DRAWING up a list of today’s fastest off-the-shelf bikes is something of a pointless exercise. Parity in power combined with a self-imposed 186mph top speed limit means that there’s a whole gamut of superbikes that are just as fast as one another – any top speed shootout is just as likely to come down to an individual rider’s ability to tuck in neatly as much as his mount’s natural ability.

But it’s not always been that way. So here’s our run down of the top ten fastest production bikes, one for each decade since the 1920s.

10: 1920s

BACK when the motorcycle was as fresh and new as the internet is today – and no doubt surrounded by endless middle-aged stick-in-the-muds claiming that ‘a horse was good enough for me’ – there wasn’t much doubt over who was fastest. No, any public-house argument over ‘mine’s quicker than yours’ would be ended the moment a man with a Brough Superior walked into the bar.

With top speed built into the bikes’ names, there was no need to ask the owner of an SS80 or SS100 “what’ll it do, mister?” – the machines were individually tested and guaranteed to achieve in MPH the number in their name. In fact, SS100s were clocked at well over 100mph, with George Brough himself hitting more than 130mph on a tuned one in 1928.

9: 1930s

STRICTLY-speaking, a Brough might well have remained the fastest bike you could buy in the 1930s, since their production continued until the outbreak of WW2. Power increased by around 50% between the SS100s introduction and the launch of the special ‘two of everything’ model in the mid-1930s, which would easily hit 110mph. However, the American Crocker V-Twin would give them a run for their money, speed wise, with a similar 110mph top end.