The affordable bobber

Jawa showed a brave face by launching the Perak, a factory custom motorcycle which followed a unique genre of motorcycles, the bobbers. We ride the Perak to find out whether it ticks all the right boxes

- Rahul Ghosh

The bobber scene emerged around the 1930s when people starting stripping excess metal from their motorcycles. The process was referred to as a ‘bob-job’. All this was done to reduce weight from the otherwise heavy bikes all in a bid to go faster most of the times. A lot of people also didn’t quite like so much bodywork on bikes and hence this genre was born.

The Indian motorcycle scene these days is a constantly evolving one and by the day we are seeing new genres emerging. One such genre is the bobber. Triumph was the first to launch a bobber in the country and then came the Jawa Perak. Needless to say, the Perak is a lot more affordable at Rs 1.97 lakh.

1. The Perak features a bored-out version of the 300cc mill seen on the other Jawas. It offers a bit more power and torque.

2. The headlight dome remains identical to the Jawa.

3. Switchgear too is the same as on the Jawa and the 42