Chooper vs Bobber vs Street Fighter

[degrom]

So many works...

Can someone explain what the difference is between the lot?

[degrom]

What makes a Street Fighter a street Fighter?

Is a SV1000 a Street Fighter? What about a Buell?

Chopper,bobber... Isn't a bobber a short chopper?

[scumdog]

Chopper: Stretched, raked, blinged and built for style rather than function, originally the most custom built bike.

Bobber: a more stripped down older style shorter wheelbase, tend to use standard frame, rake etc, less blinged (generally) version of chopper (in essence the grand-daddy of choppers).

Street Fighter: Generally later model stripped down and built for handling and 'go' and the least blinged of the lot. Most are bigger non-US bikes.

If the bike your looking at is factory made then it could be called/described how ever the marketing people want to call it....
My 2-cents worth of dribble.....

[Motu]

What the Scumdag said - the terms chopper and bobber have become reversed.The first chops were stripped down Harleys to get them down as light and manoeverable as a British bike - small solo seat,no front guard,front guard to rear,foot boards removed,hand clutch,maybe 19in wheels.That look seems to now be called a bobber.To race against the British bikes they had to be smaller again,these were the KR and XR Harleys and that gives us another custom - the streettracker.

[Ixion]

Was it not that originally a chopper was a bobber that had had the frame "chopped", ie a section cut out to allow the steering head to be raked out ? Whereas the bobber retained standard geometry.

[degrom]

Chopper: Stretched, raked, blinged and built for style rather than function, originally the most custom built bike.

Bobber: a more stripped down older style shorter wheelbase, tend to use standard frame, rake etc, less blinged (generally) version of chopper (in essence the grand-daddy of choppers).

Street Fighter: Generally later model stripped down and built for handling and 'go' and the least blinged of the lot. Most are bigger non-US bikes.

If the bike your looking at is factory made then it could be called/described how ever the marketing people want to call it....
My 2-cents worth of dribble.....

Now that makes sense.

I get the feeling that bobbers were the first editions of the street fighter we know today.(Just back then...)

I think that Street Fighter building is a step up from Choppers/Bobbers and needs a lot more skill to produce.

Are there any Street Fighter builders in New Zealand?

[Motu]

The streetfighters would be desended from Cafe racers - these were what the English did,they stripped and modified their bikes,some just ordinary machines to emulate the race bikes they saw at the road race tracks.

[R6_kid:Me]

a streetfighter is a street/race bike, generally with no front or side fairings (occasionally just a belly pan), with a custom front light mount. In the extreme terms they are highly modified aesthetically but maintain the standard frame and running gear of the original bike.

My friend is currently riding a 2006 ZX-10R 'Streetfighter' that looks quite the biz, was a real simple job, bought it as a crashed bike and fixed it up, painted it etc, looks like the GR Busa but in Bleck not fluro yellow.

[El Dopa]

'Bobbers' were called bobbers becuase the only real way to get a performance improvement on your bike in the 1950's was to get rid of all the excess weight. Companies didn't offer aftermarket performance bolt-on bits and bobs. A popular womans haircut at the time was the 'bob' - a haircut with all the extra length and weight removed. Hence 'bobbing' your bike. Hence 'bobber'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobber

The definitions of 'chopper and 'bobber' used to be more interchangeable, but have somewhat solidifed so that 'chopper' tends to refer to bikes with raked and lengthened forks, and 'bobber' tends to refer to bikes where the frame geometry has been left alone, but where the bike has been stripped down to the bare essentials - no front guard, no radiator, no pillion seat, rear fender cut down, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopper_%28motorcycle%29

'Streetfighter' comes from guys who used to crash their expensive sports bikes and not be able to repair all the plastic fairings. So they tore the broken ones off, stuck a set of MX bars on, and turned the bike into a nasty naked 'ooligan bike. Generally, the parent bike has to be a big, powerful bike. An SV1000 isn't a streetfighter, but they can be turned into excellent streetfighters. Factory bikes aren't streetfighters, and you have to do quite a bit of custom work before you can honestly claim to have 'fightered your bike - you can't just slap on a couple of aftermarket bits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetfighter

[degrom]

Now that's the best explanation for a Bobber I have ever heard!!!

The Street Fighter also makes sense...

Thanks for that.

[Darkman]

some pics...1.chopper 2. street fighter 3. bobber

[Coyote]

I'm planning to turn one of my RG's into a streetfighter much like this one. Only with a bigger tail and a bikini fairing

[degrom]

some pics...1.chopper 2. street fighter 3. bobber

LOL... That Bobber is a non-stopper!!!

[Bonez]

Didn't street fighters originally come about by sprotbike riders falling off all the time and getting pissed off with the horrendous cost of replacing fairings?

Edit- I see El Dopa beat me to it. Bit slow this morning.

[Waylander]

I'm planning to turn one of my RG's into a streetfighter much like this one. Only with a bigger tail and a bikini fairing

That's one bastardized R1.