A few months back, we told you about the Kove 450 Rally, a Chinese rally raid replica bike that finished the Dakar Rally in 2023. Now that bike is available in Canada. But although we haven’t seen any other machines from this manufacturer coming here yet, the Chinese manufacturer is about to debut a new middleweight adventure bike in the Euro market. It’s called the 800X.
The 800X is powered by a liquid-cooled parallel twin engine (certainly the flavour du jour in the ADV world) that supposedly makes 95 hp and 60 lb-ft of torque. Although there are three different variants of the bike coming to the Euro market, it seems unlikely that they’d be powered by different versions of this engine, as it would create a nightmare of emissions testing. It seems far more likely that the Adventure, Pro and Rally models (the three variants) only differ in bodywork, accessories and suspension.
Kove makes bold claims on the bike’s spec sheet. The 800X website says the bike weighs 185 kg at the curb, which would compare very favourably with Euro and Japanese competitors. KYB adjustable suspension comes standard on Pro model, with 210 mm of travel up front and 240 mm in the rear. Ground clearance is 275 mm. A 21-18 wheelset comes standard. Fuel capacity is 20 liters, and Kove says that should be good for a range of up to 400 kilometers.
Pricing in Europe ranges from 8,990 euros for the base Adventure model to 12,980 euros for the Pro model, which would roughly work out to $13,200—$19,000 CAD. Obviously, that pricing would not excite Canadian buyers, but you could probably expect a more favourable exchange rate here, should the models ever come across the pond. It might be a hard sell, though—there’s already a lot of competition in the middleweight ADV space, with KTM/Husqvarna, Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, BMW and others already staking out their corner of the market.
