THE RISE AND RISE OF CFMOTO Let’ s ignore the ubiquitous‘ chinese bike’ prejudice and talk reality. CFMOTO( all in caps) is making some serious inroads into the motorcycle community both here and overseas. It’ s been doing so for around ten years. It’ s true that early offerings were less than superb, and a test ride a few years back made me think the very worst. Agricultural, poor finish and a peculiarly awkward riding position certainly didn’ t signal the upheaval to come. Look, IP issues and Chinese government opacity aside, the company is on a tear. Started in 1989, Zhejiang Chunfeng Power Co named itself CFMOTO, and is nowadays doing very well. In 2011, it entered into a commercial partnership with KTM and produced the KTM 790 power plant, among others. In 2017 they entered into a Joint Venture programme with KTM to produce and sell KTM 2RTR in China. There is some online speculation that KTM knew that it would be impossible to hold its intellectual property in the Chinese market, but that’ s outside of my pay grade, I don’ t know
too much about IP law. Never mind all that, CFMOTO started producing its own versions of the KTM design parameters and hasn’ t looked back. In 2022, CFMOTO made its debut in world motorcycle racing in Moto3, and in 2023 had podium finishes in Australia and the USA. By 2024 it had pulled off the triple crown in Moto3- World Champion, Constructors Champ and Team Champ. CFMOTO has risen very quickly indeed, even as KTM itself, continues to have deep financial worries, as we all know and sympathise with, with sales volumes plummeting and prices dropping quickly, at the time of writing.
THE BIKE All this aside, the 800NK is an exciting piece of kit, and looks good, coming across sharp and stylish, with almost none of the weird, superfluous ornament that Chinese marques have often been known to adopt. The fins at the radiator edges bearing the front indicators, are the only real non-essential adornment. Oh, and a weirdly convex device atop the front fender. But they’ re acceptable touches. I like the exhaust styling very much, with a large stainless
50 KIWI RIDER