BCS is Europe’s largest manufacturer of two-wheel tractors with numerous models available, from smaller, light-weight ones to larger, heavier ones. The primary reason for the variety is that, like four-wheel tractors, the different models are designed to accommodate the differing needs of customers, especially with regard to the types and sizes of attachments each model tractor is designed to operate.

But, what all models have in common is that they are all:

• All gear driven with no belts or chains.
• With a power-takeoff shaft to power attachments.
• Rotating handlebars that enable the tractor to power both rear- and front-mount attachments (not including 600-Series tractors).
• Top quality components – regardless of model, they all feature heat-treated steel gears and shafts, supported by embedded ball bearings – all running in oil bath. BCS tractors are designed to last a lifetime. And our warranty is the best in the industry.

In this article, we focus on Model 710, one of the smaller, more lightweight models. It is particularly appropriate for folks with a smaller property size and for those who already own other equipment and who don’t need a super-wide range of versatility.

Click here for a video overview of Model 710.

Feature-wise, the 710 is powered by a 7 horsepower Kohler Command Pro engine, and power is transferred to both the wheels and attachments via a double cone clutch. The tractor provides two working speeds in both directions, plus a third transport speed in rear-mount mode. Forward and reverse are easily accessible from the operator’s position. Squeeze the clutch, flip the lever, and you’re backing up at whatever speed you were going forward. The position of the handles is easily adjusted both up-and-down, as well as side-to-side with a single lever. Pull it and simply move in the desired direction until the spring-loaded pin locks into the desired operating position. Other controls include the clutch lever and operator presence control, the wheel speed selection rod, the engagement rod to turn your attachment on and off independently of the wheels, and, lastly, the throttle control to regulate your engine speed.



Performance-wise, the 710 is best known as a great gardening machine. It far surpasses the capability and durability of single purpose, rear-tine tillers in the same general price range.

Equipped with either an 18- or 20-inch wide tiller attachment, you can:

• Comfortably prepare seedbed, even when starting from sod. This is made easy by the fact that in first gear, the tines are rotating 20 times for every one revolution of your tractor tire. This represents 50% more “bites” per forward foot of travel than our leading competitor. With a few passes the pieces of sod are so small that they quickly decompose, adding valuable organic matter to your soil.

• That same chopping capability means the 710 will power compost both garden residues and cover crops more easily; again, enriching your soil.
• And for folks who need to eliminate weeds by cultivating shallowly between the rows of a large garden, the 710 has a dedicated cultivating speed of up to 1 mile per hour that enables you to eliminate weeds and create a fine dirt mulch without over-pulverizing your soil. This is accomplished by reducing the tine to wheel ratio from 20 to 1, to 10 to 1. By side-shifting the handles, you can walk in the next row and avoid recompacting the loosened soil; thereby making it difficult for weed seeds to germinate.

• Worried about rocks in the garden? Just set the engine speed at an idle, don’t push down on the handles, and the tines will simply walk over the tops of the stones and then lower themselves to the desired tilling depth.
• With the optional hiller-furrower, you can mark out your rows, create furrows of varying depths for planting, and spread the wings for hilling. As you might guess, it’s a tremendous time saver both when planting and hilling potatoes.

Once the garden is planted and under control, it’s often time to mow those “off-the-lawn” areas. To do so, the first step is to remove the tiller, replace it with the sickle bar, and rotate the handles. Click here for a video of this process.



After adjusting the vertical settings of the handlebars for comfort, we’re ready to tackle the overgrowth, especially in those hard-to-get areas. The advantages of the sickle bar attachment are many:

• First, its scissor-like action cuts everything just once at its base. So, don’t worry about missing a mowing or two, because the height of the material does not influence either your mowing speed or the amount of power required. Whether the material is 6” or 6’ in height, the sickle bar doesn’t care. At half throttle, the 710 with a 40” bar will comfortably mow an acre in less than 3 hours.
• And the vegetation to be cut can vary from fine grasses, to stalky weeds, to saplings up to 2” in diameter.

 

• As for safety, the scissor-like cut means that it never throws debris, as would a rotary mower blade that typically rotates with a blade tip speed of 150 miles per hour. And rocks and other obstacles cannot enter the cutting zone if they are wider than the 2” distance between the fixed ledger plates that are below the moving knife assembly. Instead, the bar will either push them in front of itself, go over them, or the stone might roll over it.

 

• With the 710 handles offset to the downhill side, mowing across steep slopes is made easy. The operator can walk vertically, regardless of the degree of slope. The bar “floats” independently of the wheels to adjust to changing ground contours, and optional wheel extensions are available to widen the wheel stance if needed for stability.

• Finally, with the length of the cutter bar extending out significantly beyond the tractor tire, mowing along the edge of ponds, under fences and low-lying limbs can all be accomplished quickly and effortlessly.

The only issue when mowing tall material with the sickle bar is that, because everything is only cut once, you don’t achieve a lawn-like appearance unless you pick up the material after you mow. So, if you need the area to look like lawn, consider the 21” rotary brush mower. Set at a mowing height of 4 inches, it mows each stalk multiple times and creates a second-tier lawn. If you anticipate wanting this attachment, we recommend that you purchase the 710 with its optional 4 x 10 x 18” wheel set, which provides for additional ground clearance when mowing uneven terrain.

Like the tiller and sickle bar, the brush mower is built to commercial specifications: a heavy-duty, gear-driven transmission; a “stump-jumper” style blade holder; and two swing blades that will swing back if and when you hit an obstruction.

And when it’s not gardening and mowing season, for many of us, it’s snow season, and the 710 with a 24” snow thrower can clear our paths and driveways quickly and efficiently.

With all-gear drive and an auger speed exceeding 1,200 revolutions per minute, the snow thrower should be renamed – snow cannon. Features include a stainless steel discharge chute and wide skids that, without tools, can be easily adjusted to a maximum height of 2”; thereby making this the perfect tool for gravel driveways and paths out to the wood pile.

In conclusion, we hope that this overview of the model 710 and its most popular attachments has demonstrated the range of tasks in which it clearly out-performs single purpose, belt- and chain-driven competitor; is more user-friendly; and is built to provide decades of dependable service.