Sport Bikes – Street Fighters

Sport bikes emphasize speed, acceleration, braking, and cornering on paved roads. Sport bikes have comparatively high performance engines resting inside a lightweight frame. Inline-four engines dominate the sport bike category, with V-twins having a significant presence, and nearly every other engine configuration appearing in small numbers at one time or another. 

These machines tend to utilize the most advanced braking and suspension available when compared to the standards. They will survive extreme conditions that would melt the average air cooled bike to the ground. Comfort is not what most of these bikes were designed for!

Most sport bikes have fairings, often completely enclosing the engine, and windscreens that effectively deflect the air at very high speeds, or at least reduce overall drag.

Sport bikes have high foot pegs that position the legs closer to the body to improve ground clearance when cornering, and a long reach to the hand controls, which positions the body and center of gravity forward, above the fuel tank. The rider leans forward into the wind, the force of which can comfortably support the rider’s weight at speeds near 100 mph (160 km/h), but at lower speeds leaves too much weight on the arms and wrists, causing fatigue.

Streetfighters are derived from sport bikes, originally being customized sport bikes with the fairings removed and higher handlebars replacing the low clip-on handlebars. Since the 1990s, factory streetfighters have been produced. As with naked bike and muscle bike (see Musclebike tab), the name streetfighter is used to help clarify the middle ground occupied by designs that blend elements of both sport bikes and standards.