Talk:Bobber (motorcycle)

2008

This is just a start, I will be editing this more very soon...it needs sooo soo much more! Feb 18, 2008

i'd like to see the difference between choppers and bobbers be removed from both the chopper and bobber articles. though the term "bobber" vaguely seems to have evolved from the rear fenders of such bikes being "bobbed," one term is actually a synonym for another.

i don't understand the bit about frames being altered or unaltered. case in point: displayed in the bobber entry is a picture of a homebuilt bobber, yet the bike pictured is clearly built around a hardtail frame.

my point? a chopper is a bobber and a bobber is a chopper. Itsallaroundus (talk) 20:15, 9 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Itsallaroundus (talk • contribs) 17:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Your statement that a chopper is a bobber and a bobber is a chopper is false. A chopper is a bike that is literally chopped and extended or stretched horizontally or vertically in the frame. A bobber is a bike that has had parts removed or shortened. Choppers are often stretched or "raked out", quite contrary to a bobber.

Also, choppers are now factory produced, essentially eliminating the original thought process behind the first choppers. Bobbers are not factory produced, they are only produced in garages by owners or fabricators. The basis of the bike is factory made (stock), but items are removed and modified by the owner of the bike using tools and mechanical knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NICKD-NJITWILL (talk • contribs) 23:54, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Cleveland CycleWerk's Heist is a factory produced bobber. It's just semantics. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I believe this should be included in the history section. "When bobbers were first created, the intent was not to create a new type of motorcycle or sub-genre, the idea was to keep motorcycles on the road for as cheaply as possible. As the story goes, soldiers who gained experience and knowledge about motors came back to the United States and brought their knowledge with them. During the ’40s and ’50s, motorcycles had become very popular and the returning soldiers used their knowledge and applied it to motorcycles, creating some unique and customized bikes. During WW2, light and streamlined bikes were kings of the road in the European theater, and American soldiers sought to bring that little edge in speed back home. Sacrificing any extra items such as chrome and bulky lights and seats soon turned into shaving off weight wherever possible. If a bike had a breaking system that was too heavy or big, owners would import or find parts from a European model or smaller bike and put it to use on his. Fenders and lights, and sometimes mirrors were removed as well." — Preceding unsigned comment added by NICKD-NJITWILL (talk • contribs) 19:30, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

It appears you're adding original research and non-neutral opinions to the article. See WP:NOR. Wikipedia articles should be based on published sources by recognized authorities. I'm well aware that many people have strong opinions about what a "true" bobber is, but Wikipedia is not a soapbox for promoting this or that point of view.

Do you know of published sources, defined by Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources which gives us facts about this? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

So-called bobber streetfighters

There are pictures on some forum web sites of sport bikes with very short rear subframes, proving more than zero bikes have been chopped in this way. There also are posts on some forums, where anybody is allowed to say anything they want, where some anonymous commenters call these bikes "bobber streetfighters." It might very well be true that there is a significant new trend and a slang term to go with it, but if a Wikipedia editor decides it is significant simply because they found X number of posts in a forum, that editor is conducting original research. You need to wait until secondary sources notice the new trend, then after that, it can be added to Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not need to be up to the second in the latest trendy lingo or custom scene buzz.

In other words, Wikipedia is not Urban Dictionary.

And when (or if) secondary sources do notice bobber streeetfighters, then a section about the new kind of streetfighter should be added to the page Streetfighter. It is a new use of the slang 'bobber' but not a new kind of bobber motorcycle; it is a new variation of streetfighter motorcycle and it belongs on the page about the motorcycle, not the word. Bobber (motorcycle) article is about bobber motorcycles, not the word "bobber." Dictionaries are about words, and Wikipedia is not a dictionary.--Dbratland (talk) 22:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

re-write

this article needs a complete re-write, the facts might be OK, the style is not really standard for wikipedia, "it has been said" "some say" etc etc are not required. can someone re-write it, because right now I have enough motivation to point out the errors, but not enough to actually re-write it. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! (talk) 05:57, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Opinions and attribution

I would assert that the terms cutdown, bobber, chopper, and to some extent, even cafe racer and streetfighter, are nothing more than slang terms describing any customized motorcycle of a particular period. In the 20s and 30s they said cutdown, but that word fell out of fashion and the word bobber was the new lingo for the same thing. I refer you to the conspicuous lack of contemporary sources for modern claims about what others thought and said and did in the 1940s and 50s.

I'd like to know why authors seem to be crawling out of the woodwork on the Internet in the 2010s to proclaim all sorts of certainties about what a "true" bobber was of the 1940s. Where are the sources from the 1940s or 1950s who can verify a shred of this? It appears as if somebody in the 21st century wants to backdate their opinions to bolster their claims.

It's fine to cite the opinions of a Mike Seate or other published authors, but we should re-frame most of these factual claims as opinions. It's fine to say what Seate thinks a bobber is, but say it that way, not just with a citation as if it were a fact, but with "Author Mike Seat said that..." clearly telling the reader it's an opinion.

If we did have contemporary sources to verify what a bobber was in the 40s or 50s, I'd be beside myself with excitement. It would be really really cool if we could prove any of this stuff is true. Otherwise, we should tone it down and make clear it's opinion and speculation. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:32, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we should be looking to sources like Vintagent (talk · contribs)'s book The Real Chopper Story, since it's one source that explicitly was based on the actual exploration of archives to find original documents to cover the history of custom bikes. Other typical books [23][24] seem to only contain expert opinions. That is, I think we should respect what Jose de Miguel, for example, has to say and quote-and-attribute his take on the subject, but he didn't do the scholarship we're looking for. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)