Triumphrat

Fraederichs · 05-19-2007

sweatmachine · 05-19-2007

TCL · 05-19-2007

Gee thanks Sweat. I just wasted an hour staring at those shots and now I'm looking at my bank statement to see what I can afford on ebay. I'm gonna need a bigger garage.

ivar · 05-19-2007

Excuse my ignorance, but as bobbers are not very common here in Norway, I wonder what makes these bikes bobbers and not choppers...?
e.g. bobber = stock rake, choppers = more rake,extended forks etc?

TCL · 05-19-2007

The A-hole driving them. No seriously, not 100% sure. Some would argue that bobber is the British term for chopper. I just know when I see one that a bobber is cool as hell and a chopper probably cost some yuppie too much.

Here's what some other people had to say about it.

Read it and decide. According to the article, the bobber came before the chopper.

[ This message was edited by: TCL on 2007-05-19 22:22 ]

sweatmachine · 05-19-2007

the bobber did come before the chopper. Think post WW2 vets coming home and taking parts off a stock bike to make it lighter and faster.

Choppers were more about show than go, and were more of a 60s and later thing.

ivar · 05-19-2007

Quote:

On 2007-05-19 22:18, TCL wrote: I just know when I see one that a bobber is cool as hell and a chopper probably cost some yuppie too much.

I think we can agree on this one. Most of the bobbers I've seen on this site looks like they're actually made to be ridden

05-20-2007

The term bobber comes from the first guy to ever build one John "BIG BOBBER" Polasky of Toledo Ohio.

Seriously though the term comes from cutting down fenders and taking off all the stuff that wasn't needed ie. bobbing a fender. Alot of this was post WWII and was done to military surplus Harley's.

The trend continued on until a bunch of drugged up hippies said "how can we take these functional bikes and make them look really stupid and ill handling at the same time?"

Then someone replied "lets weld a ladder to the front where the forks used to be?"

And the motorcycle God's cried.