Close your eyes for a few seconds. Think about what a tug-boat used to tow the USS Nimitz would be like if it were on two wheels and you could swing your legs over it. Now picture it with a girder fork up front, springs beneath your butt and no suspension at the rear. The mental image you have pictured is most probably the erstwhile M21 – 600cc of raw pulling power.
Yep, I rode this machine and I revelled in every moment on the saddle. It’s not fast, it’s not manic and it definitely isn’t suave. It’s big and it’s fat (it doesn’t seem so in the photos because I’m ‘healthier’) and it’s unassuming. It has the typical graceful period lines but sure, there are better looking motorcycles of its vintage. But not many can do what it does. The M21 is the mechanical equivalent of a mule – unglamorous, but the only thing that will carry you, your family, your neighbours and everything including your kitchen sink, without the slightest hint of protest, and waddle off into the sunset.The BSA (Birmingham Small Arms – they made guns and hence the ‘piled rifles’ logo) M21 grew in girth from the already bulky M20 (BSM, Nov. 2000) – a machine which was used extensively in WWII for dispatch riding and other such wartime duties. The M20 was essentially a slightly modified civilian machine designed to ferry sober Brit men to work and for the occasional jaunt. It displaced 500cc and was good for about 95 kph, with around 12 horses lugging the rider around and had a stroke length of 109 mm.
The M21 bloated into a 600cc-engined motorcycle with a 112 mm stroke, and about 15 horses providing the propulsion, but it shared its cylinder barrel and connecting rod with the M20, and both had flat crowned pistons too. Production of the M21 ran from 1937 right upto 1963. Upgrades, like with all British motorcycle marques, came slowly, with the rear-rigid and front-girder forks setup staying right upto 1948, when the front girder fork was finally replaced with telescopic forks. However, the rear had no suspension upto 1951, when ‘plunger springing’ was introduced, and stayed till the M21’s demise in 1963. M21s were especially suited as sidecar luggers and the British Automobile Association had them attached to yellow sidecars that used to patrol the roads in search of stranded motorists that needed help.
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