The appeal of choppers and ape hangers?

Same appeal as sport bikes and clip-ons or adventure bikes and a bazillion farkles along with hard bags...

I like a lot what you wrote here. I have not bought my classic yet, but I am thinking a lot about. For me it won't be the brewery but a small cafe right by the sea...

This is 100% wrong. Bobbers came first. Watch the Wild One with Marlon Brando, you see stock looking bikers and Bobbers. Not a single chopper to be seen. Choppers came later. My Dad started riding bikes when he returned from serving in WWII. He had all his riding buddies, all vets, they liked to ride and race. Dad's bobbers were mostly stripped down for racing purposes. They would take big Harleys and ride them off road, on the dirt. To do that you gave the bike a "bob" shaved off parts, and in particular the rear fender, that is the origin of the term "bobber". Like a woman's "bob" hairstyle.

Choppers came from the stretched out front end which lowered the bike in the front and made it appear "chopped" like a hot rod car. As an aside in the early 60's to get into the Hell's Angels your bike could not be bought, you had to steal it, and salvage parts and things to build your bike. So some feel the term came from the "chop shops" where they would strip the parts and build the bikes. Either way Bobbers came first.

My very good friend and riding buddy has been sucked in by the chopper thing, bought some 900 lb Arlen Ness chopper with a huge S&S chrome motor. I'm trying to be cool with it, but its sucks. We used to have great fast rides in the mountains, overnight trips, 500 mile days. Now we have to stop for gas every 60 miles, it is so ungodly loud that no one within a half a mile can have a conversation,it handles so bad I have to wait for him at every stop sign. It breaks down a lot. It overheats on hot days. He has to stop because his hands go numb. It can't carry any luggage at all. Its a nightmare and I am so sick of that POS that I've been avoiding him and instead riding with various groups around my area, or more often - alone. And he pays $1000 a year for insurance on the thing!!! $1000/yr!! Then complains that he has no money to do trips and stuff. Once or twice I have almost convinced him to buy a sport touring bike but he can't give this thing up. We've been riding together since we were teenagers and we always got along great but that bike is putting a strain on things. I hate that bike so much. He, OTOH, stares at it dreamily and tells me how much he loves the thing.

All that said, if we go to a biker type bar, or some where that biker loving women are - well it pulls those crazy biotches in like flies to honey. My T100 Tuxedo just pulls in old guys and my beloved V-Strom has been hit with the ugly stick, I must admit.


所以,直升机是什么?它们被设计to get a reaction from other people. All motorcycles get reactions. But choppers are exclusively designed for reactions from others, and not so much as functional riders. The reactions they get are the function. If you care about that, you love them. If not, then you hate them.

My Strom is exactly the opposite. It doesn't try to do anything other than carry people and luggage, fast and comfortably. I am not saying that is better, it almost like two different sports. It just from my perspective, that choppers suck. I don't want to be seen or noticed. I want to disappear - to ride some lonely mountain, cross a river and see a bald eagle or something. My buddy wants to go to a biker bar and get attention.

Holy shit I just realized why its so annoying for me to ride with him.

Having grown up in Southern California through the 60's where choppers were first built, I think this Wiki explanation comes the closest to explaining choppers and their history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopper_(motorcycle)

I want to build my springer so loooooong SugarBear would look at it and say "Fuck it can be done.".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobber_(motorcycle)

The ape hangers came back in style during the Sons of Anarchy show. I can't imagine why someone with a bagger and fairing would want their hands in the wind?

In nature many creatures employ a defense that involves making themselves appear larger in order to discourage attacks or to show dominance. This can be done by puffing up feathers, spreading out wings, arching backs, and installing apehangers.

I dont believe this is correct. I started messing with harleys in the late 70s. One older guy I knew had ridden harleys in the 50s, he never ever used the term bobber or bob-job, nor had any other old timer I knew, nor do i recall even hearing the term until fairly recently when I became interested in bikes again after laying off in the late 80s. (the dual "fat-bob" tanks being the only reference I recall to anything "bob", and only in reference to the tanks themselves. I was almighty confused when doing searches after seeing the term "bobber" and assumed it had to do with dual tanks, and I kept getting pics of bikes without bob tanks. A true WTF? moment) The older guys I knew called their bikes choppers when stripped down, it had zero to do with long extended front ends, as some seem to think is all it refers to. Most of the old timers didnt seem to care that much for the later long front end styles that became more identified with the term "chopper".

The cut down hot rod cars were termed "chopped and channeled" when cut down in body height and fenders removed etc, I believe the same general concept was used with bikes stripped down and lightened, based on my interaction with older guys.

This is also what I've understood, choppers were chopped. Although they did call their chopped off rear fender style bobbed. Never heard of a bobber before though.

Because who fucking cares as long as I don't have to ride it.

Knuckledraggers.

They generally have more or less standard height bars, the screens on the other hand are often over head level so they have to look around them going down the road.

They are a pretty amusing bunch to watch.

The rear guard was the front guard, the flare was the bottom of the front guard...and so there was no front guard.

According to wikipedia "The term 'chopper“未出现在打印,直到1960年代中期,关爱r 30 years after the bob-job was invented." I'd say in terms of slang, one preceded the other. We all know that the old timers first just started lightening vehicles by cutting parts off. It wasn't until later that an entire industry developed for chopper frames, ling forks and chromed parts. Looking at photos from the Holister riot the motorcycles are lightened by having no fenders but they aren't 60's style choppers.They are bob-jobs, or bobbers.


You can't find me a picture of a Captain America style chopper from before this time.

He is not incorrect. Took me about a minute to find what I already knew about the term bob job. Search the term bob hair cut origin and then bobber motorcycles origin.

The term "bobbed" or "bobbing" came about in the 20's referring to women's hair when cut back short, really short. The term passed on to motorcycles when riders did the same to them, cutting fenders down to a minimum - bobbing them. One company is famous and their "bobber" bikes, built in the 30s for the most part, going for HUGE money at auctions now - Crocker. One sold last night on Mecum auctions for over $700,000 including fees!

Not considered the most accurate and reliable source, but in this case is both, Wikipedia nails it:

"The term 'chopper“未出现在打印,直到1960年代中期,关爱r 30 years after the bob-job was invented. The chopper is a more stylistically and technically extreme evolution of the bob-job, which emerged after the highly elaborate, heavily chromed bob-jobs which appeared in the late 1940s and 1950s. Bobbers are typically built around unmodified frames, while choppers use either highly modified or custom-made frames. Chopper frames are often cut and welded into shape. Thus, bobbers are fairly easy to create from stock motorcycles and are generally hand built."



浮子的第一个“追踪者”ince they mimicked the track bikes of the day, and definitely class C racing in the 40s and 50s for sure. They far pre-dated the choppers. Bobbing involves stripping and removing with minimal cutting and virtually no raking and extending.



By the way, the first hot rods weren't chopped and channeled, they were usually roadsters with fenders and windshields removed. Courtesy of Auto Trader - A Short History of Hot Rods(click):

"Most early hot rods were Ford Model T or Model A roadsters—cheap, plentiful, and lightweight, having no top and only a single seat. Standard procedure was to strip off all nonessential parts—fenders, running boards, ornaments, even the windshield—to achieve maximum weight reduction and aerodynamics. Eventually coupes and sedans joined the ranks. Typically, these heavier models underwent drastic surgery to chop their tops lower and slope, or rake, their windshields backward."

From The Race of Gentlemen -theseare the original style hot rods:



The TROG rules really promotes the originals, but does have some chopped and channeled. But those are the beginning in the 1930s and 1940s.

The coupes and sedans started showing up post-depression, the "gow jobs" started in the depression. They essentially "bobbed" roadsters, taking off extraneous stuff. Things I learned as a kid growing up in the 60s reading Hot Rod, among others.

This thread would really be worth it if someone could explain to the difference in terms of motorcycle culture. Or just culture.

Choppers really got their start with the extended fork craze. standard forked bikes were just as customized in every other aspect , call them custom , bobbers or just cool looking. It all matters little.
The first longer forks came off Military Harleys whose springer fork were an inch or so longer for increased ground clearance. Then someone noticed that Ford radius rods had the same approximate shape and taper as the H-D rear legs and that swapping them would allow for 6 or so more inches of extension. After that it was on , who could make the longest fork , get the most attention , be the center of attention ? Rideability ? Who cares ?
The Outlaw Biker B & C grade movies spread the look for all to admire and then came the Holy Grail , Easy Rider.
The horse opera on gleaming motorcycles film set against the background of the wide open spaces of the American West lit the fires of imaginations around the world .
Who in the right mind wouldn't want to Get out on the Highway , Looking for Adventure ?
No one mentioned Bobbers much in the '70's because the page had turned and Chopper Fever had taken over. By the '90's the Bobber was being appreciated again , but , then the second wave of Chopper mania hit and practicality went down the tubes again , back to the Look at Me ! style of high necks and long forks.
I see piles of these impractical machines on Craig's list now for a fraction of their original purchase price , I sometimes I think about getting one to harvest the drivetrain and any other parts that don't offend me to build a V-twin that I'd like.

Here's a writer relating that Von Dutch explained the origin of the extended front forks to him....


https://books.google.com/books?id=l8SBbzjkIQsC&pg=PT123&lpg=PT123&dq=military+harley+springer+fork+extension+chopper&source=bl&ots=P7SKbi5Job&sig=ACfU3U0KlLkonzLNRg0ScmhXfI6I2Tydlw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYtuO_38DgAhXoYt8KHWjiBVUQ6AEwEXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=military harley springer fork extension chopper&f=false