All through time we have referred to the big HDs as dressers with their hardbags and trunk. So now we enter a new age "New School", and they are referred to as "Baggers". So what has become of the Dresser?

 

The touring bikes with the trunks have always had many names, Bagger, Dresser, Dump Truck, Grocery Getter, Geezer Glide so I guess you'll just have to pick the one that fits your scoot !!!

 

My uncle might ask when people started calling touring bikes "dressors". He is 92 and he refers to them as "wheels". He always sits and stares at my street glide and says, "that sure is a pretty wheel!" He says he never had a wheel of his own but he rode his brother's now and then and if he ever was to buy a "wheel" he would want it to look just like my "wheel".

Dennis

 

I consider a "dresser" to be a touring bike with hard saddle bags and a hard tour pak; but a "bagger" to be any of HD's touring bikes, which could be a RK or other touring bike w/out tour pack, or a "dresser".

 

Dressers and baggers are the same.I guess it just depends on how old you are as to what you call them.

 

an old man I know just calls them motorsickles.....

 

Yep, and in some parts of Canada they call 'em Deckers...like all decked out I guess.

 

That's true. Before '71 Harley only made Dressers and Sportsters. The Italians made those Sprints etc. Earlier they had a few Hummers and Topper scooters, but really Dressers and Sportsters. Only cops and Shriners seemed to ride dressers. Everybody else rode an XLCH, which was NOT a girls bike back then, or stripped down a used "dresser" to make a bobber and later a chopper. The guys like Shriners put a lot of extra junk on their dressers, extra lights, fringe, worse stuff than Kuryakin sells now, hence "Full Dress" Harley. Now that touring bikes are becoming cool, bagger is the new "Cool" term. Personally I have always called them "dressers" but now that seems wrong to describe a tricked out Roadglide or Streetglide, "bagger" does seems better.

 

IMO-

Baggers have hard bags, or bags that aren't mean to be removed.

Dressers are "full dress" which usually means Ultra Classics with all the goodies. C.B., tour pak, pocketed lowers, cup holder and kitchen sink.

That's just what I call them.

 

I completely agree