Hi!
A little while ago I sent this message to Andre.
Andre had kindly lent us his Kove 450 Rally to help us develop our new Hard Parts.
This bike really caught our attention when it launched, and then in the Dakar Rally, and more recently as we've seen them appear on the trails here in the UK and Europe.
Could it be the unicorn, made in China?
Clearly it looks the part going fast in the desert, but for what we do, multi day trail and adventure riding, how does it hold up?
Would that carbon bashplate survive more than one massive rock impact?
How do you mount luggage on the rear?
Jim our product chief worked hard with our designers, bouncing ideas and prototypes back and forth between our UK base and our Portuguese factory.
I mostly watched and smiled as my phone pinged with updates, Jim and the team knocking ideas into shape.
The original plan had been to develop rear and side luggage racks, much like we have done for the Honda CRFs, Yamaha T700's etc, but whilst we have a really great rack design worked up, we discovered that the only available mounting points on the non-exhaust side of the bike were mounted into the plastic fuel tank.
Bit of a nightmare.
We could fit the side racks just fine, and they would look great in the pics, but if we are going to be totally honest, the chances of them pulling the mounts out of the plastic fuel tank over time, especially with luggage bouncing over rough trials, was just too high.
Bummer.
Mr Kove if you are listening, maybe have a look at that 🙏.
In the next couple of weeks we will be launching our new Kove top luggage rack and bashplate.
Yes, we know the bashplate is a bit of a monster, but it's got a lot to protect with those low slung fuel tanks.
And much to Andre's relief, they really do work.
💪🙂👈
Greg Villalobos.
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