BSA Bond: the 50cc trail bike built by a teamaker

Circa the late ‘70s. The motorcycle market in India consists of hallowed names such as the tough-as-nails Rajdoot 175, the diverse Czech-descendant Yezdi 250cc models and the British-origin Royal Enfield Bullet 350. Amidst this assortment of bonafide motorcycle makers, tea magnate Brooke Bond decided to throw its hat into the ring. This was done by licensing the rights to sell one particular 50cc BSA in India, and they christened it the Bond.

Before we get into the story of the BSA Bond’s rather fascinating inception, I’d like to trace the journey of this machine with its loving and persevering keeper, Mukul Nanda, owner and founder of Autologue Design. It begins with Nanda and his motley crew of three childhood friends pooling all their cash together and collectively purchasing a BSA Bond while still in sixth grade. While the shenanigans this quartet pulled weren’t strictly legal, the wayward fun that Nanda had with his original bike cemented his decision to get one nearly two decades later.

Anyways, years passed by and as little hell-raiser he was getting  married, he was asked by his to-be wife, Sonal, what he would like as a wedding gift. His response was to scour the market and find a BSA Bond. Well, at least some semblance of one. And thus began the journey of restoring the bike to this beautiful state that you see it in here.

The restoration process itself took nearly three years as finding parts for this bike was akin to finding a needle in a haystack. In fact, parts were so rare that in the process of restoring this bike, a ‘donor’ bike had to be procured to fill in the missing pieces. Nanda wanted his Bond to be as close to original as possible, and most of the components you see here are just that – original.

This project was a joint exercise between Yogi Chabbria and Karan Lokhande and I cannot imagine the sheer patience involved in restoring a bike as rare as this. While the donor bike made it possible for the bike to be largely original, sourcing parts such as an original Bond headlight was proving to be impossible, so they used one from a TVS XL 100.

The Bond is a classically styled, good-looking thing, but it has some unique design quirks, like the noticeable kink on the left arm of the swingarm and the downward sloping tank. I love its light-hearted design, cheerful colours and how the off-road style seat flows into the fuel tank in one clean line. They all suggest that the Bond just wants to let loose and have a whale of a time.

As is the case with just about any old bike that hasn’t been ridden for a while, the starting process was quite time consuming. After a couple of dozen kicks, the little two-stroke mill finally ring-a-ding dinged to life, and I hoped it would only get better from there. Unfortunately, the air filter would repeatedly keep popping off the engine, which would cause it to sputter and die. But bikes like this are joyfully simple and easy to work on, and we could literally put our hand in there and  push the little air filter back onto the engine while it was running! Soon enough, Nanda’s ever-helpful crew figured out how to permanently cinch down the filter, and once it stayed in place, the little engine could finally sing.

Once we were moving, the one aspect that really stood out was just how effortless it was to change directions. No surprise considering its weight is below the 80kg mark. Considering that’s less than what I weigh, I was a little surprised by just how much zing this little mill had, enough to do a speedo-indicated 60kph in its top 4th gear. And it was surprisingly refined given its age.

Of course, I didn’t have the courage nor the inclination to bomb down the trails. However, after the limited time I had with it riding off-road, I can imagine this being a grin-inducing machine if ridden as originally intended. The main advantage is the lack of weight combined with those spindly wheels, which makes it very easy to place it wherever you want.

But how did this unique little thing come to be? Industry veteran Adil Jal Darukhanawala shared with me that Brooke Bond licensed the BSA name in the mid-1970s. Interestingly, the bike itself finds its origins in the mid to late 1970s when the BSA name was commissioned for use on Italian-origin mopeds. That Italian connection explains why the bike has its tiny 50cc mill, which was sourced from Morini Franco Motori. This was an Italian company started by Franco Morini, the cousin of Alfonso Motori, who started the company we all know today – Moto Morini.

Another interesting factoid is that this motorcycle was known by a few different names. Abroad, those names included the GT50, the Beaver, and there was even a more trials-style off-road version called the Brigand. In India, too, the bike was sold at one point under the name BSA Falcon.

The USP of the Bond was that it was the first bike in India to be offered with a monoshock. While all bikes came with a monoshock from the factory, Adil tells us that some hardcore off-road enthusiasts swapped it out for a dual-shock absorber set-up for added durability.

We’ve now established that the Bond looks good, has an interesting history and is cheerful to ride. So why has the story of this motorcycle slipped so far under the radar? Well, for one, it didn’t really set the sales charts on fire back in the day, with the final batch of bikes being sold to employees at a discount. What compounded problems further was that it was known to be quite a temperamental machine even by the standards of older motorcycles.

It isn’t known how many Bonds were made in its few years of existence. And as for how many have survived after all these years, people in the know wager that there are barely enough good-condition, running bikes to make it into the double digits.

Despite all that, here’s a Bond – reborn and flourishing, and it is that scrappy, cheerful puppy demeanour that keeps its legend alive!

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