Tiny Bikes, Huge Fun: Bluroc X-Bongo 50 & 125 Review
Do you really need 150bhp, sophisticated electronics and a five-figure price tag to have fun on a motorcycle? After spending a day messing around on the Bluroc X-Bongo 50 and 125, I think we all know the answer.
There’s something slightly ridiculous about two fully grown men climbing aboard a pair of tiny motorcycles and deciding to conduct a serious road test.
Fortunately, very little about our test remained serious for long.
For my latest Get Ben Riding video, I joined Steve from SJT Motorcycles to try the Bluroc X-Bongo, a small retro-styled motorcycle available in both 50cc and 125cc versions.
And rather than simply riding them around for half an hour and telling you about the brakes, suspension and switchgear, we decided to find out what these little things could actually do.
So we took them on the road. We took them off-road. We rode them two-up. We messed about on them.
And somewhere along the way, I was reminded of something that motorcycling occasionally seems to forget:
Going fast and having fun aren't necessarily the same thing.
What is the Bluroc X-Bongo?
The X-Bongo sits in that wonderfully strange part of the motorcycle market occupied by small, chunky-tyred bikes that don't take themselves too seriously.
Visually, there's more than a hint of mini-bike about it. You've got the small wheels, upright riding position, compact proportions and retro styling, but with a modern-looking LED headlight and enough detail to make it feel like something more interesting than basic transport.
There are two versions that we tested: 50cc and 125cc.
That means the X-Bongo potentially appeals to everyone from younger or newer riders through to experienced motorcyclists who simply fancy something cheap and entertaining to mess around on.
But looking at the specification sheet wasn't really going to tell us whether it was any good.
So we devised our own highly scientific testing programme.
It wasn't particularly scientific.
First test: can a grown man actually ride one?
Yes.
Although dignity may be affected.
That's part of the X-Bongo's charm. It's obviously a physically small motorcycle, and seeing an adult in full leathers perched on one immediately makes everything feel slightly less serious.
But once you're moving, the size becomes part of the experience.
They're light, manoeuvrable and unintimidating. Instead of constantly thinking about speed, braking markers and riding modes, you start looking for excuses to mess around.
Suddenly the little road you've ridden a hundred times becomes entertaining again.
And that led us naturally to the next test.
What happens when you take the X-Bongo off-road?
I'm fairly confident nobody designed the X-Bongo with visions of the Dakar Rally.
That didn't stop us.
We found some dirt and decided to see what happened.
Small bikes have an enormous advantage when you're doing something slightly stupid: they're small.
There's much less motorcycle underneath you to worry about, speeds are relatively low and you can concentrate on keeping the thing moving rather than
contemplating the repair bill every time the front wheel moves sideways.
Was it the fastest way through the countryside?
Absolutely not.
Was it funny?
Very.
And I'd argue that's considerably more important.
Two-up on an X-Bongo
Of course, once you've established that a tiny motorcycle can carry one adult, there's only one logical question:
Can it carry two?
Technically, yes.
Whether two men in motorcycle leathers squeezed onto an X-Bongo constitutes dignified transport is another matter entirely.
It also demonstrates something interesting about these bikes. If you approach the X-Bongo purely as transportation, you're probably missing some of its appeal.
It's the sort of motorcycle that encourages you to do things simply because they might be funny.
And motorcycles could perhaps do with a little more of that.
The 50cc versus the 125cc
Putting the two versions together also highlights how dramatically capacity changes the experience of a small motorcycle.
The 50cc naturally has its limitations. You're working with very little power, so maintaining momentum becomes part of the game.
The 125cc gives you considerably more flexibility and makes much more sense if you want something capable of tackling a broader range of roads.
But strangely, outright performance wasn't really what defined our day on either bike.
What I remember is laughing.
And that's significant.
Have motorcycles become too serious?
I love fast motorcycles.
I've raced them, tested them and spent most of my life around them. Give me the keys to a superbike and I'm hardly going to complain.
But modern motorcycling has become increasingly obsessed with numbers.
Horsepower.
0–60 times.
Lean-sensitive electronics.
Semi-active suspension.
Lap times.
Price.
The result is some astonishing motorcycles.
But there's another kind of enjoyment available on two wheels.
It's the enjoyment many of us discovered when we first started riding — when extracting every last horsepower from something slow felt more exciting than barely scratching the surface of something incredibly fast.
The X-Bongo reminded me of that.
You don't need to be travelling at licence-losing speeds to explore its performance. You can use what you've got, throw it around and laugh when your mate disappears down a muddy track on something that looks approximately three sizes too small for him.
So, is the Bluroc X-Bongo actually any good?
That's exactly what we set out to discover in the full video.
And because simply telling you the answer would rather defeat the point, you can watch Steve and me put both versions through the Get Ben Riding testing programme instead.
Road riding? Yep.
Off-road? Obviously.
Two-up? Against our better judgement.
Serious professional motorcycle journalism?
We'll try that another day.
Watch: Bluroc X-Bongo 50 & 125 Review
🎬 The full Bluroc X-Bongo 50 & 125 video is available now on Get Ben Riding.
If you've become convinced that enjoying motorcycles requires ever more horsepower and increasingly expensive machinery, give this one a watch.
Because perhaps the biggest lesson from our day wasn't really about the X-Bongo at all.
It was a reminder that sometimes the slowest motorcycles create the biggest smiles.
And I'd take that over another tenth off my 0–60 time any day.
What is the most fun you've ever had on a slow motorcycle? Let me know in the comments on the video — and if you enjoy it, please subscribe to Get Ben Riding for more motorcycle reviews, road tests, adventures and occasional questionable decision-making.
Hilarious!