July 27, 200422 yr Being a member of the Green Mountain Plonkers Trials Club in Vermont, I have often been asked what does "plonkers" mean. Growing up as a kid in the late 60s and 70s I always understood plonkers to mean one of two things. 1) How a trials bike sounded as it crawled over rocks and obstacles and 2) The act of crawling or plonking over rocks and obstacles. Can anyone elaborate where the word derived from? Is it Spanish as in the Ossa Plonker?
July 27, 200422 yr This is the definition from an on-line dictionary: Plonker - an idiot, fool or a word for penis. Popularized by the UK TV comedy 'Only fools and horses'. i.e. "Rodney you total plonker !", or "You're pulling my plonker". Judging from this web site they seem to be mostly in the US Plonka's I get the feeling it could be from the old four stroke though - Plonk, plonk, plonk. Unless you're all wino's and it derives from that (Bottle of Plonk) Edited July 28, 200422 yr by Bikespace
July 28, 200422 yr Back in the glorious 70's we used to call all trials bikes 'plonkers' - probably due only to a knowledge of the Ossa brand. I used to have an Ossa Stiletto flat tracker... I guess I now know why I put my foot down on left turns in the sections!?
July 28, 200422 yr Judging from this web site they seem to be mostly in the US You are probably correct on this as I have met a large number of people that moved to the US from the UK!
July 28, 200422 yr You are probably correct on this as I have met a large number of people that moved to the US from the UK! Oooh - Nice comeback!
July 28, 200422 yr You are probably correct on this as I have met a large number of people that moved to the US from the UK! Oooh - Nice comeback! Don't encourage him - I was hoping to just get away with it quietly To compliment my previous useless answer I went trying to find out where the name for the Ossa Plonker came from and..............after about an hour of searching the web.............wait for it...........................nothing! Can't find any reference to its origin whatsoever. Somebody somewhere must know? Edited July 28, 200422 yr by Bikespace
July 28, 200422 yr A friend of my calls motorcycles and bicycles with (frame) desingn that have some projection or edge to smash your nuts as plonkers, clunkers or egg beaters...
July 28, 200422 yr Author I knew when I posted the original message that some Plonker would reference the dictionary and come up with the UK definition for a particular appendage. I also figured the rest would have fun with that. But, moving beyond that, as Bikespace pointed out Ossa must have had some reason to call their bike a Plonker. I was wondering if perhaps this was a spanish word or some derivative of a spanish word much like many of the Bultaco models.
July 31, 200422 yr The word plonker is derived from the espanol word plonker which literally translates "giant heavy stupid penis with green tank stripe"
July 31, 200422 yr Hi, Plonker has no meaning in spanish. Ossa plonker is a 1969 bike Here you can find a photo of this bike http://217.127.158.230/motoclasica/imagenes/TRIAL3P.jpg OSSA, bultaco and Montesa used to give names with a kind of meaning. As Mick Andrews begun to run trials with Ossa in such a days, perhaps He has the meaning for "plonker". bye.
August 2, 200422 yr Jesus with his knowledge of Spanish is spot on here. The late 1960's OSSA trials bike made famous by Mick Andrews was called an OSSA plonker in the USA and the name has eventually caught on elsewhere. When sold new elsewhere it was generally called the OSSA MAR or OSSA Mick Andrews Replica. Plonker was simply a generic term for any trials bike at the time. When I started looking at TODO Trial website I used the machine translation into Australian (it's a bit like English) so I could read about the history of some of the Spanish bikes and was at first stumped because the machine translation of OSSA MAR is OSSA SEA. I eventually worked out that the translation software read MAR as Mare, which is probably Spanish for ocean or sea. There are some other weird translations from Spanish like the Wild Level (Montesa Cota) and some other weird thing I don't remember which really means Honda TLR200. After you read a (fair) bit of the machine translations it almost makes sense (sort of). Plonker certainly came from the characteristics of early trials bike engines as does "bogwheeler" from people increasing the flywheel mass of their old 4 stroke trials bikes using "bog" (lead). David Lahey Australia
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