2024 KOVE RALLY ADVENTURE BIKE

What, you might ask, is a rally bike? Good question. At this point, no two answers are exactly the same. Honda, KTM, Triumph and other manufacturers use the term freely for wildly diverse models. For now, we like Kove’s definition best. The bike you see here is a machine you could enter in the Dakar Rally and, with a little luck and $100,000 for support, maybe even reach the finish. This is more than a dual-sport bike cast in the image of a rally racer; it’s a motorcycle made with that purpose in mind. Two of them finished Dakar in 2023, and Mason Klein is on one for the 2024 edition of the event.

The Kove Rally has a suggested retail price of $8999. There’s a lower seat height version for the same price and a competition model for $13,999.

THE KOVE CONNECTION

Mason Klein’s Kove is, of course, a factory-level works bike. But, at its core, it’s a production bike made in China. According to FIM rules, a rally bike must have a single-cylinder motor with a displacement limit of 450cc. For practical purposes, it has to be a real dirt bike that’s capable of going very far and very fast. It seems odd to us that no one else is offering a bike like this. KTM, Husqvarna and GasGas only make limited runs of semi-factory bikes that sell for about $35,000. Honda’s Dakar bikes are complete works bikes, and so are the Hero Dakar bikes.

Suspension was one of the bike’s strong points. The components are made by Yu-An.

What really makes the Kove Rally special is the price. It has a suggested retail price of $8,999. The Kove Rally is made in China, but it clearly has a very strong western influence. The motor is a double-overhead-cam, four-valve 450 with a 6-speed gearbox. The bottom end was from an earlier model, but everything from the base gasket up was developed for this bike. The fuel system is pretty wild. There are three tanks with a combined capacity of 7.4 gallons. It all feeds automatically to the left front tank, so there are no fuel-management issues. The bike has a small frame-mount fairing, a down-swept exhaust, a massive carbon fiber skid plate and instrumentation that includes a small tablet behind the windscreen. It has full lighting and equipment for street use. Currently, the Kove meets Euro 5 emissions requirements and is undergoing the process for approval in the U.S. For now, it falls into that gray area where it can be licensed in some states but not the more uptight ones (e.g., California). It even has anti-lock brakes, which can be disabled. The suspension comes from a company called Yu-An, the brakes are Taisko and the tires are CST. The components don’t look like typical Chinese parts. All are well finished, compact and perfectly modern.

the Kove motor is it’s own design; not a knock off or copy of anything else. The filter is mounted high like a Yamaha or early Husaberg.

GO FAR, GO FAST

Despite how nicely finished the Kove is, we were fairly cynical going in. We expected it to be broken within a few days or even hours. Carson Brown came down for our first few days of testing, and he can usually break a bike at will. He tried. Nothing broke. Beyond that, he really enjoyed it! The suspension, in particular, exceeded all expectations. Carson was hitting logs and leaping off rocks as if it were a 125. Admittedly, most of that is because of who he is. The bike is narrow and well proportioned, but it isn’t light. On our scale, it’s 334 pounds without fuel. We don’t know how heavy Ricky Brabec’s works Honda is, but we do know that if you put all this rally stuff on a Honda CRF450RL dual-sport bike, you would end up with the same basic weight. Regardless of that, we rode it everywhere we would take a regular dual-sport. In tight, rocky canyons, it felt big but not unmanageable. And, at the other end of the spectrum, it was outstanding. When the Kove is at speed on a fire road or two-track, it’s perfectly stable, fun and comfortable.

Carson Brown got a kick out of riding the Kove Rally.

The motor is decent, but nothing to get excited about. Remember, this model has full-emission equipment and a super-quiet exhaust. It feels fairly plugged up. It makes decent power in the middle but doesn’t rev very far; KTM and Husky dual-sport bikes aren’t much better. The motor still has very clean EFI mapping with no dead spots and very little popping. It has a number of peculiar characteristics, such as very little engine braking. We learned to like it. We even took the bike around Glen Helen’s National track, where it was fine, just not fast.

THE REAL DEAL

Riding the Kove on a motocross course was mostly to satisfy our own curiosity. We know that no one is going to buy a 450 Rally for motocross or for Dakar or anything like that. What it’s really for is long dual-sport adventures. This is a bike that could be the foundation for a cross-country dream ride. There are a number of resources designed to help dual-sport/adventure riders take long rides that are mostly off-road. RideBDR.com is the most refined. It offers routes in 13 regions with track logs and services all organized. TransAmTrail.com has maps that will get you from West Virginia to Utah using a predominately off-road path, and GPSKevinAdventureRides.com has elements of both. The one thing they all have in common is that they are confined by fuel-range limitations. It’s hard to get more than 200 miles out of most bikes. With 7.4 gallons, which we measured, the Kove can do twice that. Filling all three tanks adds 45 pounds, changes the weight bias and alters the handling characteristics of the bike in weird ways, so that’s a last resort. You can just use the front two tanks and still get 250 miles of range. Many riders, we are told, actually disconnect the rear tank from the fuel system and use it for water storage. You will have to make that call when the bike is new, before you ever put a drop of gasoline in that rear tank.

the standard model does not have a legitimate — The standard model does not have a legitimate rally tower for holding your road book, but the standard TFT display will sync with your smartphone to offer navigation.

Regardless of how much fuel you have on board, the bike is comfortable and smooth for the long haul. The wheels are well balanced, there’s very little vibration and wind protection is decent. Even the seat is comfortable when you’re planted semi-motionless for hours, crossing state lines. On the highway, you will notice that the bike is only a 450. It has power typical of a dual-sport bike, but it suffers by comparison to big adventure bikes that have 100 horsepower ready to go. Is that the competition for the Kove? In truth, we don’t know. This bike exists in a one-bike class. If you’re the long-distance dual-sport kind of guy, the only real comparison is a heavily modified dual-sport bike, and even that won’t give you the range of the Kove—and it will cost thousands more.

There’s more to unpack here. Kove is a very ambitious company with big plans for other models. There is a full-dirt model called the Rally Pro, which does away with all the restrictions and makes about 10 horsepower more. There’s also a 50-state-legal version coming soon. For now, the fact that the Kove Rally exists at all is the biggest news. We feel it sets a new high mark for Chinese motorcycles.