Nostalgic Restoration: My 1970 BSA A50

By John Friederichs
Updated on October 30, 2023
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by John Friederichs
Reader John Friedrichs restored his BSA A50 after owning it for 30-plus years.

Learn how one motorhead’s lifelong passion led him to a restoration project of his childhood dream bike with all the ups and downs of a first time restoration.

Two-wheeled Time Travel?

Sorry, but you can’t ride home again either …

For those of us who were born prior to The Flintstones or Mister Ed, we like to remember a time lived in a more Leave it to Beaver life. Cars the colors of kitchen Formica, teachers and our mothers wearing home perms and clothed in calf-length, floral print dresses, possibly a string of pearls and, always, sensible shoes. Our dads went to work in either ties or work clothes, arriving home for 6 o’clock dinner and then settling down to their evening paper and a smoke.

But a strong minority of us budding motorheads, myself definitely included, had lives filled with my favorite two deadly sins: jealousy and envy. We watched the “Big Kids” driving 1962 Chevy Biscaynes with moon discs and Smitty mufflers. We watched them ride by on their Triumphs, BSAs and various unidentified but wonderfully noisy rides whose names we would endlessly debate. Adding to the mystique of the objects of such envy was the combined wonder at the Brylcreemed hair, the cigarettes and the fact that these elite were perpetually perched under the hood of their cars, or more critically, on their knees beside their motorcycles. What they were actually doing and their collective competence at the task was of less importance than the fact that these guys had wheels! Not only had wheels, but obviously had never been forced to finish their peas, weed the flower beds or clean up their rooms.

Naturally, after more than six decades of real life, the truth of the matter became obvious to most of this group … let’s call them the conventionals. Well, they fell into lives that were largely patterned after their fathers: finish school, move to trades or college, make Peter Principle themed progress to what level they could reach in their chosen vocation. Over the years the smoking fell away for many, the newspapers became laptops, tablets and phones and their dreams of torque, speed and noise faded, replaced by family responsibilities, time and finances.

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