2024 Kove 800X Pro review | Chinese bike is set to shake up middleweight adventure bike class

Yamaha, KTM and Suzuki have been given something to think about with the arrival of the all new Kove 800X Pro adventure bike. Coming in at an affordable £8499, the bike itself is anything but budget, though, with high-quality components used throughout.

Powered by a 799cc parallel twin motor which is a direct copy of the KTM 790 motor it has a claimed 94bhp at the crank, a figure that translated to 81bhp at the rear wheel when we tested it on the dyno. Another stand out figure is the weight, or lack of it, topping MCN’s digital scales at 196kg with it’s 20 litre tank brimmed with fuel.

Compared to the opposition this is light, Yamaha’s Ténéré 700 weighs in at 205kg with 16 litres of fuel onboard while the Suzuki V-Strom 800DE is a heavyweight 230kg. The sub 200kg weight can be felt whatever you’re doing with the bike, from picking it up off the side stand, to changing direction on the road to manhandling it off-road.

Sitting at the lower end of the buoyant middleweight adventure bike class, it’s main competition in terms of price will be the Yamaha Ténéré 700, Aprilia Tuareg and KTM 790 Adventure. Although it has a spec to rival some of the bikes that sit at the top of that class such as the KTM 890 Adventure R and even the £14,999 Ducati DesertX.

This is Kove’s first foray into the big adventure bike class having previously focussed on smaller machines. The Chinese company hit the headlines when they entered a three rider team in the 2023 Dakar using the Kove 450 Rally. Despite it being classed as the worlds hardest race all three bikes made it to the finish.

They also compete in the Supersport 300 class which is a race series that runs within the World Superbike championship. The 800X is unapologetically taking aim at the highly popular and well regarded Yamaha Ténéré 700. Since its launch in 2019 the T7 has won an allegiance of fans for good reason, but the new Kove is more powerful, lighter, has more advanced electronics, longer travel suspension, more ground clearance – oh and it’s £1,600 cheaper.

The stats speak for themselves and on top of that it’s a fun, engaging bike to ride with a playful character. There’s no quick shifter, the low RPM throttle connection needs work and the bash plate should be longer to protect the linkage, but it’s every bit as good, if not better than the competition meaning it has all the ingredients to seriously shake up the market.

See and hear the Kove 800X Pro in action in this video review

With fully adjustable 48mm KYB front forks and rear shock it feels well suspended on its standard settings. There is no excess sag and on the road it gave good support and was even a little hard for my 85kg kitted up weight. There’s is no excessive dive at the front and as a package it felt well balanced, accurate and fully compliant when tipping in, choosing a line or changing direction.

• Related: Adventure bike riding kit tried and tested by MCN

There’s plenty of leverage from the bars and the mirrors are also excellent. With a 875mm seat height there was no problem being able to flat foot at stand still. At a height of 5’ 9” the riding position and relationship between the bars, seat and pegs was pretty much perfect although if you were any taller you might want to consider a higher seat to prevent your knees being too bent.

The seat itself is firm and while it doesn’t scream ‘plush’ when you first get on it, it gives good support and even at the end of a nine hour opening day it remained no less comfortable than it was two hours in. The non adjustable screen, is a good width, unobtrusive and does a good job of keeping any wind blast off your chest but we did get some buffeting at fast lane motorway speeds while wearing a peaked adventure style helmet.

The relative lack of weight, has been achieved by a super neat and sleek swing arm as well as small increments of weight saving throughout including a peppering of titanium bolts. It also has tubeless wheels, which are incredibly similar to what’s used on the BMW GS range.

Brakes are by Taisko and are a direct copy of Japanese brand Nissin. The four piston caliper up front gives plenty of power and a good level of feel whether barking hard on the road or lightly in slippery off-road conditions. The single piston rear caliper gives a similar level of control without being too aggressive even when wearing chunky motocross style boots.

Watch MCN's walk around video of the Kove 800X Pro here

On start up the motor, as you would expect, sounds like a KTM 790/890. There’s arguably a little more bark and off throttle burble from the neat, standard exhaust but with that comes a little more mechanical engine noise. That’s most likely down to the fact that the KTM 790 has the underslung fuel tanks which shroud the engine and no doubt absorb some of the sound and certainly change the acoustics. In terms of performance its very much comparable.

The motor is engaging and revs freely for a parallel twin. The power isn’t fierce, but it pulls cleanly from 2,500RPM right up to the 10,000rpm redline. It’s real world 81bhp at the rear wheel comes at 9,200rpm and is 16bhp more than the rear wheel of a Yamaha Tenere (measured on the same dyno) making it that bit easier and more comfortable at higher speeds, loaded up or when over taking.

On the down side the fuelling and throttle connection off the bottom is harsh. Shut the throttle and it feels like you’ve hit the kill switch while picking it up again is jerky which means it’s hard to inject any throttle control finesse. This could be down to Euro5 regulations and meeting emission standards that mean there’s not enough fuel being injected at the bottom end of the rev range.

The jerkiness felt all-encompassing at the start of our two day ride, but it soon became easy to ride around. A couple of hours on a dyno and a re-map would almost certainly improve the situation, but hopefully Kove will take the feedback onboard and make improvements before point of sale.

There’s no quick shifter or autoblipper but the gear box is positive if a little clunky on the bike we rode which was brand new and hadn’t even had its first service. Gear ratios worked well allowing easy slow speed riding without being too buzzy when you hit the motorways.

It’s very early days but first contact with the bike is positive. It’s clearly been well put together with some really nice touches through out. If you put the price and nationality of the manufacture to one side it looks every bit as good, if not better than its Japanese or European rivals.

During our two day test, which included nine hours on the bike during the first day the bike was faultless with zero issues or glitches. Obviously we need to complete thousands more miles to understand the long-term reliability.

With the bike being so new, long-term running costs are currently unknown. Being a new manufacturer there is also currently no dealer network. However Kove UK have set-up a serving facility in Oxford where bikes would need to be taken. Going forward they plan to have an additional four official dealers in the North, South, East and West of the country by the start of 2025. The first service is between 600 and 900 miles  and then every 5,000 miles. First valve check is at 12,000 miles.

Priced at £8,499 and given the high spec and low weight, on the face of it the 800X offers tremendous value for money. Our first impressions are that it is a match/improvement on the opposition at a significantly lower price.

The bike comes with two different power maps Eco and Sport as well as ABS and traction control. While there’s not a big difference between the power maps the headline here is that the traction control can be turned off, so it won’t re-engage when the bike is stalled or even turned off and re-started. It’s a simple feature to have, but in the real world of off-road riding it’s a genuinely welcome. It’s the same for the ABS which can either be on, rear wheel off or both wheels off and like the TC the setting stays even after a re-start.

The colour TFT dash and non-back lit switch gear where this is all controlled is operated by a simple and intuitive enter, escape and up and down buttons which allow you to easily scroll through the options and make a selection. There’s plenty of information available from speed, revs, gear indicator, trips through to a small picture of the bike that illustrates what rider aids have been de-activated.

The screen isn’t adjustable, there is no quickshifter, but it ticks all the right boxes in practically every other area. It has a steering damper as standard, interesting styling and a fuel tank that runs under the seat to lower the centre of gravity.