My EDBA Kove Experience.
When the Kove brand first made an appearance in SA, we grabbed our two galoots, borrowed a bike and gave it a proper test ride. Our lads were suitably impressed and you can read about that here.
Henry Whitcombe borrowed a Kove’ 450, brought it along to Eswatini for a pretty serious ride and ended up buying one.
Here are his thoughts on the new bike. It’s always great to get rider feedback, particularly on bikes that are new to the SA Market.
He Says:
“Unbeknown to me, my mate Mark called Conrad from Kove, and asked him if he would let me use a demo bike during the EDBA (Eswatini Dual Bikers Adventure) event?
Conrad, being his polite self, readily agreed.
I have ordered this bike, and hadn’t had the opportunity to ride it properly, so this was an ideal occasion…”
“For context, here’s a bit of personal information: I started riding a bike for the first time at the age of 49 (I’m now 64, weigh 83kg and am 175cm tall). Got myself a GS Adventure at that time and attended many courses to improve (I tell my mates Jan taught me how to ride and Mark showed me how to ride). I have recently sold my KTM 990 as it’s too heavy to pick up, especially when I ride alone. I still enjoy hard adventure riding and needed something lighter, a large fuel tank and service intervals that would allow me to do 12 days in Zimbabwe without having to do an oil change during this time.”
“The Kove (in theory) ticked all the boxes. I could reach the ground sitting, it felt very comfortable seated and all the reviews were most encouraging.
Within 20 minutes on day one, fuel started leaking slowly out of one of the front petrol caps and this continued throughout the day. My basic solution was to swop the caps whenever I had the opportunity to rest, and this helped. Turns out the breather attachment was faulty. Not only that, but the throttle was also very twitchy. We did approximately 160km on this day and it wasn’t pleasant.
Early in the morning of day two, I approached Pauli from Yamaha who found the problem. The breather on one of the fuel tanks was not breathing!
He kindly loaned me a replacement fuel cap breather unit. This simple solution was a game changer for me. The bike responded beautifully and I had no more fuel spillage. The twitchy throttle issue also disappeared. Another technical day of 130km in the mountains! I averaged 30km/hour over the two days.”
“I am so happy with my decision to get this bike. The added benefit which I haven’t mentioned, is how light and nimble it feels. I dropped it a few times and it was so easy to pick up. Also, riding over rocky surfaces felt easier than on my 990. The thick sand I encountered was also a pleasure to negotiate. The suspension feels perfect for my type of riding.”
At the moment, my bike is at the docks in Durban, hopefully it gets to Gauteng in time for my next trip to the Richtersveld.
Regards.
Henry
We chatted to the peeps from Kove – a shipment of bikes have just landed and are making their way to the dealerships.
for more info: www.kovemotosa.co.za
