Wake up KTM, Yamaha, and other brands with middleweight adventure bikes. The Chinese are coming with serious competition from Kove and their 800X Pro middleweight Adventure bike. A road machine that has impeccable off-road capability and provides plenty of thrills.

So Kove, who have been manufacturing Enduro machines and building a name for themselves in that arena, is now producing a credible middleweight Adventure bike. The 800X Pro is a genuine competitor to KTM, Yamaha, and all the brands that manufacture 600-800cc models. How has the Chinese brand Kove achieved this?

The Kove 800X Pro has fully adjustable 48mm KYB front forks and rear shock, and it feels well set up in standard trim. It impressed on and off-road with decent support and allows accurate steering with confidence-inducing handling. The seat height of 875mm allows most riders to plant both feet on the ground, reassuring off-road and when manoeuvring in urban environments.

The handlebar position, seat height, and pegs provide an ideal riding position with great forward vision, and it is comfortable on your wrists and bum. Kove should allow you to adjust the screen, but it is fixed, which is annoying. However, it works well with a decent width and prevents buffeting at most speeds up to 70+

Kove has kept the weight of the 800X Pro down by using titanium bolts in various areas on the machine, using a light swing arm and tubeless wheels. Lightness is most welcome on any machine, especially if you venture onto the dirt. 

The motor is similar to a KTM 790/890 unit and has comparable performance with smooth power delivery between 2500 and 10000rpm. It allows you to cruise easily at motorway speeds, and even when loaded up, you can overtake confidently. 

The Kove 800X Pro has been built well, and you get some standout bits across the whole machine. The attention to detail in construction, technology, and design makes you think you are looking at a much more expensive Japanese or European machine. My time on the bike was superb, and the bike was faultless, with no issues or glitches. The bike is so fresh to the market that I can't comment on reliability, but with its background and attention to detail, I would suggest it will be equal to its rivals. 

There isn't a dealer network, but Kove UK has set up an Oxford facility where bikes can be taken. They plan to have four additional official dealers covering the North, South, East, and West of the UK by the start of 2025. The first service is between 600 and 900 miles, then every 5,000 miles. It isn't impressive when you could rack up that figure on one road trip. 

The Kove 800X Pro has two power maps, Eco and Sport, and benefits from ABS and traction control. There's no significant difference between the power maps, so it's nothing too exciting to use them. The benefit of the bike for off-roaders is that the traction control can be turned off completely, meaning it won't re-engage when the motorcycle is stalled or even turned off and re-started. 

The ABS can either be on, the rear wheel off or both wheels off and like the TC, the setting stays even after a re-start.

The TFT dash is colour, and you get a non-backlit switch gear operated by intuitive enter, escape and up and down buttons, allowing you to scroll through the options and select. On the dash, you get plenty of information about speed, revs, gear indicator, and trips through to a small picture of the bike that illustrates what rider aids have been deactivated.

Powered by a 799cc parallel twin motor, a direct copy of the KTM 790 motor, it has a claimed 94bhp at the crank; the weight is 196kg, even with a 20-litre tank full of fuel.

Compared to the opposition, this is light; Yamaha's Ténéré 700 weighs in at 205kg with 16 litres of fuel, and the Suzuki V-Strom 800DE is 230kg, so the Kove 800X Pro at below 200kg weight makes a massive difference in every aspect of motorcycling. 

The Kove 800X Pro faces many rivals in the popular middleweight adventure bike class, with main competition the Yamaha Ténéré 700, Aprilia Tuareg and KTM 790 Adventure. Its specifications rival some of the bikes at the top of the middleweight sector, like the KTM 890 Adventure R and even the £14,999 Ducati DesertX.

The 800X pro is Kove's first model in the middleweight adventure sector, having previously focussed on lightweight machines. The Chinese company entered three riders in the 2023 Dakar using the Kove 450 Rally, and in the world's most demanding race, all three bikes finished. It shows a great degree of confidence in any machine they produce. 

Yamaha, KTM and Suzuki have a rival in the Kove 800X Pro adventure, which, despite its excellent low price, is constructed well, behaves impeccably, and has decent tech and well-made parts.

The Kove 800X Pro targets the popular Yamaha Ténéré 700 launched in 2019; the T7 has won fans for a good reason, but the Kove 800X Pro is more powerful, lighter, has more advanced electronics, longer travel suspension, and more ground clearance – at £1,600 cheaper.

Priced at £8,499 and given the high spec and low weight, the 800X Pro offers tremendous value. 

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