CFMoto 450MT Review: Seriously Good Value Chinese ADV Ridden

2024 is the year we’ve started to take CFMoto particularly seriously. Already becoming known in Europe as a KTM technical partner, building some of the brand’s smaller bikes and engines for a few of the bigger ones, its own bikes have started to become really rather good. This leads us neatly to the CFMoto 450MT, which can certainly be described thusly.

It’s very keenly priced, but that doesn’t mean this comes across as a ‘budget’ bike, as we found after a week and a half test of the bike in the UK. In that time, we covered many miles encompassing twisting country roads, dual carriageways, motorways, urban riding and riding on trails.

CFMoto 450 MT price and availability

Here’s the big one - the CFMoto 450MT costs £5,699, which on paper looks like remarkable value. You can have it in either Tundra Grey or Zephyr Blue. The 4.9 per cent APR PCP example we looked at involves a £999 deposit followed by 36 monthly payments of £42.77 and an optional final payment of £3,787.81.

If you’re after one, you need to be a little patient. At the time of writing, if you order one now, it won’t land in the UK until February 2024.

Engine, chassis and technology

The 450MT is built around a steel trellis frame, within which lives a 449.5cc parallel twin with a 270-degree crankshaft to give an offset, V-twin-like firing order. It's good for 41.57bhp at 8,500rpm, making the MT A2 licence compliant straight out of the box, and 30.9lb ft of torque at 6,500rpm. The little twin is hooked up to a six-speed gearbox which at present can’t be specced with a quickshifter. Sorry.

The standout item on the spec sheet is the compression-adjustable upside-down fork from KYB - it’s a fairly fancy chassis component considering the 450MT’s price. The rear mono shock, also from KYB, is adjustable for compression, rebound and preload, and like the fork, it provides 200mm of travel.

Slowing things down is a braking setup from Brembo subsidiary J.Juan, comprising a 320mm single front disc with a four-piston caliper and a 240mm rear rotor with a single-pot caliper at the rear. The stoppers work with Bosch dual-channel ABS, which you can switch off at the rear for off-roading.

Things start to look a bit more budget-focused when looking at the wheels - the 21-inch front/18-inch rear wire wheels are shod in CST Ambro A4 tyres. The electronics setup is also fairly basic - besides ABS, you get a traction control system with only on/off settings, and a cable-operated throttle, which means no riding modes to alter the throttle behaviour. You do, though, get a five-inch colour TFT.

What’s it like to ride?

Throwing a leg over the 450MT, it’s immediately impressive just how nice everything feels. There are lots of nice little details, especially the textured plastics that evoke the look of pricey forged carbon. I’d much rather look at that than a sea of grey. The switch cubes look neat, and the triple clamp looks nicely machined.

Things only get better once you start the MT up and head out for a ride. The engine is a furious little thing, having us in mind of the Honda XL750 Transalp’s bigger, more powerful 270-degree crank twin, and maybe a little of Yamaha’s CP2. In fact, the whole bike has a certain ‘mini Tenere’ vibe. 

The gearing is noticeably short. Initially, the revs never fall as much as you expect when flicking through the reasonably slick six-speed gearbox. There’s something amusing about quickly working through the cogs while the parallel twin makes its angry noise - you’re not really going anywhere fast, but it certainly sounds like you are. It’s just a shame there’s no quickshifter to further enjoy the engine. 

Although the 450MT doesn’t feel dramatically quick, it’s not sluggish either, and there’s plenty of flexibility in the twin. You can happily chug away in high gears even at lower speeds. At the same time, though, you might notice that the cable-actuated throttle is a bit snatchy.

Despite the off-road focused wheel setup with a 21-inch front, the 450MT turns enthusiastically, helped but a pithy dry weight of just 175kg. Grip from the CST tyres is fine, but they’re lacking in terms of feedback, with the 450MT sometimes feeling a little vague when leant over.

Switching out the tyres is a reasonably easy ask for a new owner, though, and they’re competent enough to keep on there until worn out and in need of replacement. Lacklustre suspension would be a harder fix, but thankfully, that seems to be where a good chunk of the budget has gone. 

The KYB setup feels plush on the road, soaking up imperfections deftly while remaining firm enough not to unduly slow down the steering or have the bike diving excessively under braking. Speaking of which, the brakes are decent enough - they require a good squeeze of the lever to haul the bike up, but the stopping power is there, and the lever feel is OK.

We’ve only tackled some light green laning with the 450MT, but it impressed enough to leave us gagging to try it on some gnarlier stuff, which we’re hoping to do at a later stage. Again, the long-travel suspension shines, taking the sting out of the travel nicely, while that peppy little twin becomes even more enjoyable than it is on the road, as it reverberates off the trees.

The bike comes across as a bike for any rider in the off-road environment. On the one hand, it's light feeling, with a low seat and no nasty handling traits to catch out the inexperienced. For those more at home on the dirt, and with the ABS to the rear and the traction control switched off, you can have the bike sliding and skidding about the trails, making it feel a bit like a big chunky enduro bike.

The display isn’t the snazziest, but all the information you need is shown clearly, and the buttons on the left-hand switch cube make bringing up different trip computer functions easy enough. The high beam switch is placed poorly, though - throughout the test, I was constantly knocking it on. In time, you’d hopefully learn to avoid it.

There’s an adjustable screen which can be extended or retracted via rotary knobs on either side. You only need one of these to complete the operation, so the screen can be adjusted when you’re on the move. The screen itself is not huge, though, and taller riders will be left with that oft-seen adventure bike dilemma - do you have a more even blast of airflow hitting your whole head, or direct a lot of it to the top, causing a potentially even more annoying wind noise in your lid?

In any case, the wind noise drowns out the engine, which is signing at a reasonably lofty 6,500rpm at motorway speeds.

Should you buy a CFMoto 450MT?

Apparently, the 450MT has been getting interest from owners of bikes like the Honda CRF300 looking for something nearly as capable off the road, and much more useable on it. We get that completely, although if you’re really serious about trail riding, you’ll want to be thinking about a tyre change.

For the money, the only bike that looks like a true competitor is the Royal Enfield Himalayan 450. It has a more impressive display and is a proven bike off-road, but it’s heavier, and its single-cylinder engine not anything like as fun as the 450MT’s twin. 

For anyone covering serious distances between trails, it might be worth spending the extra on a middleweight like the Yamaha Tenere 700, which would also net you some more sophisticated electronics. But if not, there’s something to be said for saving a load of cash and a load of weight with the 450MT.