Surprised by now we haven’t seen a Chinese brand compete at SX

CFMoto are strong in the Motogp3 class. Would seem to be easy produce an mx bike.

By your own admission you don't know much about ATVs, or which Chinese brand did well in the Dakar, or if there is any money in MX or SX, or the size of the dirt bike market, or how much the major brands source in China.

On that basis, everything will be a surprise to you...

Felt ignorant so I googled Chinese 250f.  Whoa.  You can buy a brand new one for $1800.  That’s an insane price discrepancy.  I understand that it’s probably complete junk but 1/5th of the price? The Chinese are far out haha

Can’t imagine someone riding one of those at the top level of the sport.  I rode a Chinese 110 back in like 2005 because my dad ended up with one for a bit on a weird trade.  Everything fell off of it constantly.   I think we broke the shock or swingarm play riding.

Kove did well at Dakar and they  now have 250 and 450 mx bikes .

They seem to have come a long way from that 'thing' that Ping rode for that feature years ago, but it'd still take some doing to I reckon and Love at the Dakar, as mentioned, probably does more from a PR and rep stand point in Joe Public's eyes.

With a lot of things from China, when quality genuinely gets good enough for continued hard use, like when Western companies are doing the specs and QC, the price gap shrinks A LOT.

Just one point of reference so not conclusive, but my dad was looking at a CF Moto road/adventure bike thing due to the price and the KTM engine... I guess they are fairly high end for a Chinese bike, probably a fair assessment? Anyway, they made a point of saying it had KYB forks... but there was a demo bike there on like 4k miles and the fork tubes were corroding already, so presumably extremely low quality anodizing? Not my area of expertise, but it was surprising. Some areas of paint on the frame had stone chipped or rubbed through too, and the rims were getting that gold tint like cheap black anodizing does, but usually not until years later.

Interestingly, the KTM engine they use in it still looked like new as you'd expect, even the bolts and fasteners which are traditionally not great quality on the Euro bikes compared to a Honda or Yamaha. He kept his 20 year old Yamaha, for what it's worth.

I'm not shitting on those commies, not for their bike production at least... they've come a long way and CF Moto are on the up for sure, but when I saw that low mile, probably 1 year old bike in that condition, it was surprising but also not surprising at the same time, if that makes any sense 😂

They will be in pro SX soon I would imagine. In 5 years anyway. If not Chinese perhaps an Indian brand. It would seem looking at the numbers of their domestic markets the USA would be small potatoes, but I would imagine the USA allows a maker to sell more profitable machines. As Triumph, Ducati, and Beta have demonstrated pro racing is worth it to generate brand awareness.

My buddy got a Kove 800x rally. Thing is awesome-suspension and motor are much better than comparable bikes. We rode over 600 miles in the Colorado mountains for a week and it did better than my ktm 890. Not a single problem with either bike on the trip. I think it will be awhile till we see a Kove or other brand lining up for SX. The homologation alone keeps out small brands. Personally I’d still buy a kawi 450 over a Kove 450 but time will tell. They are certainly making good moves.

I had a Chinese 140cc 14" rear / 17" front as my first bike to ride in the bush, back in 2010ish. Was ok as a learner bike, apart from the 10mm swingarm bolt, had to take multiple spares with me when I got a bit more confident as I'd break them when I hit a decent bump or jump.

I thought back then that they should become half decent in another 10 years, but they really just make the same crap as far as I can see. If they could make a bike that's as good as a Japanese bike from the early 2000s, I'd get one brand new (I don't need all the power my 250sx has, really, I'm not that fast and just ride single track) but they're still just as shit as the one I had before.

What are you talking about no Chinese mfg in SX?  KTM won the championship last year.

They are Indian, not Chinese, and they only became Indian a few months ago.

I was referring to where the bike is manufactured.

I think some of the two-stroke cylinders and some street bike parts were made in China, but I don't think the 450SXF was. 

I'm not against Chinese stuff at all, except...

XI is quite evil, keeps the money, enslaves and worse, then uses said money against me!

If China is evil, why are they still making 2 strokes?

Kove is the brand attempting to make premium bikes.  Would they pony up the $$ needed to hire a rider capable of making the main?  I don’t know… but why not give it a go?  

And other than the US importer being a lying douche, the bike itself seems to have potential.  

CFMoto did win the 2024 Moto3 world championship but that was just a rebadged KTM (Aspar racing was racing Gasgas the year before, just another rebadged KTM).

That being said, Chinese motorcycles have come a long way and things are moving really fast in this space. Chinese factories can make anything to the desired quality/price point, from junk to high end products.

CFMoto is probably bigger than people think, they have factories in China, Thailand, Mexico, 8000 employees, 5000 dealers, joint ventures with KTM and Yamaha, $1bn annual revenue.

They don't need competition to exist but they're coming to it to sell more bikes in Europe and the US, just like Kove. It wouldn't take too long for them to get competitive bikes if they set a proper program.

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/3794614/im-not-going-to-lie-to-you-this-is-a-painful-story-racer-x-online

They did try moto years ago.

CFMoto USA is here in Plymouth, MN. They have been hiring for engineers for a while. My guess is they are poaching laid off Arctic Cat folks and due to location, Polaris folks. They seem to have their foot on the gas to develop a solid product.

The Kymco 2-stroke cylinders are made in Taiwan, and have had better recent reliability record than the Austrian Elko ones.

I knew the 250s and 300s were Kymco, but heard some of the smaller bike cylinders were China made. I'm not sure if Kymco has any plants there or not. Yeah, I also read the China made cams were holding up better also.

They would get sued here for copyright infringement! Wouldn’t be a good business model 

20+ years ago, Toyota sued Chinese automaker Geely because of a logo that was too similar.



Toyota lost the case.

I participated in one of the Colorado rides put on by Exit Tours (AWESOME experience & well worth the $$$, but that’s for another thread!😎) last summer, and one of the other participants was on a Kove 450  with the Rally style tower, 8 gallon fuel cells etc and the Kove was GREAT! I was impressed by the bike and its abilities, sound, power etc! 
The Kove was WAY more impressive than I expected it to be! 🤪 👍❗️

You’d be surprised how many parts on the KTM dirt bikes are made in China. 
For starters, all the radiators… but there’s way more than that. 

Being made in China isn’t always a bad thing. But to get good quality from China isn’t exactly cheap either ! 

While it’s almost impossible to buy nothing from China, I still don’t like the idea of buying large purchases that I have alternatives to from Chinese manufacturers. The Kove bikes actually sound like they are really good machines, especially for someone like me who doesn’t need or want the absolute fastest rocketship type of bike.  I wish that they were made by someone other than a Chinese company!

"We need an affordable entry level mx bike!"

"This bike just isn't as quality as the Japanese brands, don't know who would buy it."

These people act like using 5 year old forks and steel bars should knock $5k off the price.

I don’t disagree at all! 

Way back in 2005-06, during the pit bike craze, Oklahoma hero, Guy Cooper his-own-self had developed a pit bike in conjunction with a Chinese company. (You might remember Xtreme brand pit-bikes?) anywhoo, Guy was the driving force behind the bike, test rider, R&D etc and ended up with a pretty sweet little scooter for a fair price…then the Chinese essentially stole all of the “intellectual property” from him & began selling the SAME bike under a different name & vendor,  leaving Guy with NO recourse except to try to take legal action! Of course the Chinese could care LESS about any foreign patents, legal efforts resulted in ZERO accomplished, and Guy Cooper’s pit bike effort stalled out, he closed Stillwater Xtreme and moved on to other ventures…eventually the pit-bike craze faded but as a result of that calamity & watching what Guy endured dealing with a Chinese company, to this day I just can’t bring myself to go buy a straight from China, Chinese motorcycle either. 😎 👍❗️