CF Moto 450 MT – UK Green Lane First Ride – The UNICORN?

oh [Music] a n [Music] [Music] [Music] okay hey guys hope everyone’s well just out on the CF Moto 450 Mt I got it two days ago from bike Treads up in Swindon it’s to add to the fleet of A2 compliant bikes for people who ride down in North Devon it’s it’s an area of the market that I think is really hotting up we’ve had the H Himalayan 450 uh this year and then we’ve got this but then also we’ve got the 390 KTM and the imminent forthcoming new Enduro version of that bike we’ve got the 310 GS we’ve got the old 411 we’ve got the CRF 300 rally we’ve got the Vose 300 there’s there’s lots of bikes seem to be entering this Market the Triant 400x scrambler for example maybe a tiger version of that so it’s really hotly contested sector of the market I think price is crucial and people want a lot of bite for the for their money see if Moto unveiled this maybe end of last year and we all sort of went that could be the one that could be the Unicorn that could be the bike that gives us the compromise between Trail ability or off-road ability but also the smoothness to do road work which I guess in essence is all we really want out of a bike isn’t it a bike that does everything which might sound like we’re not asking for a lot but I guess in many ways uh we are I’ve got the Himalayan 450 I like that bike but I feel it didn’t like to cruise any faster than the old one for the vibrations for the buffeting so I was a bit disappointed a little bit in that then also the way carried its weight let it down slightly uh it’s a it’s a great bike I mean the development of the chassis is really top-notch but as a package it didn’t G gel for me I mean that’s not to say it’s not going to gel for you but for me it didn’t work so here comes CF Moto 450 Mt 5,700 or thereabouts in UK money it’s got a lot of expectation on it uh it’s got a lot of anticipation it’s interesting you know a bike comes out Himalayan had loads of marketing loads of hype CF Moto was almost organically generated by the curios of the people on Facebook and the actual end user was the one who was talking about this rather than the marketing team and it’s interested now it’s come out that we’ve actually got a brilliant product you know cutting straight to the chase I’ve been out only for 50 miles but sometimes you don’t need that long to get an overall impression of what what a bike is and what it’s going to be good for I’ve done a r a Mix Route done a bit of road work I did some road work last night as well also a bit of Trail work last night but today I’ve done some technical Trails the sort of stuff you probably do more than a 250 300 type of B some single track stuff some steep Rocky climbs and for me that’s where this bike I guess needed to do it but it equally needs to do it on the open road doing 70 mph on a Motorway as well doesn’t it I mean the latter question I can’t answer until it’s got more miles on it but what I would say is at 60 MPH it’s doing 6,000 RPM it’s a little bit low geared so you might want to step it up a bit if you’re going to do more touring but the engine is smooth uh 6,000 RPM there’s no noticeable vibrations coming through you sat behind a screen which is fairly decent to be honest it’s it’s not brilliant screen but it’s not terrible and it’s adjustable so you feel like you could sit in that saddle for 10 hours or whatever and do 600 mile days not too not too problematic hopefully the seat’s comfortable but obviously I’ve not done enough miles to say so from a touring point of view from a road point of view I I I think everything it suggests to me so far is really really good the road handling is good the mannerisms are good the screen and the way you sit in the bike gives you that security which unfortunately it does lack on that ml450 you feel quite Exposed on that bike which again is one of the reasons I probably don’t see it as a longdistance bike quite so much as this it’s on the trails though uh where it’s really surprised me I think we got to start with the weight it’s exactly the same weight as a lot of the other bikes 195 kilos but it doesn’t feel topheavy it doesn’t feel overly heavy in any capacity really it’s a very manageable weight it’s a very manageable seat height about 820 830 mil so I’m 5′ 10 5′ 9t 5′ 10 and I’m flat easy on that and what that means is like I got stuck on one lane bit tricky got stuck in a rout I get my feet down and I can paddle backwards so I’ve got long travel suspension I’ve got decent ground clearance I’ve got a decent tank I’ve got everything that makes a good off-road bike but I can get my feet down and I think that’s one of the biggest attributes a bike can have for a novice Rider or even an intermediate you know it’s only the really good Riders who who aren’t going to ever need to put the feet down for but most of us there’s always going to be a time when we have to catch the bike and having a low seat he I think really really benefits this machine I think I could probably do with a slightly touch taller seat I find when I’m I’m riding there’s a slight tightness in the leg but maybe not too much something you may might adjust to or maybe fit a slightly taller seat if there’s one in the options uh catalog but on the trails I think what works is right the standing position it’s nice and slender between the knees so I’ve got the knees in the foot pegs are nice and big fat and long enough with easily removable rubber inserts so I’ve got a good grip on the pegs the bars come up nicely to you the clutch is nice and light I was just using one finger clutch to get up some of the technical more technical stuff and I found it really easy to to ride in those conditions the the throttle is snatchy there’s been reports of a snatchy throttle and some of the immediate control when you get on it for the first 10 miles it feels a bit rough it feels a bit unrefined but you do learn to ride around it and and In fairness going up those steep climbs in first on the clutch it it was perfectly smooth tractable and engaging and easy to get the the the the drive and also steer it in a way that you could get up the steeper stuff I like that the fact that the traction control is easy to turn off you just hold that button on there for 4 seconds that does traction control ABS in one and when you kill the ignition it stays off it doesn’t revert back to on it’s only when you kill uh so when you kill the kill switch it stays on when it’s only when you kill the ignition that it all goes off which is a really nice user friendly way of doing it you can’t still can’t do it on the move and you still can’t disengage front ABS but compared to most systems it’s really user us user friendly uh way of doing it we’ve got fully adjustable suspension now the the beauty of fully adjustable suspension is you can tail it to you the downside is that unless you know what you’re doing you can tailor it completely wrong and I would say for this bike there’s plenty of suspension travel I think it’s 200 mil and there’s full adjustability on the front KYB and I think it’s KYB rear shock fully adjustable I think youve Sav money on the bike I would spend it at a suspension tuner setting the bike up for you because there’s part of me as I’m riding along thinks that the bike’s got a has got a better setup for me than what it currently has but I’m probably not well up to speed on what to change exactly how to make it better for me so that’s where I would spend a bit of time and a bit of money I wouldn’t do anything else to it but if I wanted to improve the bike I would just set up the suspension so all in all you know when you look at this bike you’ve got foldable mirrors you’ve got an adjustable screen you’ve got a nice TFT you’ve got a rear racker standard you’ve got uh aluminum bash plate as standard you’ve got tubeless Wheels as standard you got a nice bench seat as standard you’ve got a 17in liter tank as standard it sounds amazing and it sounds amazing when you’re riding it and it’s responsive on the throttle it’s smooth on the throttle once your th throttle’s open I’ve just put up a Facebook post saying unicorn this is it we have got the bike that is going to tick every box for us put some hard paniers on or some soft paniers and you go around the world tomorrow not needing any doing anything to it that to me is the all Mark of a noteworthy bike in this sector there’s not many bikes come out where you just you could buy it and set off to somewhere around the world I love the Himalayan because that was a bik that you could do that didn’t need anything doing to it sure it w’t fast but it was a cheap way of doing everything and this is another cheap way of doing everything but this does it in a way that is far more exciting more exotic it feels exotic if you said this is a Chinese bite you just it wouldn’t match the perception the preconceptions of what we think of as Chinese bikes this is Italian this is European this is flavorsome this has got energy and uh and flare it’s got the flare that we don’t expect from China in that such places or Japan so I would say in my conclusion after 50 Mi which is not enough to Warrant you know a grand trophy or anything but my conclusion this is this is unicorn how can it not be it’s exciting to ride it’s capable onroad and off-road it’s got the essential tank and accessories and racks to make it travel capable and travel suitable out the crate tubeless wheels for example £ 5,700 it becomes almost impossible to Fault by that snatchy throttle which I gather there’s a new in New Zealand they’ve already got a a remap for it to improve that so really it’s hard to find fault there’ll be some who don’t want to buy Chinese bikes I I totally get it but I can only measure it as a product that’s come out of China and really if there’s any criticism it should be the criticism where is Japan where is Europe in building this when you compare this to the KTM 390 Adventure the versus 300 CRF 300 uh BMW 310 Himalayan 450 it blows them out the water it’s miles away from where they are in a good way miles away they they they are not going to get anywhere close to this so is this a good bike it’s a great bike it’s a great exciting bike to ride and that’s it that’s it cheers