My Kove 450 Rally February 2024

[Off Road Cycles]

Baie geluk Bart! Lyk baie nice! Vir jou, as ñ stoere KTM/Husky profeet, moes Conrad ñ stewige afslag gegee het!

Of is jy @Runner se demo jockey?

Het ek dit gemis, wat prys hierdie Kove vir die gewone man op straat?

R200 000

 

[Chrisl]

Hierdie lyk vir my na n smoother gebruikers vriendeliker KTM 640.

 

[BuRP]

Go test it in the rocks and dongas.

Go with @Noneking and the psychopath riders.

Puik idea, and this reminds me of the "Pensioners #3" trip..... which we all know is coming, it's simply inevitable, and then I might as well use the Kove instead of my 701
Canzius meneer, no pressure......

 

[BuRP]

Of is jy @Runner se demo jockey?

Kyk hierso Henk, Conrad & ek is pelle, dis waar ja..... maar, my pelle, en jy self kan dit maar as n kompliment vat ook, is almal nie dom mense nie!
Of Conrad dom pelle het, en ek is dan een van hulle, weet ek nie..... jy sal hom moet vra!

In elk geval, Conrad sal nooit so dom wees om MY as crashpilot aan te wys nie - en ek sal nooit so dof wees om soiets ooit te aanvaar, al was dit net omdat ek oud genoeg is om te weet ek's hondstadig, en te bang ens ens.
En, om jou ietwat hidden vra te beantwoord, ja, ek het die einste prys betaal wat almal betaal, n rapsie onder 200K.
Jy voeg net by watse ekstras jy wil he, en ons almal is verskillend hierso, so meeste bikes sal net effens anderste wees as die ander Kove's... maar dis normaal!

 

[BuRP]

One of the nice things of the Kove 450 Rally is it has 3 (THREE!) tanks!
In total they hold 30 liters, and sure, that is heavy if you fill that all up - but, you CAN, and with a little extra thingy you can control where the fuel sits!

The front tanks hold 9L each, and the rear tank (which is the subframe so btw, like a 701 and other KTM's now) holds 12 Liters.
That's quite a lot, and weightwise this is about 25 kg's total.... which you do not always want, or, when you do fill her up you may want to "keep" the rear 12L as 'reserve'!

I do, or I want this to be able to do this, and therefore I installed an in-line fuel tap on the rear tank.
No pics yet but Sirk gave me a very nice inline fuel-tap which sits right at the fuel outlet of the rear tank - easily reachable (even with a hot exhaust!) so now I can run the dual front tanks dry (the fuel-gauge sits here), and when I run dry I can switch on the rear's 12 (or whatever I did put in) liters to get me home or wherever there's fuel (or beer lol).

Will post a piccie tomorrow

I made a few pics today, see below - the petcock I installed underneath the rear tank so as to 'keep' this 12 Liters separate if I want to do this.
Handy I think, and neat enough - and as said, you can operate this easily, even with a scorching hot exhaust



Tap open...



Tap closed.

 

[BuRP]

I also took a pic of the exhaust header pipe - a thing of beauty as it is a hydroformed pipe tapering bigger to the final diameter of the system: simply very neat as well as efficient!
For those who did not know it also shows the oilcooler, hidden behind the carbon belly pan (removed in the pic).

 

[Chrisl]

oilcooler,

Oilcooler plus twin fan radiators!!!

 

[TVB]

I also took a pic of the exhaust header pipe - a thing of beauty as it is a hydroformed pipe tapering bigger to the final diameter of the system: simply very neat as well as efficient!
For those who did not know it also shows the oilcooler, hidden behind the carbon belly pan (removed in the pic).

View attachment 878575

Just a quick one:
Love what I see but is that oil cooler not in a very vulnerable area? Any planned protection of sort for it?

You guys gutted some plumbing and stuff earlier in the thread, crabon something....care to elaborate a bit on that?

I got to agree with you on the clean engine though, while perving over the demo I noticed how clean and uncluttered the engine is

 

[BuRP]

@2StrokeDan , YOU WERE RIGHT AALLL THE TIME, THIS IS CHINESE ****!!!
Guys, the above in capitals because we all know that Dan's been hammering on the anti-chinese gong loudly enough - and he was right!!!

Yup, sorry guys, I've been misleading you all all the time up to now... my genuine apologies
I did find the 'Chinese' bits, dogawful yes, so BEWARE, don't fall into this trap like I did!!!!
A deal breaker of note, please note, and tread carefully instead of my heartonthesleeve impulsive buying behaviour!!!

Oh, no, nono, the bike's all fine, let me be clear here, read all earlier posts..... but the toolkit, my my my, what a Chinese crap!!
Look below, but make sure you are sturdily seated first.....



..... that's all atrocious innit????
Ty pi cal Chinese, and to top it even worse, you need extra spanners to remove the wheels!

Oh NO, they all come with this same kit .... which is, I will admit, neatly located into a lockable compartment in the carbon belly pan - see pics below...









Yeah, sure, it's a nice and neat real carbon fibre bellypan, but those tools???????
As said, ***** stuff, I'll now have to get my own tools!!!


That is of course the reason why I compiled a list during my work so as to know what tools I was going to need, to 'build' a decent toolset which would be effective when needed somewhere roadside.


I will keep the OEM-toolkit on my bar though, for future amusement purposes

 

[Noneking]

Puik idea, and this reminds me of the "Pensioners #3" trip..... which we all know is coming, it's simply inevitable, and then I might as well use the Kove instead of my 701
Canzius meneer, no pressure......

@2StrokeDan kom EDBA toe @BuRP !

Skryf in!

 

[BuRP]

Love what I see but is that oil cooler not in a very vulnerable area? Any planned protection of sort for it?

The carbon belly pan closes this off very neatly, with vents of course, slots to let air through for cooling
Sorry, no pic of this now... but look up a post, the pic of the bellypan as seen from the motor's side!
Found a pic...

You guys gutted some plumbing and stuff earlier in the thread, crabon something....care to elaborate a bit on that?

Yeah, the carbon canister (a plastic cylinder with active carbon inside, which filters/neutralizes fuel vapours) plus all its rubber hoses was removed - for reason this system cannot play up and cause problems anymore, and any possible water ingress is, eh, impossible now

 

[BuRP]

Dankie kom EDBA toe
Skryf in!

Gister gechat met Henry, wat kom kuier het by Offroad Cycles - gesellig!
Hy soek n Kove nou, en is haastig selfs, hy WIL een he...
Hy het daai Zim-trip genoem, maar ek is dan met Hardy in Nam - helaas, want ek wil daai trip een keer doen!!!
Volgende jaar.... en se vir Mark hy beter sy datums so belan dat dit nie oorlap met Hardy se trip nie.... plies?

 

[BuRP]

Oilcooler plus twin fan radiators!!!

Correct - and, what I just glossed over first, it turns out that the LHS radiator fan is the smaller of the two, the bigger one (BIG!) sits on the RHS radiator.
The radiators are surprisingly large themselves also, quite nice to see this.... after all we ride in the hottest weather, Baviaans two weeks ago was ~42C .... hot!



The smaller fan on the left side...



.... and the big meneer on the right hand side!

 

[BuRP]

My tank vents now, after the removal of all the environmental rubbish, looks like this - simpler, as effective for venting, and no need to undo rubber hoses first before you open the fuelcaps!

 

[dookie]

I seriously like what you are doing here Bart.
Well sorted allrounder.
The bike as well

 

[Noneking]

Gister gechat met Henri, wat kom kuier het by Offroad Cycles - gesellig!
Hy soek n Kove nou, en is haastig selfs, hy WIL een he...
Hy het daai Zim-trip genoem, maar ek is dan met Hardy in Nam - helaas, want ek wil daai trip een keer doen!!!
Volgende jaar.... en se vir Mark hy beter sy datums so belan dat dit nie oorlap met Hardy se trip nie.... plies?

Dink nie Mark beplan trips rondom Hardy se dagboek nie

 

[Noneking]

Following with interest….
Been looking at every Youtube video I can find for months now. Mixed reaction. Looking forward to your feedback

 

[JustBendIt]

I made a few pics today, see below - the petcock I installed underneath the rear tank so as to 'keep' this 12 Liters separate if I want to do this.
Handy I think, and neat enough - and as said, you can operate this easily, even with a scorching hot exhaust

View attachment 878573

Tap open...

View attachment 878574

Tap closed.

FFS @BuRP ... please "dress" the screws on those hose clamps - the screw heads must all be facing the same way

 

[BuRP]

go and RIDE it so we can see if it lasts.

Dan, here's perhaps a surprise for you: I also am farfromfond of Chinese rubbish!

We both are old enough to remember "JapScrap", **** Made in Japan that was hardly worth looking at!
But eh, these days?????
YOU are a Yamaha fan, and I am fond of Toyota, hell, even fond of Honda quality (note, quality only)..... so somewhere somehow times did change eh?
Then came "Made in Taiwan" .... oooooohh dear, another shitload of ***** coming our way!
But eh, Hyundai or Kia anyone now?
We all (should) know what happened if we look back.

Now there's China crap, for long already, and the crap-bit is very much earned also!
But, but.... there's also good Chinese quality, excellent stuff too - hell, did you know that our mobile telcoms are handled by Huawei equipment, a massive Chinese company's stuff???
BYD's currently flooding the European markets with their EVs, and we both know where that will lead to - and the EU carmakers know this too!
Hell, even Elon knows this, they're way bigger than his outfit - he'll go bank in only a few years!

But, bikes?
Nah, dilivery **** for a family of 6 plus their sow, all on it on their way to the market - not interested!
Then, about just over a year ago, the name KOVE was dropped - cleverly so, 3 unknown Chinese riders were to attempt the Dakar race on this new Chinese motorcycle ..... they were guaranteed of international news coverage!!
But hold on a sec, they all made it - huh?
Then next we all heard of this new Kove bike, worldwide youtubes galore - and very little negative news was outed, so it got my attention span a bit longer than my goldfish is able to do.

Then came Dakar 24 - and hahaha, they failed!!!
Eh, actually they did not, only 2 bikes (a prototype plus one of the 'regular' bikes) did not make it, the rest did.
However, that prototype, manned by Klein, did VERY well, the bike and the dude is fast as hell.... and the 'others', being on regular Kove's which are not that fast, did not do bad at all!

That 'regular' bike I've bought now - for one simple reason... which is multifold of course
- I liked this bike from the first time I saw it, it's different in some ways, which will allow me to 'adventure' in Southern Africa, and do this in a bit better way than I've done thus far
- I hunched - and yes, that's still a hunch only, I'll admit that - that this Kove is the real first proper Chinese bike coming our way.

I will test that too, hold your verbal horses: I plan to do with it...
- run it in first of course, around here, some on tar dog forbid
- 11 days Transkei/Lesotho/Drakensberg with John Wood in April
- a service at Offroad Cycles in Pretoria (I want to know about the tappets, and am sure Conrad would like to know that also!)
- 12 days Kaokoland with Hardy in May, van Zyls Pass and Marienfluss included, directly followed by
- 10 days Kaokoland with John Wood in June, Robbie's Pass included
I reckon that's close to 7000 kms in total if not more, and all rather remote if not wildish, and I'll be reporting on these trips here on WildDog.

If it does this all, without any major ***** (bigend, valves or why) ..... will you then be at least a little more, eh, let's say approachable, to this new Chinese Kove 450 bike?
Have coffee, sleep on it, and only then answer...

 

[Psycho Porra]

bike looks great @BuRP and maybe you should keep track of exactly what you did and the cost so any potential buyer will know exactly what they are in for if the choose the “Bart treatment” on their Kove

Congrats on your new bike and hope you enjoy it thoroughly