007), How to Build a Pro Streetbike, MBI Publishing Company, pp. 92–3 ff, ISBN 978-0-7603-2450-9, [In London in the early 1990s,] I noticed an odd-looking motorcycle idling loudly across the crowded intersection. The bike's upside-down front end was topped by a pair of oversized headlights that appeared to have been stolen from a car. The rider's gloved hands clutched a set of what looked like handlebars from a motocross bike, while the exhaust can -- or what little remained of it -- was burbling like a beehive on fire.
    Was this a prop from Mel Gibson's Road Warrior? Some poor motorcycle courier who had dropped his machine so many times that he'd refused to replace his damaged fairing? [more]
  5. ^ Caught naked by A Cathcart - Motorcycle Sport and Leisure, 2002
  6. ^ Motorcycling for Dummies - Page 69. Bill Kresnak. 2008
  7. ^ Categorization bases and their influence on product category knowledge structures. JA Rosa, JF Porac - Psychology and Marketing, 2002
  8. ^ Brooke, A. Lindsay (2002), Triumph motorcycles: a century of passion and power, MotorBooks/MBI Publishing Company, p. 160, ISBN 978-0-7603-0456-3
  9. ^ de Cet, Mirco (2002), The illustrated directory of motorcycles, MotorBooks/MBI Publishing Company, p. 214, ISBN 978-0-7603-1417-3[permanent dead link]