Voge DS800X Rally review on and off-road

Late last summer, Editor Toad Hancocks got a chance to experience the Voge DS800X Rally at the ABR Festival. He only managed to get in a few hours of riding, however. A few months later, Chris Cope got hold of one and spent three weeks riding the bike in all weather conditions and on all kinds of roads.

So, what did these two pillars of the motorcycling community think of Voge’s latest adventure offering? Read on.

What is it?

What if you could have a brand-new 94bhp adventure bike with fully adjustable KYB suspension, Pirelli tyres, Nissin brakes, Bosch EFI, and a staggering list of techno-whizzbang goodies for exactly what you’d pay for a 10-year-old BMW R1200 GS with 30,000 miles on the clock? That is the promise of the £6,999 Voge DS800X Rally. 

Odds are, you’ve heard about Voge by now. Thanks to the popularity of its lauded DS900X, Voge is currently one of the UK’s 10 best-selling brands - ahead of more ‘traditional’ names like Harley-Davidson and Ducati.

The brand is the premium export wing of Chinese manufacturing giant Loncin Holdings. Along with producing upward of 2 million motorcycles a year, Loncin has been building engines for BMW for almost two decades. At present, it makes the powerplants for all of BMW’s F-series bikes (save the TVS-built F450 GS), as well as BMW’s C400 scooters.

Unlike the DS900X (which is essentially a budget BMW F900 GS), the DS800X Rally doesn’t have a direct twin in the European market, but it stands as a formidable alternative to a host of middleweight rivals.

Look, fit, and feel

Toad says: “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.”

Chris says: “The DS800X Rally is formidable. It looks capable and legitimate. All of the bits that you can see and feel have a robustness to them. Yes, there’s a little more plastic here than I’d like, and if you look really closely, you’ll find some things to nitpick about - the bolts on the rear suspension linkage look like they’ve come straight from Trade Point - but there’s nothing that feels particularly flimsy.”

Throw a leg over the 850mm seat and you’ll find the saddle is narrow, not overly firm, and comfortable enough for all-day riding. Hands fall naturally to the ‘bars, feet to the pegs.

The switchgear is of decent quality, but here lies Chris’ first big gripe. Heated grips and a heated seat come standard; however, the buttons to control them are hidden on the back of the switchgear housing - completely out of view. You are left to feel around for them, which is borderline impossible wearing thick winter gloves.

Secondly, the switch for the high beam sits awkwardly close to your left index finger, meaning you end up flashing them at innocent motorists pretty much every time you pull the clutch or cancel an indicator.

The 7-inch TFT screen is oriented in portrait style. It’s easy to read and offers a good amount of information, but navigating the bike’s menu is the exact opposite of intuitive. Beyond the dash sits a tall, narrow windscreen that is surprisingly good at keeping the weather off, though adjusting it requires unscrewing four bolts.

Engine and transmission

The DS800X Rally is powered by a 798cc parallel-twin engine with a 270-degree firing order, giving it a distinct V-twin feel and a fantastic growl at idle. Claimed peak outputs are 94 bhp at 9000 rpm, and 60 lb-ft of torque at 6500 rpm.

On the move, acceleration is rewarded by a bellowing exhaust note that sits just on the right side of noise regulations. However, Chris found power delivery to be “a little snatchy.” The throttle is rarely smooth.

Chris says: “The DS800X Rally hates being ridden at urban speeds. The bike effectively fights your attempts to hold a slow, steady pace. It is clearly a mapping issue - the sort of thing Japanese ride-by-wire bikes solved a decade ago. So, ostensibly it can be fixed with a software patch. In the meantime, the answer is to constantly feather the light, accurate clutch at low speeds.”

(Internet chatter suggests turning the ignition on without starting the engine, twisting the throttle fully open for 20 seconds, and releasing will reset the ECU. Chris did not know about this when he was riding the bike, so he cannot confirm whether it actually works.)

Toad says: “The engine offers punchy delivery and an 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.”

Chassis and brakes

Fully adjustable KYB suspension and an adjustable rotary steering damper prove Voge isn’t messing around. This bike can be tweaked to ride exactly as you like, though both Toad and Chris found the standard setup to be perfectly fine.

Voge claims a dry weight of 213 kg. Assuming an additional 30 kg for fuel and fluids, it’s not the lightest middleweight, but its centre of gravity is low enough that both riders felt completely comfortable taking it down dirt trails and muddy lanes. 

The Nissin brakes are excellent, bringing all that mass to a safe, controlled stop with a particularly rider-friendly adjustable lever pull.

The fancy stuff

The key selling point of any premium Chinese motorcycle is the promise of incredible tech on a budget. Alongside the top-shelf suspension and brakes, standard equipment includes:

• Centre stand, crash bars, and aluminium bash plate
• Heated grips and heated seat
• Two riding modes, switchable traction control, and switchable ABS
• Built-in 1080p dashcam
• Dual charging ports (USB and USB-C)
• Tyre pressure monitoring and full LED lighting

The auxiliary lights double as cornering lights, throwing a brilliant spread of light for night riding.

The bike offers smartphone connectivity, but Voge’s app is glitchy. Most owner complaints centre on the app crashing when trying to retrieve footage from the standard dashcam. So, there goes your side hustle of posting rage-bait commute videos on YouTube.

Maintenance quirks

All those years building BMWs have rubbed off on Voge; you will need a Torx bit set to work on this bike. Getting at the sump plug and oil filter simply requires removing the bash plate. However, the clever air filter setup - which should just slide out from the top of the tank - is blocked by the steering damper panel. You have to remove the panel using tiny, fiddly screws (invest in a magnetic screwdriver).

Another quirk: the coolant reservoir sits quite low and exposed behind the front tyre. It isn't hard to imagine a stray rock puncturing it on a gravel trail.

Riding impressions: Off-road

Toad says: “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.

“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.”

Chris says: “Because the jerky throttle makes the bike difficult to ride with nuance, I wouldn’t want to tackle hard enduro on it. But it is perfectly balanced for gravel lanes, and its price tag makes dropping it in the mud seem like much less of an idiotic proposition than dropping a £15,000 Triumph.”

Riding impressions: On road

Chris says: “In urban situations this is what I’d call a ‘thinking bike.’ Ever been lost in a city, suffering information overload as you attempt to figure out where you are and where you need to go while also, you know, not getting killed by other road users? In a situation like that you want a bike that is well-balanced and intuitively maneuverable. A bike that allows you to think about things other than the bike.

“For the most part, the DS800X Rally manages that, allowing your brain the bandwidth to actually navigate chaotic urban traffic. That said, the ride-by-wire system’s absolute hatred of steady/slow riding makes finesse-type filtering a challenge. 

“I’m talking about that filtering where you’re wiggling between cars at 15 mph. I got stuck doing that for about half an hour straight on the M25. It made me want to quit motorcycling.

“At higher speeds it’s fine. Anything above 40 mph is spiffy. The bike eats up motorway miles. The distance between my house and Voge’s UK headquarters meant that I ended up having to clock up a solid 700 miles of dual-carriageway work to get there and back. So, I can solidly confirm that it can function well as an adventure tourer.

“It’s also, as Toad observes, a hell of a lot of fun on B roads and winding single-carriageway A roads. The balance that serves it so well everywhere else means the DS800X Rally is able to float through corners with relative ease. 

“Knowing that the Pirelli Scorpion Rally STR tyres are roughly 65/35 in terms of on-road and off-road intended use meant that I wasn’t desperate to test the limits of the bike’s cornering ability. Especially on wet roads. But certainly I got the feeling that the bike was capable of giving more than I was asking.”

Toad says: ”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!

Competition: A crowded field

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.

Many reviews pitch the DS800X Rally against the Yamaha Ténéré 700. But to get close to the same level of equipment found on the £6,999 Voge, you’d have to buy the £11,920 Ténéré 700 World Rally - and you’d still be giving up over 20 bhp to the Chinese twin.

The Voge outguns almost every traditional Japanese and European rival in price and spec, and beats all but the significantly more expensive Ducati DesertX and Triumph Tiger 900 in horsepower. To find a true spec-for-spec rival, you have to look at another Chinese machine: the CFMoto 800MT-X (£6,999).

* Denotes Chinese brand

Verdict

Chris says: “It is a bike that surprised and impressed me so much that I would genuinely consider owning one. Although, admittedly, there is a difference between considering it and actually handing over your cash.

“The throttle mapping issue is a major fly in the ointment. It speaks to a running theme with many modern Chinese motorcycles: they are great value, but they often lack that final 5-10 percent of refinement that takes a bike from good to great.

“There is also the question of long-term aftersales support. The bike feels durable enough to last a decade, but will proprietary parts still be sitting in a UK warehouse 10 years from now? With a brand like Suzuki, the answer is almost certainly yes. With Loncin, it’s more of an unknown.

“But, hey, man: all of the future is unknown. And it certainly appears that anyone buying a DS800X Rally is making a sound financial choice. The asking price is low enough that you can easily learn to live with its foibles. It sounds fantastic, handles brilliantly, and offers premium build quality. What’s not to like?”

2026 Voge DS800X Rally specs

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