Benda BD250 Bobber

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The BD250 has shown up in documents, showing it is almost ready for production. (Benda/)

Late last year we revealed that Benda—one of the more interesting of the new breed of Chinese motorcycle brands—has registered VIN decoding documents with the NHTSA to complete a vital step toward bringing its bikes to the US market. Now, a new small-capacity bobber from the company has emerged in Chinese type-approval documents giving a glimpse of the sort of bike we might expect from the company if it in fact enters our market.

Benda’s recent launches have been notable for breaking with the norm. The company first came to international attention with the crazy-looking LF-01 concept bike in 2020, and then surprised everyone by putting it, unaltered, into production as the LFC700 a year later. It has also debuted China’s first homegrown V-4-powered bike, as well as working on a variety of other ideas including a blown 300cc sportbike. Its new BD250 bobber might not be quite that wild but it’s still an unusual machine that doesn’t appear to have any direct rivals.

Benda’s LFC700 was preceded by the LF-01 concept bike and then quickly followed by the production model. (Benda Motorcycles/)

You only have to glance at it to see that it’s not the sort of penny-pinching, stripped-back 250 that puts cost saving above everything else, instead featuring styling that wouldn’t shame a much more expensive, large-capacity bike (and looking a whole lot like Confederate’s G2 P51 Fighter). While the V-twin engine and steel-tube frame fit expectations for traditional bobbers, there are plenty of unusual elements to see.

Benda’s Napoleon 500 Bobber has a similar front suspension that looks like a girder fork, but really has traditional fork stanchions behind the side plates. (Benda/)

The chassis is a Softail-style design with a triangulated swingarm at the rear that mimics the shapes you’d expect to see on a hardtail, but instead of a hidden rear shock there are visible suspension units that appear to be mounted to the swingarm via some sort of rising-rate linkage. But the front suspension is even stranger—at least at first glance. It appears from the single available photo that it’s intended to look like a girder-style fork, but on closer inspection there are conventional telescopic fork tubes behind those girders. This is a trick that Benda has already used on the Napoleon 500 bobber it launched last year, which completely encloses its fork in girder-style outer cases, but the new design is more complex, with what appear to be spring units mounted between the fork stanchions and the girder sections.

Honda’s Rebel 300 appears to be the Benda’s closest competitor. (Honda/)

The type-approval paperwork does reveal key details of the bike including its peak power of 25.5 hp from a 249cc liquid-cooled V-twin. That’s pretty close to the output of the slightly larger engine in the Honda Rebel 300, which makes 28 hp from its 286cc parallel twin. With an all-in weight of 401 pounds, the Benda is a fair bit heavier than the Rebel though, with the Honda tipping the scales at 364 pounds. Unlike the Rebel, which has 16-inch wheels, the Benda uses 18-inch rims with a 130/80 front tire and a 160/70 rear, and its wheelbase is 2 inches longer than the Honda at 60.8 inches. There’s a single front disc with a Benda-branded, four-piston radial-mount caliper, with the company’s own BD01 ABS system.

Like most Chinese bikes, and other goods for that matter, the Benda’s biggest advantage over rivals is likely to be price. It’s too early to know whether it will be able to undercut established rival brands by enough to persuade buyers to opt for such an unknown quantity, but that question will be answered as and when Benda makes its planned entry to the US market officially.

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