Piston mean speed in m/s is a measure allowing to roughly evaluate the stresses on the piston with the rings in the cylinder. In general the consensus is to stay largely under 20 m/s at max RPM and to stay around under 13-14 m/s at cruising speed if you want a lasting engine. It's verified every day on aviation and marine gas engines used long hours at a steady cruising speed. The other rule of thumb is on gas engines the cruising speed is 75 to 80 % of the max RPM. For example if your bike has a top speed of 150 kmh, the good speed on highway is between 112 and 120 kmh with a piston speed around 12-13 m/s. After this preliminary I do think that the RE 450 has a very bothering technical feature. With a very long old fashion stroke of 81.5 mm but with a rather fast 8000 RPM for the max power of 40 hp, the piston speed is 21.3 m/s, a very annoying high value.That's more than a super sport Honda CBR600RR at 14250 RPM (20.19 m/s). More than a cross KTM 450. The Suzuki DR 650 SE has a 82 mm stroke with around 41 hp at 6400 RPM piston speed 17.5 m/s. The Zongchen NC 450 with a stroke of 64 mm is giving around 40 hp at 7100 RPM on the Fantic 500 with a piston speed of 15.14 m/s. Also that means, if the top speed is 150 kmh at 8000 RPM, that at 6000 RPM on the highway, around 115-120 kmh, the speed piston is an unhealthy 16.3 m/s. Like if you were almost top RPM all the time with a Suzuki DR 650 on the highway, and everybody knows that was not good at all for the DR engine. Morality the RE engine is absolutely not made for going a long time on the highway. The 450 MT has a stroke of 55.2 mm, so at 8500 RPM the piston speed is 15.64 m/s. At 6500 it's less than 12 m/s, a gauge of longevity. With the very full curve of torque and power it's easy to adjust the sprockets ratio to get 120 kmh at 6500 RPM. It's also the RPM of the max torque and the better specific gas consumption. Morality with the good gear ration you can make hundreds of kilometers et 120 kmh. So I do not feel very confident about the durability of the RE engine for a ADV use with a mix of highway, road and offroad.
a nice calm and balanced delivery, thanks for that, how do they compare 2 up fully loaded on a highway? im guessing that is where the twin will win out, cheers
I love this bike. This is what a 390 Adventure had to be in the first place based on its product positioning. I own a 390 ADV and I absolutely love it for its all round character, Sharp on streets, light for off roads and super comfy for touring. However my friends who are into proper off roading find it a bit prone to shortcomings. The MT fits the bill.
You are going to be dissapointed with the new Hima. It vibes as much (or more) as the old one, it's top heavy, it lacks half of the features the 450MT offers at the same price point like tubeless, foldable mirrors, ABS button, adjustable screen and more. And it feels heavy and unwieldy, you sort of sit on top of it instead of "in it", it's taller now and has lost most of it's approachability and easy fun going offorad.
One has a track record of poor manufacturing quality and chassis breaking/crack. And the other is a Chinese bike with no substantial track record to speak of yet. So I won’t be picking either but if I really had to, I guess it will be the MT.
CF Moto have been around for 35 years, they started selling their quads about 16 years ago in the USA and we've been a dealer in Germany for ten years. They aren't exactly beginners.
Great review, picked my biggest bitch with the lean low rev map... A booster plug fixed it for the Versys-X it's replacing (I was going to play them off against each other and pick the best, 200k in and I knew I was keeping the MT) The foot pegs aren't me, bring on the pivot pegs and the handguards are useless so budget for bark busters. Definitely loosen up the front end and release the fork striction, everyone I know that has is far happier. Now for some knobbies as I always over ride my ability and the front end feels just like my Africa Twin, begging for more bite from the tyres. All up, it's not the unicorn 🦄 but it's probably slept with it.
Nice review, “Thanks”. Too many people forget, when you live in a big city, you need a certain capacity to enable reasonable highway cruising to get you to the dirt roads in the first place. That capacity unfortunately, means a bit of extra weight. I had a couple of 300cc bikes, including a Honda CRF300 Rally and a BMW310GS, both lovely bikes, but not very good on the highway. If you want a super light bike, buy a dirt bike and trailer it to the dirt roads. Unfortunately most dirt bikes aren’t road legal and therefore can’t be used on any dirt road in Australia, (private property only). The 450 MT looks like a very good compromise.
Great little bike and great summuary as well. Thanks for the video. I am looking forward for a test ride. Currently not easy to get one here in Germany
did it come with the T-Box in OZ already ? I've seen a few customers around the world complaining they didn't get a TBox - so can't do their NAV connection - only China for now they all said ? I pick up my 450MT in a few days from the dealer - so my ears pricked up when I heard the TBox mentioned ...
I have a versys300 and i tested the 450mt. Better ergo on the 300. Better sound on the 450. A little more oumph on the 450 but not much. Way better fuelling on the 300. Will not swich bikes.
I also had a Versys 300 for 6 years. Good on gravel roads, ton of fun on twisty sealed roads, surprisingly good as a lightweight tourer. Great fuel range. But...for adventure riding the suspension is a major problem. There's just not enough of it. The engine also becomes an issue - it has no low down torque. All power is above 8000 revs. In more technical stuff it is almost impossible to stay in the power band. And the seat is bloody awful! I have taken a 450MT for a test ride and I think it would be a far better all round bike. But, still too tall in the seat even on the low setting. I have a serious case of duck's disease 😞
I would take the MT450, I really like it, in my country the price is 5790€, I bought a 450SR-S for my son, which has the same engine, I can only say that you get a lot for the money. It drives great and I don't regret buying it.
There are some dealers close to me selling the Aprilia Tuareg 660 in 10K. Some others 11K Which one will you decide? CFMoto 450 10K or Aprilia Tuareg 660 10K ? 😁😁
You guys are talking in different currencies🤣 You can get a Tuareg for 10k USD in US. You can also get a 450mt for 10k AUD in Australia. You flip that around a Tuareg will set you back 20k+ AUD in Australia, and a 450mt will be 6k+ USD in US.
I got 1300 km on my MT450 here in Europe. I bought it as the lighter, smaller displacement ADV bike. I have modified Rally 300 for the "dirt riding". The big miss for my riding, the short final gearing of the transmission. Around 120 kmh the engine spins at 7000 (8500 red line). I already installed 15t front sprocket, drops rpm 450 or so, but it is little less energetic on initial acceleration. The fueling off idle is shit. The rest of the bike is awesome.
You already answer my big question about this bike. So NO thank you. I’ll go for the Aprilia Tuareg 660 almost the same price and I’ll need the 6th gear after 130
@@pawelwolski1316 It's pretty much known and most owners have changed to 15T and so did I, and yeah biggest issue is the fuelling which I hope the rumored new "map" will be available for all, last time i heard it was implemented for new zealand owners.
And this is the biggest problem with this bike it is geared to be an off-road bike but it's pushing 200kg wet. The weight is fine for on road and gravel touring but then the gearing is not suited for this riding. It looks good sounds great but its not going to be great either off-road or on road unless you like riding slow.
Hey mate! We just recently rode the new one on a two week trip through Nepal and Tibet. It was quite the adventure. We'll have a video from that soon 👍
Well done Spencer! Getting busted up pretty bad with all the dirty action. Thanks for your presentation & input. It certainly is one of a contender for cheap bike of the year. Will be interested to see your team comparisons between the 450MT & the Himalayan! Cheers & rest up! You deserve a holiday
You summed it up, “light weight adventure bike”. The bike is not light weight in the least however. Personally I don’t understand how people, and yourself mr reviewer, consider the cf moto not most comparable to the Honda NX 500. That’s the comparison that I want to see.
The NX500 is more expensive and more road-biased (19in front, alloy wheels, lower ground clearance, less suspension travel) than either of the 450s, which is why I don’t think it often gets included in comparisons. The 450MT is definitely more fun, but the NX500 is a Honda, for those who just want the established reliability. NX would probably be the best highway tourer among the three as well.
Another thing with Royal Enfield Australia is your warranty roadside assist entitles you to only 2 tows if you break down and the bike can’t be ridden. It put me off buying the 450 Himalayan. I ended up buying a Kawasaki Z650RS because no got it for an amazing price….. I miss being able to take those dirt roads.
In the UK, you get 4 years warranty with the 450MT and 8 years breakdown/recovery as long as you keep up with the service intervals at a CFMOTO dealer. What's not to like!!! Placed my order for the MT on Monday. Could be a long wait though. I already bought the 450NK back in March this year. Fantastic little bike with a very peppy engine.
I'd hold off till the end of the year until Kawasaki Versys 500 comes out. This could be a hybrid model too. Can't wait. But I got a feeling this bike would still be better as an overall package, and I'll buy the MT 450. That's ok too cause there would be more aftermarkets for it by then.
I don’t know if that bike will come and if will have the Ninja engine will be just a street bike with an adventure bike body. I have the Versys X 300 and I hate it.
This is an awesome review and video. We've currently got the 450MT in our workshop for R&D on some aftermarket parts and we are quite impressed with the build quality of this machine.
@@M.Shahbaz.Khan. Fair enough …but remember part of bike riding is getting the adrenaline going in a safe manner. Having to limit your off road riding fun over off road bumps jumps and whoops because your bike is way too heavy , is a downer. Believe me I owned a Honda 300 rally ….fantastic all round bike …but it’s 150 plus kg wet weight , made things slower and less exciting than riding a lighter bike …so imagine 190 kg when you are pushing the pace off road. But if dirt roads and dry fire trails are your only excursions this may suffice. Just make. sure you can pick it up off the dirt….not so easy.
@@ashhash8973 Good point but the build quality of the CF motos is very high, and I mean they compete in Moto 2, I think they are capable of high quality. So far there are no horror stories of bad reliability (any more than is normal)
Single cylinder engines with low geared transmissions, have been obsolete for 100 years now. It's bizzare that Japan continued to make single cylinder engines in their smaller bikes, whilst putting enormous 1340cc 197 horsepower inline 4 cylinder engines in their larger street bikes (Hayabusa). They gave people liquid-glass-electric-turbine smooth inline 4 engines in all their models, and only single cylinder 43 horsepower motors in their DR650 or 48 horsepower in the heavier KLR650. The single cylinder bikes were designed to be boring, and low in power, with short gears that aren't very good for actual highway riding. But this doesn't make any sense, because the same companies were constantly trying to make more and more exciting, faster, more refined motorcycles. As a side note, 53 years ago, in 1971, Honda made the SL350 enduro with a screaming 10,000 rpm and 36 horsepower parallel twin. Somehow, 53 years later, they've forgotten how to do it. Every premium flagship enduro and trail oriented dirt bike made by the major manufacturers, should be a finely balanced parallel twin, with an overdrive 6th gear. Anything else is obsolete at this point.
Single cylinders are awesome for off-road use because of the superior torque vs twins and their simplicity & lightweight. Almost every off-road racing bike is a single because of that. You don’t need more cylinders for off-road use nor horsepower. I have a 890 twin and you don’t use even half of the power in the dirt, I can go much faster in the dirt and have way more fun on my 300cc single cylinder two stroke (not boring at all), and because it weights 110kg I can hit harder terrain you can only dream off in a twin.
Who on Earth would think that a single cylinder off-road motorcycle with less than 450cc should be good on the ‘highway’? Where they’re designed to be a long stroke single Dan the exactly what is needed. If you want to drive on the highway get a diesel car, they’re not the place for any decent motorcycle.
You do know that Japan probably sells 4 or 5 single cylinder bikes to every 1 of everything else they make? 3rd world or nearly 3rd world countries want cheap, reliable bikes and those people actually ride every day. I've been in areas where you see 10 single cylinder bikes to every one car or truck. They don't have or want nor can afford 1340cc 197 HP Busa's sitting around with 500 miles on them....those are for people who think it makes their dick bigger.
@@CesarSan19Single cylinder engines are better for off-road riding, agreed ! But the CF MOTO 450 is designed as an Adventure tourer. For riders wanting to ride from home to the trails and back without having to load up the ute or trailer. You can do it on a single cylinder but I'd rather the smoother performance of a 270° twin cylinder engine.🤗
