Street fighters?

[LoHo]

Okay, I have a Standard XS1100, and some of you chaps have Specials or even the vaunted Midnight Specials. I get it that the Special is supposed to be more cruiser/HDish.

I know that a Bob-Job is cutting off all of the extraneous bits from ones bike to make it faster, or at least look faster.

A chopper is lengthened and the front is raked, and the back may be lowered (or chopped). No prob.

What constitutes a "street fighter?"

[John]

I think it basically a stop light-to-stop light racer.

[oldbiker648]

The term "street fighter" is purely European as far as I know. Do a search on "Simon the Snake" if you want to see some really wild pics of what can be done to a stock XS1100 or other litre displacement bike. There is a huge tax on motorcycles in Europe, so the locals buy old bikes and then dump huge sums of time and money into turning them into street racers. This is the next generation of "cafe racers" which is an old term that applied to the mid-'60's modified Triumph Bonnevilles and twin carb BSA's. The owners would spend all week tweaking their bikes and then race from Pub to Pub on weekends. We have a little of this going on in major cities here in the US, but here it's all about your late model GXSR vs. my 'Busa or R1, while over there it's still about getting the most out of older bikes. Believe me, there are highly modified Elevens piloted by skilled riders that can hang with anything on the road today, but most people aren't into putting $10K and a thousand hours into fixing up an antique when they can buy state of the art performance and reliability for the same money with no timeinvested. Learning to ride takes less time than learing to innovate and work on your bike, so there will always be people with enough money to take the short cut. Most of them will never realize what they missed along the way; that's why we meet here, right?

[jimboreeno]

Always amazing

You have to love this site. Great trivia oldbiker68.
I guess I classify myself in the catagory of those who would rather put the time and money into the old stuff. I also like to do it myself. The pay off is much better, in my opinon.

After all... if you don't have to work for it...it can't be worth as much!

[81xsproject]

I got nothing form a "simon the snake" search. Curious about the pics. Any other suggestions?

[xs650mike]

A streetfighter as I understand it is a fast agile bike suited to slashing through urban traffic. I can really only speak to what it means to me as a long-time San Francisco rider who moved to the country 9 years ago.

Back in the '60s and '70s my friends and I had our Britbikes set up this way but the term "streetfighter" hadn't been coined yet. The basic difference in those days between a "cafe racer" and our bikes was that we didn't mount clip-on handlebars since they are really uncomfortable at city speeds. Typically we had no instruments, aluminum or fiberglass fenders, reverse cone megaphone exhausts with little or no baffling and varying degrees of performance mods to the engines. We generally tuned for mid-range grunt. Before moving to San Francisco in the mid '60s I had worked as a "shagger" (motorcycle messenger) in Los Angeles for awhile after I got out of the military and my bikes' set-up reflected that occupation. I had narrow buckhorns on my '59 Matchless 650 which I would replace with even narrower drag bars when I went out of town on the highway or canyon-carving early on Sunday mornings. Some of my friends had flat track bars and others had the low European touring bars which BMWs came with in those days...just about anything except apehangers or really wide bars.

In the evenings my friends and I styled ourselves "tavern racers", the game being as we rode from bar to bar that the last man bought the round. The goal wasn't to be first, it was simply not to be last. As the night wore on one didn't want to be next-to-last either since the last man might be low on funds, too tired or too drunk and peel off for home leaving the second-to-last to pick up the tab. I was always a mid-pack kind of guy both as a tavern racer or Sunday morning breakfast rider (last man buys breakfast). I was just reminiscing with one of my old riding buddies a few days ago and we both found it remarkable that none of the old gang had died (or even been seriously injured) in a motorcycle crash though they are now starting to drop from liver disease. I suppose we were all pretty good riders, drinkers or both.

Before someone jumps down my throat let me say that in no way do I recommend, condone or otherwise think that drinking and riding is a smart thing to do. I did a lot of things when I was young that I wouldn't even consider doing nowadays. BTW the photo was staged, I always wore helmet and jacket...I wasn't THAT crazy! I'm still alive aren't I?

From the mid '80s up until today a typical San Francisco streetfighter is a crashed sportbike that has been totalled by the insurance company and brought back from salvage sans bodywork. A lot of GSXRs and other late model low-mileage sportbikes are crashed by not-so-skilled would-be fast riders. Buying one of these at the salvage yard is a really cheap way to have a really high performance late-model bike. Typically they're painted flat black, rat bike style. These bikes are also seen on the mountain roads on weekends and of course the owners don't really care much if they drop the bike since it's already been crashed. Stay out of these riders' way!

Now the factories (especially the Europeans) are making bikes like this, essentially naked sportbikes, the Ducati "Il Monstro" comes to mind.

[mitch]

70s ?

Hey Mike still got that long hair lol, Looks like me from the 70s. Now i am mostly bald! Life is cruel, but i do like that old bike. Think u got on what we used to call snoot boots . Ya brought back some good memories ty.............MITCH

[xs650mike]

Yeah, we were flamboyant back then. You nailed it, pic was taken in '69 or '70. Like my dad used to say we get to soon old and too late smart! My hair's getting thin, not very long now.


Me and SWMBO in the '80s. The hair is just starting to go!


A bit more recent pic.

I may be getting older but I'm not getting any slower. Youth is wasted on the young!

[John]

Hey 650 mike

What boat( carrier) is that on your cap in the last pic, the one of you in the garage?

[oldbiker648]

Jesse,
Regarding the "Simon the Snake", I came up empty as well. About a year and a half ago I downloaded some really bad-ass pictures of highly modified European street fighters, mostly XS's and XJ's. The photo credit for these pictures was "Simon the Snake". I think the guy may be from Holland. Anyway, that computer was ravaged by a virus early this year and I'm using a new computer so I can't access the photos or the site. If I come across it again I'll hook you up.
John

[oldbiker648]

Mike,
Thanks for sharing the memories and the photos. I have only ever seen a Matchless in a museum. How did you happen to come into possession of yours? That marque never really caught on here in the states compared to BSA, Triumph and Norton.

[scoobes]

over in the uk street fighters are very big,what normaly happens is you have some one on a plastic rocket, r1, blade, gxsr and they throw it up the road.to repair the bike is far to much so they throw away all the plastic headlight and clocks and handlebars,put a straight set of bars on no speedo and two little round lights now you got a street fighter.so now there is no weight on the front so they can lift it no problem,a friend of mine often comes to the usa to do stunt shows he is one of the best a chap called gary rothwell.

[Do Lee]

Mike,
Love that air assisted horn you have!!!!!

[xs650mike]

John, that would be the USS Yorktown, "The Fighting Lady", CV(S)-10 of the Essex class which is now a museum in Charleston, S.C.. I made the WestPac cruise of '63-'63.

Old Biker, I had 2 of 'em, a G12CS and a G12CSR which were 650cc twins. The CSR came with dual carbs and siamesed exhaust. Most Matchlesses (Matchli?) in the States were the G80 500cc singles which were popular for desert racing. The twins weren't so popular, being infamous for putting rods through the cases. There were ongoing lubrication issues with the twins which mostly centered on getting enough oil to the center main crankshaft bearing. The oil passages are very tiny and the average American rider just wasn't as religious about keeping clean 50w in their engines as I was. If the center main starves for oil it siezes and the engine just explodes. Mine never did, in fact I was usually out riding while my Triumph and BSA riding friends were wrenching.

Scoobes, yeah, the old "air" horn. The DMV said I needed a horn so I gave 'em one. They also said I needed a high beam indicator so I gave 'em one of those too but no other instruments or idiot lights. The Lucas "Prince of Darkness" 6v generator wasn't very reliable but fortunately the ignition was by magneto which meant the bike ran fine whether the lights worked or not!

[chevy45412001]

scoobes

scoobbes is real close here in the states stunting bikes that have usually been crashed and put back together with zip ties. (plastics cost to much to replace every other day when you crash ) so you basicaly get a stripped down crotch rocket is a street fighter.Or also called a naked bike.