Great Romances of the 20th Century

I'm turning over a new leaf. Hanging up my asshole gloves(only on this subject.) With hopes on shedding light, and information on a very misunderstood and misused word. Wait for it… keeeeeeep waiting. Bobber, whew, there I said it.

Now you probably have a strong mental image in your head. Some sweet looking bike all stripped down. Most likely hard tailed and to throw another buzz phrase "bare bones". Perhaps the first time you ever saw one it was outside of a bar or at a bike/car event and you overheard someone else call it a bobber.

Now here's the kicker. They and you are wrong. What you're looking at in your head my friends or on Instagram is a chopper. Now I know at this point another image sprouts into your head and you're about to yell, "No it's a bobber! Choppers are all long and tall and chrome." Calm down easy rider.

What you call a bobber is in fact just a short chopper. Even by a technicality. I mean, the instance that stock bike was "chopped" in half and put back together it became it's chopper self. Not all are the super stylized and grand period pieces built to reflect the 70s when good ol boys ruled the land. The best way I can explain it is to not, why is that? Because these are terms we are using from yesteryear and we are severely butchering them. So here's an excerpt from an article that perfectly sums up this point and should bring a little clarity. After all, what better than to hear it from the mouths of those who lived and created what we mimic today.

"A short bike with a Sportster tank and a flat fender is not a Bobber. It’s just a short chop. About 99% of the bikes that are called Bobbers…well, you get the picture. I’ve been involved in conversations with youngsters (born after 1960_ who claim that what they build are Bobbers. I’m not even sure most of them have ever seen one. In the 50’s, in my area, we were riding chops, bobbers and garbage wagons (full dressers or baggers as they are known now) and each had a distinct style! Chops had cut-down tanks (this is before Sportster tanks were made), cut-down fenders, no floorboards, cut-up bars or apes, usually upsweeps with fishtails (normally no mufflers), side mount taillight, etc. Bobbers had small fatbobs, floorboards, bobbed rear stock fender (usually cut at the rear fender hinge), the stock exhaust 2 into 1), stock bars, basically a cut-down (bobbed) stock bike. Of course we know what a garbage wagon (eh, bagger) looked like. Anyway, you guys are building short chops, not bobbers. This is a cycle that repeats itself time after time. People start building chops, long chops because that’s always what a chop should look like. Then after a while they begin to realize that the long chops they built are hard to candle and you need gorilla arms to keep it straight and to turn. Of course these people flunked geometry and physics because they unknowingly set up wrong their bikes. So, to be able to get back to riding they shortened up the bikes but didn’t want them to be called chops because that might seem to infer they don’t handle, so they called the bobbers, custom bikes, etc…I have seen this cycle so many times in my riding history that it’s ridiculous." - Sugar Bear

Leaving aside the fact that an actual bobber physically can't be anything post 50s-60s era max. Most of what you see these days are either short choppers, long choppers, full customs or the more popular modified stock bikes. So chances are what you're throwing together is either a short chop or just a stock bike. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Bikes are fun. All of, well most of them. With anything else it come down to attitude. If you're running around hashtagging your sick bobber all over the place as such when it isn't. That cool factor will hit a wall when that dude you think is a washed up grandpa laughs at you.

Where do we go from here? What do we do now? Well, go out and enjoy your bike that's what it's made for. But rethink your execution when posting and try and spread the gospel about the correct terminology. Call your bike a #shortchop or even #modifiedstockbike with pride. And always keep the rubber side down.

Cheers.

Poison, poison! The apples have been made impure. Don't save the damsel the fair maiden that sleeps is the witch not the cure. Don't be fooled the misbegotten attempt at affection was shared to multiple sirs. Keep your wits you jaded fellows this is a beast this is not a her. Sharpen your blades! Polish your shields! Tonight we reclaim our hearts and go on a hunt. Let the dragons roam! They're nothing compared, tonight we slay the heart of a cunt.

I'm a walking cliche. A narcissistic egomaniac with crippling insecurities. A first class fuck up in a 3rd world country that's hiding the fact. I'm a product of commercialism. I think highly of myself and nothing of you. I'm everything that's wrong but I'm always right. A hopeless romantic in a world filled with frivolous semantics. Ill fight my way to the top or argue myself to the bottom. A womanizing Don Juan. Ill call you beautiful and cross my fingers when I promise. 

I wanted to share my world with all of you. But I was told I couldn't continue construction. I made a machine to control time and weather. We lived every Saturday as if it were our last. And the following Sunday surrounded by friends and family sharing stories of the previous nights adventures. All the while sitting outside with the breeze to our backs and the patio tables were draped in soft white linens. Various fruits and snacks and teas and beers. No one was stressed because I had made it so that we could all live off each other and the land. And oh my I wish you could see the colors I saw in there. The sky's blue would hit your skin with a refreshing splash of cool. The wind floated past our ears and you could hear a distant echo of whatever tune that was playing miles away riding the wave lengths. You were all there as ghosts. I couldn't interact because they only let me build. But you were all so happy. I'd never seen such bliss on their faces. I was working so hard to cross over and enjoy my creation with all of you. They never told me what the wires on my body were for. I didn't know until it was too late. The inter tangled mess that went from my brain to my heart and out of my chest has the beginning. I told them I want to build my dreams into static mass for my friends and family to enjoy. I told them I'd like to fill these places with items that came from my heart. They said that'd be no problem. In the coming weeks I saw the buildings that came from my head change to a mixture of hard structure with little add ons here and there. Grey city blocks turned into vibrant painting. There was always music. Then they told me at the end of my project I would die. The machine was built to create what I wanted for my family and friends from me. I did not know its original intention would be to kill me. It used every last drop of liquid. But I'm happy now in this machine. I am the city. The walls you paint. The roads you drive. I'm here with all of my loved ones in a city that I built for them. From me.

Huge shout out to my dude Brandon Jordan over in Cali for the new layout. Always have to rep my family, especially when the man does work so quickly. Check his work out over at http://www.thelabisblack.com/ and support the cause at his shoppe http://blabphoto.bigcartel.com/ Also we did a little collab on a shirt dropping on your brainwaves pretty soon. Be sure to stick around and be ready.

Greetings friends, and maybe some enemies. Please be patient as this is my first venture into the blogosphere. Once all the loose ends are tied up I will be posting regularly. Just another way for me to chase internet fame. Until then I thank you for these brief moments.