Triumph Bobber
 

Yet another indication where I live is a motorcycle wasteland.

"the Bobber, which registration figures show as the third best-selling motorcycle over 125cc in the first half of the year." (from Visordown)

How many Bobbers have you seen? I saw one earlier this year but it was the demonstrator from Webbs (Lincoln), haven't seen one since.

Triumphs in general - I see far more Speed/Street triples than any other models in their range. I thought I'd see a lot of Street twins (seen 1), watercooled T120 (couple), watercooled T100 (1), air cooled scramblers (5 or 6). Rocket 3 (4 or 5 - none on a 16 or later plate).

Edit - thinking about it a bit more, I see more Triumph Tigers than the Bonneville range

"The British motorcycle manufacturer (Triumph) has reported a 48% growth in annual pre-tax profits, from £16.6million to £24.7million." (from Visordown again). Well done Triumph.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I've seen hardly any on the roads. I used to live up there though, it's almost mandatory to have a bike, that's what I found

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Registration figures are not the full story.
Dealer demonstrators get registered but are not translated into sales to members of the public until they get sold on.
If every Triumph dealer has a Bobber demonstrator that's 49 "sales"

The key bit you left out Seeker was "Financial results to the end of June 2017 show Triumph's bike sales also grew, from 56,253 to 63,404, with 86% sold overseas."

http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-...es-and-profits

Triumph's UK sales are currently in decline.
In November 2016 they shifted 466 bikes, in November 2017 it was down to 396

Triumph are doing the right thing looking to develop in new markets because the UK bike market is likely to fall on its ****.

You can get the Press Release data (minus the journalistic spin) direct from the MCIA
http://www.mcia.co.uk/sub/Press_Stats

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I’m sure the sale of motorcycles no matter what make is mainly down to the age of the average consumer.Just go to any bikers meet and what do you see...middle age and older dudes like me (63).At the TT it’s the same and I’m going to the classic in 2019 and without doubt that will be the same.what with the economic climate and many people struggling there doesn’t appear to be so many young ‘uns starting off on two wheels and following on through the years.An awful lot of us maturer end seem to prefere the more sit up and beg style running up to the big trailies and I believe even the Honda XADV is not far behind the new Blade in sales,both around £10k,an awful lot of money to many,so I think the market is more for the middle aged with a bit of disposable income who require a fair amount of comfort.Only my observation but what’s your opinion ???????

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Also biking became fashionable and cool again in the 90s and 2000s when disposable income was on the up. Remember 120,000 plus at Brands WSB? Times have changed a lot now. Triumph know that and their focus will be overseas.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Millennials have been through the most risk averse liberal minded school system, they have been well brainwashed in political correctness, driven everywhere in warms cars, and wrapped in cotton wool for too many years to do something like riding a motorbike - the growth markets will be places like Asia, China and India where motorbikes are still popular and the cotton wool is not so regularly and thickly applied..

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Sounds about right.

I went for the comfy T100 when I decided it was time for a change after 6 years of GSX-F ownership. Lots of middle aged chaps like me at most biker haunts and going to the Bike Show last month was like ehtering a geriatric convention!

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Dunno about being brainwashed into being risk-averse, but the current bike test and licence restrictions can't help ... it's all a far cry from when I got my full licence by doing one lap of the streets around the test centre being 'watched' by Johnny Clipboard the tester, followed by an emergency stop and answering three questions on the Highway Code ...

No training needed, just a 10-minute test and I could go and buy a Z1000 if I had £1,499 and could afford to insure it ...

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Back when I were a lad I bought me a brand spanking new LC350
On the day I collected it the salesman took me round the back of the workshop and showed me a line of five smashed LCs.
None of them had made it to 1000 miles and two of the riders had succumbed to their injuries.
Did that make me ride it sensibly?
Did it fook! :lol:

When you can have a brand new car for £99 down and £23 a week on PCP (including two years free servicing) wtf would kids want a bike?

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

They use smartphone at home, in car, in restaurants, in the toilet, in bed - the one place it is hard to use their life support system is on a motorbike. They need to have the link broken and concentrate on something else for a while instead of checking their phone 3000 times a day.

May also give them a feel for the weather and how its sometimes hot and sometimes cold, and sometimes the road gets wet and then its not so grippy etc. Wrapped up in their PCP 'handbag car'** fug-boxes with their infotainment (another word for 'total distraction system') poor things haven't a clue what is happening in the weather department.

( ** handbag car, small motorised skate board type car like Fiat 500 or Mini, although a modern Mini is 3x as big as the old mini but with less room inside - how did they do that ? )

Darwin was right then

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Exactly what I was thinking, reading this thread.

I was also wondering if there'd been a similar impact on new drivers. In my (albeit now very London based) experience, the kids aren't very interested in learning to drive either. However this could be a function of a fairly comprehensive public transport system combined with easy access to scheduling information (via aforementioned mobile phones) and weather that's not quite so atrocious. And it's er... effort.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I also notice we're turning into classic grumpy old folks. This thread can be summarized as follows:

"Not seen many Bobbers about"

"Those bloomin young people!"

:D

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

A few years ago the Gadget Show did an experiment with two teams of two people. One team could use smart phone to access online sources to get themselves from a point in London to some point outside London using public transport only (no taxis) and the other team had to use 'conventional' sources of information, eg the phone and maps and timetables, but not online. The conventional team won by a decent margin, they only did the experiment once so may have been a happy accident, would have been nice to have seen result of best of three using same teams though.

Truth is, taking the smart phone away from millennial or generation Z person is like sending them into the world with a blindfold on. See them in a group and they instagram and facebook each other rather than talk face to face though - they sometimes shove the screen of their phone into someone elses face to make a point, but that is about as personal as it gets.....

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I've also noticed a lack of appetite for younger people to learn to drive. It is pretty pointless when insuring a car is so expensive, but of course you need a license to be able to hire a van, drive a works car etc. The lack of young people on bikes is similar, it's now expensive and difficult to get into, no end of hypocritical parents won't let them, and yes, the mere thought of inconvenience of any sort is anathema. The Get On scheme doesn't seem to have helped much, but from what I hear, too many training companies who were hosting them instead tried to strongarm people into doing their CBT and parting with cash, so leaving a bad taste.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

When trying to accomplish something simple like walk down a street, actually giving them a phone is like blindfolding them. And plugging their ears as well.

I dunno if London is ahead of the game here but it's not just the "yoof" - professional commuters of all ages are just as bad.

My phone lives in my pocket, not in my hand, and I prefer my ears unblocked. I'm in the minority.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Well all these comments seem to echo what I was saying in one shape or another.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

You and me both. I'm personally quite happy to be a trend bucker. Note the B at the start of that word...

Btw, the Trumpet forum I'm also known to frequent is rather split on the Bobber (my goodness, a reference to the OP!) as some like it and the eest of us don't.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I think the bobber is hideous.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Seen the Triumph dealer's demo bobber and that's it.
Have seen more self built customs appearing though, cut down Viragos with side mount numberplates and whitewalls, that kind of thing.
Not to my taste but hey ho whatever floats yer boat.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-...es-and-profits

The lower value of £Sterling may have helped Triumph overseas, but as article says 'Triumph UK sales down 15.5% year-on-year'.

Don't really like the look of the Bobber but as others say 'whatever floats your boat'.

Off topic a bit, Here is another story from Visordown on autonomous vehicle and motorbike colliding
http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-...d-rider-blamed

so easy to blame the rider and preserve the idea in peoples minds that Autonomous vehicles are safe.....
( just look at that car with its array of sensors, vandals just love to snap off car mirrors, so many more tempting targets on that car).

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Interestingly the article doesn't say that.
What it does say is that total UK sales of all motorcycles are down 15.5%
There is no mention in the article of what Triumph's UK sales figures are, just some meaningless unsupported claim about being the market leader in bikes over 500cc.
What we have with this Visordown article is a classic example of journalistic bias and spin.

Out of curiosity I had a look for Bobber sales figures and it would appear there were 711 Bobbers registered in Q1 and Q2 of 2017

https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicl...le_bobber#!tax

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Oops - bit of a misread by me who saw Triumph in headline, -- Triumph Bobber sales in UK are pretty good.

may sell a few Bobbers to Saudi as well ...
http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-...i-women-lifted

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Over the mentioned time period the Bobber outsold the StreetTwin two to one which given how good the StreetTwin is seems pretty amazing.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I've just been thinking about driverless cars, where I live in rural Herefordshire at this time of year muddy roads are pretty normal to the point the reversing sensors on my van begin to be untrustworthy.

Not sure I'd trust an autonomous vehicle around here!

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Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Governments don't want any one upsetting the apple cart, they have rushed headlong into BEV and driverless vehicles as the latest way to 'save the planet' (just like Diesel, Wind power, solar power etc, etc.) like a drowning man clutching a straw. What about frost, snow, squashed insects, leaves, mud etc. blocking sensors.

On the Guy Martin and the robot car program the other day one of the scientists said to get an autonomous vehicle to drive a simple route 'would take millions of lines of code' - that robot race car has crashed more than once just going around a simple track with no other vehicles in sight.

If they ever become a reality AV are going to trash 10's millions of jobs while providing only hundreds of jobs in high tech companies.

The only way to save planet is to severely restrict population, which no government is willing to tackle - so the 'MM climate change proponents' and others can put their theories up their jacksies until they tackle the 'elephant in the room' (which within 30 years may well be the only elephant on the planet LOL).

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Totally agree with all you say. I be saying for years that the real issue that's being avoided is population growth, bit rich coming from me with four children!

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Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Also how do you tell a driverless car to bend the rules and mount a verve to pass a tractor or lorry on a lane?

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Re: Triumph Bobber
 

4 kids is nothing (UK needs the natives to breed more LOL) when in third world countries 12+ seems to be the norm.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

It will sense the tractor or lorry long before it comes into view and adjust its speed so that they pass at a suitable spot?

Remember, there's not really much (if anything) machines can't do better than humans.

Humans are becoming increasingly redundant, eventually machines will have no need of them whatsoever.

Todays IT hardware is the primordial soup from which the next life-form will spring.

Machines will be able to explore the universe in a way that humans never will.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I can't see how on some of the tight bendy lanes around us with no suitable passing places that it would be possible to sense an oncoming vehicle.

In any case demand is what drives sales and I can't see the public wanting driverless cars

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Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Because the vehicles will be able to broadcast their positions to each other.

Humans only know there's a vehicle coming when they can see it, machines have no such restriction.

The problem with autonomous vehicles is interfacing with humans.
Once you remove humans from vehicles altogether they will become far more efficient.

The linked story is a case in point, the bike was struck because the human controlling the bike was unable to react in time to the machine's change of decision.
Had the bike been controlled by a machine the collision would not have happened because the machine can sense and react at a rate which humans are simply incapable of.
This enhanced decision rate is why ABS keeps a bike upright when doing a full emergency stop on greasy wet cobbles.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I have worked in robotics and automation for pretty much the whole of my career, believe me it is hard enough controlling things when they are on fixed locations and fixed paths, let alone freely wandering around. There is an awful lot of hype around at the moment because AV is a bandwagon no company wants to miss, they are all looking for investment so they are hardly gonna let on how hard its going to be. Humans do an awful lot of things better than machines (like decision making, not just routine fairly low tech decisions like ABS where it only has to stop wheel locking up) - truth is people go on about machines existing on their own and reproducing etc - they all need electricity to function, take that away and they are just so much junk. For vehicles to keep track of where they are they they need massive 3D files of the surroundings (which need constant updates), if one thing is out of place the car can see it as an obstacle, read a few weeks ago that an AV kept swerving when it went over a section of road, there was one pixel (1 pixel in millions) wrong on the picture it was seeing and it treated it as an obstacle to be avoided. How can you program an AV to cross a double white line (humans do it all the time to get round obstacles).

https://www.recode.net/2017/9/5/1625...ng-soon-future


http://www.newsweek.com/you-may-not-...ess-car-575305

The atmosphere in traffic is going to be so congested with radio waves to allow the cars to 'talk to each other' that I would be surprised if anything gets the signal it needs.

If humans can be trusted to concentrate on what they are doing they are superb, trouble if some are easily distracted and that is when the problems start. There are more and more humans being put out of jobs by automation (mainly on a cost basis) but they still have to be paid welfare, and 'the devil finds work for idle hands'. it is pretty ironic that just when population is rising humans think it is a good time to try to destroy hundreds of millions of jobs around the world by replacing humans.

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Abs is a fairly straightforward system though

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Re: Triumph Bobber
 

Does an aircraft autopilot navigation system need massive 3d files to function?
Or just a few coordinates?

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

They don't operate in such close confines as road vehicles, a near miss in aviation is hundreds of metres.

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Re: Triumph Bobber
 

https://www.economist.com/news/scien...s-cars-reality

https://www.technologyreview.com/the...lot-isnt-safe/

There are no fixed obstacles in the way of an aircraft for 99.9999% of its flight, it just has to maintain correct altitude (aircraft flying in different directions are separated by vertical space to stop collisions, not horizontal space) and a heading within a few miles each way, they can fly down a GPS / radio corridor to land.

A more equivalent comparison may be that after landing an aircraft can taxi to its position and dock ready for unloading without any pilot input. Also aircraft systems are maintained to military level of performance, I somehow doubt that the average AV will be.

IMHO driverless vehicles will be every terrorists dream come true, why risk your life driving a bomb to a location when a vehicle can drive itself, you can kidnap someone just by taking control of their car and diverting it to a place you choose - !S!S must be wetting themselves in anticipation.

Bit of a wandering thread, how did we get from Triumph Bobber sales to AV ?

Re: Triumph Bobber
 

I was thinking the same thing

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