A true bobber or bob-tail is a bike (usually made between 1920 and mid 1960s) that does double duty as a street bike and a flat track race bike.
In motorcycling's early days flat track racing was extremely popular and would often travel with carnivals along with dirt track stock car racing. Additionally local dirt tracks would run motorcycles on one day and stock cars on the next day. Most bike owners would not have the cash to have a street bike and a race bike so their daily mount would double as their race bike. Factory backed bikes of this era were thin on speed parts so there was a chance that a talented independant could be a local hero on his indian, harley or triumph. These racers figured out what stuff they could live without and what could easily be unbolted. The term bobber actually comes from removing or "bobbing" (name taken from the popular short hair style of the 1930s) the rear section of the fender to save weight and make tire changes easier between rounds (on harleys this was just a matter of removing the hinge pin, on indians and trumpets in involved cutting). Hillclimbs were also popular at this time and many guys would ride their bike to the meet, unbolt what they didn't need, run the flat track and then run the hillclimb before bolting it all on and going home (if they didn't wad the bike). A real bobber is a bike that does double duty as a street bike and a flat track (and sometimes hillclimb) race bike. A bobber was a bike that the owner made sure could do it all. The were from an era where a bike was not a garaged toy but a means of transportation and a tool.
Styling wise, most bikes were the same layout from that period (rigid frame, springer front end) and these have come to define the bobber "look" along with the cut fender. Most bobbers had factory paint jobs and lettering. Fancy bikes and factory supported bikes were custom painted and often had striping and leaf work. Bikes that were crashed often were painted with whatever the owner could brush on in his spare time. A lot of this was in the tradition of the board track racers that preceded these bikes. You can't have a jap bike bobber (unless it is the brit company JAP) because deidcated flat track race bikes became the standard before the japanese companies began selling in large quantities in the states. Flat black and stock rake and lowered suspension does not make a bike a bobber no matter how much you want it to.
The modern interpretation of a "bobber" pisses all over what there early bikes were. In fact what most people think of as a "bobber" is really an early (1950's-early 1960's) chopper. Before extended forks and peanut tanks became common place, guys were stuck with stock rake and suspension. They built bars out of whatever they could find and threw out what they didn't need because they didn't want to have to fix it on the road later on. It was done more for style than purpose and it eventually led into the frame mods that defined choppers in the 1960s and 1970s. What sux now is some of these modern "bobber" owners are snobbish about long fork choppers when in fact they are just riding an earlier evolution of the style.
Psyco Diver 69 - your buddy's bike is styled like an early 60's frisco chopper (even though it is an ironhead sporty, the paint is 60's-70s all the way). A lot of 1%'ers liked that style because it was easy to ride in traffic and shunned the long bikes of the 60's and 70's. Sorry it is not a bobber, but it is still a good looking bike.
In the era of 40s-60's garage hotrodding flat black or primer rods were not cool. They were considered unfinished cars (or bikes) and it showed that the owner didn't have the scratch for a good laquer job or candy or flake. Since 90% of the rods from that era were the builders only mode of transportation they had to make do until they could secure that fancy paint work. Flat black and primered cars were considered lame. Then sometime around the 1970s primered street machines (musclecars mostly) became popular because they were all business. They were primered or flat black because the owner didn't have time for fancy paint, he was too busy building horsepower or racing. This was kind of a small backlash to the custom crowd who had picked up the ball and ran with candy colors and flake and striping in the 60's and was out of control in the 1970s. Movies like two lane black top and mad max help to establish this in pop culture. Sometime in the late 90's rockabilly guys began to embrace the 70's raw street machine ethic with 1950s unfinished rods and you got flat black with stripes. Cool? maybe but not really because most of these guys are whiny babies about how many flat black trendy rods are out there and theirs is cool because they did it first (oh and don't use the term rat rod around them either).
No bike is ever cool just because it is flat black. A bike can be raw and menacing and be painted flat black and be totally badass cool, but painting your UJM 1970's otherwise mostly stock Jap bike flat black will not give it attitude alone. The flat black can add to attitude but it can't create it. This is why flat black is not "cool". Truth of the matter is it is a cheap finish and says "look at the rest of the bike - that is what is important". If the rest of your bike can't back it up then what? Lame.
Psyco Diver 69 - your cb750 is badass because it looks cobbled together (mad max-ish) and like it could kill you for no reason. The black fits it but it is not cool because it is rattle canned - it is cool because it looks liek you built it out of left over lawn furniture and found objects in your garage and then painted it with house paint.
BTW I stand corrected on the "bobber" marketing for the nightster. Just got my new issue of cycleworld and was reading it on the can an hour ago and they threw around the term bobber pretty loosly (which was not something harley was doing). They also said it was a tough guy motorcycle and compared it to the 1969 sporty which is something harley was saying in their own literature. I place the blame solely on cycle world for being motorcycle morons (espically since edwards owns a real bobber and shoudl be smart enough to know the difference). That being said peter egan is the shiznit.
(BTW this is the burden of having a 1950's greaser and motorcycle nutjob for a father, he fucken lived it and I have had to listen to all shades of it since I was five).
Edited by - Geeto67 on Mar 05 2007 01:48:18 AM
Edited by - Geeto67 on Mar 05 2007 01:49:19 AM
