124bhp four-pot sports weapon debuts in China
It’s been a year since Kove first showed its 650RR four-cylinder sports bike: now it’s hit the market in China and exports are expected in the near future.
The 650RR is perhaps the most convincing 600cc-class four-cylinder we’ve yet seen from China: 124hp from a 645cc four, complete with a 15,000rpm redline and the latest rider-assist tech thanks to a six-axis inertial measurement unit. That means there’s lean-sensitive traction control, riding modes, engine braking and wheelie control systems. Kove has even included a blind spot monitoring, lane-change assist system.
It’s not just the engine and tech that’s impressive. The frame is aluminium, weighing just 11kg, and the bike’s overall weight is claimed to be just 188kg.
Kove already competes at an international level with its smaller sports bikes and its Dakar race machine, and the 650RR is already down to enter the 2027 World Supersport championship, going up against machines like Ducati’s Panigale V2 and Yamaha’s R9, not to mention rival Chinese models in the form of ZXMoto’s 820RR triple and QJMotor’s SRK800R four-cylinder.
How much for a Chinese supersports machine like this? At the moment, it’s not clear what the bike will cost on export markets, but in its Chinese homeland the 650RR retails for around a third as much as a traditional Japanese 600cc four.
