Harley-Davidson Xr1000 Street Tracker
HARLEY-DAVIDSON XR1000 STREET TRACKER
AN IRON AND STEEL MULE KICK
DON CANET
What does one do with a low-mileage 1983 Harley-Davidson XR1000 that has suffered damage resulting from a "mishap" on the road? For Michael Schumacher of Scottsdale, Arizona (not the German F1 driver), the answer was to enlist Mule Motorcycles of Poway, California.
Richard Pollock, Mule’s man behind the Yamaha TZ750inspired Ri gracing the January 2015 Cycle World cover, revived the XR with a Street Tracker treatment.
“The owner needed help with the damage and taking it to a new level that would honor the original design and 30-year heritage without looking like a freaking chopper!” explains Pollock, who applied tricks he’s learned in converting a variety of bikes into roadworthy trackers.
In addition to very good brakes and suspension tuned for street riding, this street tracker has Mule stainless flat-trackstyle bars that are bent to be a bit lower than actual FT bars, plus triple clamps that have less offset than stock for increased trail and a shorter wheelbase.”
Some key areas of attention include Mule billet triple clamps holding a 2008 Triumph Scrambler fork (reworked by Race Tech) together with Race Tech shocks (all calibrated to match the weight of the bike and rider). Stainless spokes lace Sun rims wearing Maxxis dirt-track rubber to a widened
Yamaha XS650 front hub and a stock aluminum-alloy Sportster rear hub. A Mule caliper bracket mates a six-piston Nissin caliper to a Ducati front rotor with a Yamaha R6 radial master cylinder upstream.
SBK Paint treated the Storz Performance alloy fuel tank to an exact match of the original XR paint color. Next came pinlines and slightly enlarged custom XR1000 stickers. Complet-
ing the look is a custom-fabricated
subframe and First Klass Glass seat.
“This bike had really good power to start with,” Pollock says. “And without a doubt, it has to be the tip of the spear as far as a starting point for a street-tracker project. I think this is the way Harley should have built them.”
