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.
Streetfighter -- Also known as a 'hooligan' cycle, this is a sports-bike stripped of all superfluous bodywork.
streetfighter: a type of superbike customized for maximum speed and performance.
[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]