Street-Tracker Creds

STREET-TRACKER CREDS

Ask the Man Who Built One

ALLAN GIRDLER

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT TO THE builders and buyers of the Harley-Davidson XR1200 tested here, billing this model as a “factory street-tracker” is the motorcycling equivalent of the outfits that proclaim “whole-sale to the public”: You can do either one, but you cannot do both at once.

But wait! Using logic and com mon sense, this isn’t all bad.

The street-tracker, defined as a dirt-track racer with enough street equipment to be registered (if not always strictly legal), appeared through

Most of our sport’s past has made clear distinctions between road and track. Nobody ever rode to school on a brakeless board-tracker or went on a gypsy tour with an 8-valve Indian hiliclimber.

Then the AMA saved racing from the Great Depression by creating a class for production motorcycles only. At first, they were ridden to the event, stripped, raced, re-equipped and ridden home. Before long, the factories offered pre-stripped models certified as production, and racers began not putting the lights, etc., back on.

When the rules evolved into lightweight Twins, 650 or 750cc, derived from road bikes but with competition frames and suspension and brakes, quite a few enthusiasts realized they could do the AMA rules backward and put street equipment on a racebike. The street-tracker was born.

Okay, so then we had mostly the evergreen Harley XL and XR, the Triumph 650 and 750 Twins, the Yamaha XS650 with or without the racing kit, here a Norton, there a BSA, and I know for a fact there’s at least one of the ill-fated Yamaha Viragobased V-Twin racers of the early ’80s wearing a license plate, and I’d bet at least one collector has done the same with an RS750 Honda.

Brand names aside, what do we get? A sporty bike, more than 50 horsepower to a shade less than 100; 350 to 500 pounds; kickor bump-start only; solo seat, tiny fuel tank and 19-inch wheels wearing tires the Kustom Krowd wouldn’t put on a bicycle.

What do we do? In my case, my version is a 1970 XR750 engine in a modified 72 frame. I’d guess 60 hp, 365 pounds with the 2-gallon tank topped off. During the 25 years I’ve ridden the XR, I’ve roadraced it at Daytona and Laguna Seca, done the TT and half-mile at Sturgis, the miles at Indy and Sacramento. I’ve crashed out of dual-sport runs and used it to tour Germany and France.

During these estimated 50,000 miles, a flywheel has lost its mainshaft, a cam bearing has fallen into the crankcase, a valve lifter broke its roller, one side of the oil pump jammed, a wristpin circlip came loose and the pin dug a channel in the cylinder, the taillight has fallen into the sprocket several times and the rear-brake stay popped off and pole-vaulted itself into the caliper, which locked the rear wheel. If the high point was dragging the pegs in the Daytona infield, the low point was the four hours in a Florida monsoon, taking water, mud and debris direct from the road to me-no fenders, remember. The magneto was unfazed; my favorite goatskin jacket was never the same again.

During this time I’ve had hundreds of enthusiasts ask how to get a bike like mine. One man did it, and he sold it after a month or so.

These are not motorcycles for normal people.

Here’s the exception that tests the rule: There has been one factory street-tracker, Harley’s own early XLCH, where they first built the TT-class XLR and the off-road XLC, then tuned the engine and fitted lights, vestigial mufflers, peanut tank, bobbed fender and that tiny headlight still seen today. It was, literally and factually, a dirt-track bike for the street, and it sold well.

That was then, when all motorcycles started by kick, when ail riders were skilled in roadside repair and all motorcycles discarded parts per mile, and when the XLCH and the Triumph Bonneville were the baddest bikes on the block.

Then came the Triples and Fours, 750, 900 and 110Occ, electric-start, electronic-ignition, water-cooled engines that will outlive their owners...and motorcycles limited, markthat, limited, to 186 mph.

What we have with the true street-tracker is a niche bike, enough demand to justify an aftermarket, not enough to persuade the makers to step back in time.

What we have in the XR1200 is a tribute, like the CBR Hondas painted in Nicky-and-Dani schemes, or the Eddie Lawson Replica Kawasaki ZRX.

This is as good a Sportster as you can buy.

But for a real street-tracker, you’ll have to do it yourself. □