First impressions of the Voge DS800X Rally from the ABR Festival

The 2025 ABR Festival allowed me to tick two items off my summer to-do list. The first was actually attending the event, as in previous years, launches and press events always stood in the way. The second item on my agenda was to test out the new Voge DS800X Rally, ahead of a more thorough ride later this year.

Now I’m not going to pretend this is some deep dive into the performance of the bike, although my fleeting meeting with the Voge at ABR allowed me to ride the beautiful trails around Ragley Hall for around an hour, with a similar length stint spent on the roads around the festival.

Price, colours, and availability

The Voge is, like all the other bikes in the Chinese brand’s range, extremely good value, coming in at just £6,999 (plus £200 OTR charges). The Voge undercuts pretty much all the mainstream competition, including the £12,699 KTM 890 Adventure (2024 model year) and the £9,899 2025 Honda XL750 Transalp. While they may be bikes from well-known names with years of history behind them, as Voge proved with the DS625X we reviewed earlier this year, they are more than able to take the fight to the established names in the two-wheeled world.

Bikes will be landing in UK dealers in August 2025, and will be available in three colours: Black Knight (as ridden), Blue and White and Yellow and Black.

Voge DS800X Rally spec and features

Like its siblings, the DS625X and DS800X, the DS800X Rally is a bike designed to tackle off-road terrain while offering long-distance comfort and touring tech. Where it differs from the existing bikes, though, is in how it is positioned in the adventure segment. Where the existing bikes in the range feel like adventure tourers with some off-road ability, the Rally feels and looks like a much more focused machine.

At the heart of the new machine sits Voge’s all-new KEL800 engine, a 798cc parallel twin that’s set to position this bike right in the thick of the ever-popular middleweight ADV class. Pumping out a claimed 90bhp and 59lb ft of torque, DS800X Rally is in the same ballpark as bikes like the Yamaha Ténéré 700, and the aforementioned Transalp and 890 Adventure. Backing up the engine is a six-speed gearbox with a hydraulically actuated slipper clutch.

Sitting on top of the bike is a chunky 24-litre fuel tank, formed as a single piece using roto-moulding technology. The chassis boasts fully adjustable KYB suspension at both ends, offering 200mm of front travel and 190mm rear travel. That blesses the bike with a respectable 220mm of ground clearance, which, again, matches that of the best bikes in the segment.

Up in the cockpit, we can find a radial steering damper, which is joined by a TFT dash equipped with Bluetooth connectivity, and you get backlit switchgear. The seat height is 850mm, while a heated seat and grips are fitted as standard.

The wheels are tubeless, cross-spoked items, with a 21-inch front and 18-inch rear. Rolling stock comes from Pirelli, with its Scorpion Rally STR hoops straight from the factory. The braking system comprises twin 298mm front discs gripped by four-piston radially-mounted Nissin calipers. Backing up the hardware is ABS that can be toggled for road and off-road use - or switched off entirely if you prefer full control in the dirt. As a bonus, the DS800X has a tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) fitted as standard.

How does it handle - off-road

For my first foray into the 50km of trails that crisscross ABR, we settled into the manufacturer route, a shorter section with a mixture of terrains and inclines with (crucially) no divebomb heroes on enduro bikes to catch/take me out. Before we get there though, we have to navigate the maze of fire roads that thread through the site.

I’ve got the bike in the sportiest riding mode, with the traction control disabled, and ABS only active at the front wheel. Right off the bat, this feels like a very easy bike to ride on the dirt. I’m basically riding a totally stock machine (albeit with a slight drop in tyre pressure), and even on base suspension settings, it’s handling any ruts and bumps with ease. The riding position might also be playing a part in this, as it seems to strike a perfect balance between an engaged enduro bike and a relaxed touring machine. The footpegs, when seated, feel quite high, although once you get standing on them, it all starts to make sense.

With the gravel fire roads out of the way, we head into the trails properly, and I can begin to get a feel for the suspension and chassis a bit more. It’s been as dry as Death Valley at ABR this year, meaning the entire site has become something of a dust-bowl - more Burning Man than a traditional UK festival. This means it’s very easy to overpower the rear tyre and have the bike slithering around below me. It’s also highlighting the first slight negative point I’d aim at the DS800X, the throttle is extremely sensitive.

It’s not choppy, and the fuelling is very good, but it is extremely sensitive to small inputs at the initial part of the travel. It’s forcing me to ride one of two ways. Either I have to be hyper delicate with the twist-grip, or I have to ride through the sensitivity and be more bullish with my acceleration out of corners. It’s hard to find a happy medium between the two.

The rest of the off-road handling of the bike feels very good, the suspension is beautifully set up, and it handles any ruts and bumps (of which there are many) extremely well. Compression through the stroke is composed and plush, and the rebound damping is controlled nicely. The braking system, from a hardware standpoint, is also more than up to the task, with the lever feel of the front brake allowing me to be very accurate when decelerating on the loose ground. If there is one element of the braking system that is lagging behind some of the competition, it’s the ABS. While Voge allows you to turn off the ABS to the rear wheel (or both wheels), when it's still turned on at the front, it doesn’t quite feel optimised for riding off-road. It still feels distinctly like road-biased ABS, which most of the time just craps itself when you pull the lever on dirt and has a bit of a wobbly. It is easily fixed through, and just a few clicks in the TFT can turn it off altogether. And anyway, as the lever feel is so nice, most riders probably won’t need it on at all.

How does it handle - on-road

With the off-road riding completed, we head out of the grounds of Ragley Hall and into the surrounding countryside for an on-road assessment of the bike. Like its performance off-road, it’s all good news, the sensitive throttle isn’t such an issue for me here, and that same suspension that was soaking up the lumps and bumps on the trails is giving me a very supple and forgiving base on the asphalt. Yes, it’s probably too soft for on-road touring or scratching, although the best-of-both setting Voge UK had dialled in for the bike means I’m not wallowing about the brakes, and overall the chassis feels very composed and well behaved - no matter how much I abuse it!

Where the ease of use and its suspension shone while off-road, the engine takes over once you leave the trail, thanks to its punchy delivery and addictive exhaust note. 80bhp in a mid-weight ADV bike seems like the sweetspot, and while some bikes have more than the DS800X, I’m not under the impression that it is lacking in the legs department. 

It pulls hard from low revs and barks its way through the mid-range, only beginning to run out of puff as the redline comes into view. Thanks, though, to an ultra-light clutch lever (and slick gearbox), it’s easy to keep the little KEL800 in the fun-zone, and when you do, it’s a riot to thrash on a B-road.

Like I mentioned further up the page, this is a short ride to give me a first impression of the little Voge. I’m planning on heading out to Voge’s UK HQ later this summer for a more thorough (and hopefully longer) experience.

You can find out more about the DS800X Rally on the official website.

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