Just saw this and thought it looks promising

THE NEW TRAIL 400 - 400cc TRIALS BIKE FROM WK

£4k new proper sized wheels 18ltr tank

As Chinese brands go I've heard wk are up there

Could have the makings of a great adventure bike

China is not japan,where the demming quality control process is established n part of the process.No weight given,hp that of a 200.

The Chinese do seem to be coming. As Japan looks to be losing interest in bikes - or at least becoming more conservative (imho of course) Chinese alternatives are creeping in under the radar - small dealerships, low prices, derided by the "establishment" etc. Much like the Japanese experience 50yrs ago.

The difference is that back then I was a mainstream target buyer for the yellow peril, rice burner, monkey metal (to use a few period insults) imports whereas now I find the more mature me (!) inhabiting the same world as the naysayers. Trying to keep an open mind and judge things on their merits can be difficult when dealers expect someone closer to my son's age (or with a slight shift by the Gods of fortune years ago, my grandson's age) to be the one kicking the tyres and ignoring the Wonga levels of finance interest.

Certainly with this and the Honley 250 last year the Chinese do seem to be filling in where the Japanese fear to tread. Whether WK are cheap and cheerful Ebay style throwaway copies or well designed genuine bargains from a low cost economy I've no idea - and that's the problem. Cut and paste spec sheets that no one's proof read and which use the same info for a 50 and a 125 don't help or instill confidence and press testing is predictable to the point of banality.

I must admit though when I was touring on cutting edge two strokes 40 yrs ago the concept of a 20bhp 400 single wouldn't have seemed much of a future to look forward too. That would have sounded like something out of the 1930's. It must be a typo - 120bhp would be about right.

The units used in the ad are KWs. That's about 27hp when converted...

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Beware the dark, mechanical bird.

There were quite a few such chinese bikes on display at the annual NEC bike show last November; there can be little doubt that they are moving into the UK/Europe market.

And is reputed to be coming to the UK in the near future.
Dealerships for the Mash are in place in the UK, as they are for other Chinese brands (yes, the Mash is manuf in China and reputed to be of French design).
The "basic" 400cc Mash has been on sale in the UK for some time and it has an asking price of around 3800 UK pounds which seriously undercuts the price of the Yamaha SR 400 which it closely resembles. Second hand ones, of that model, are appearing on the UK market with the "normal" high rate of depreciation for the first purchaser.
A Mash dealer told me that the engine is based on the 500cc Honda single cyl; the " XBR" engine IIRC.

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Dave

Yep, they are coming .. ah wait a minute ... actually they are already "here" and been here at least 12 years.

I remember reading an Alan Cathcart article about all the various Chinese companies at the Brit bike shows ... he claimed at least 20 different displays were set up! This was ages ago!
(I saw 4 or 5 Chinese displays myself at one of the smaller Brit bike shows back in 2003)

The evolution is, IMO, very different than the Japanese. Very early on the Japanese internal markets narrowed exporters down to 4 or 5 majors, quickly dropping the small players or absorbing them. In China, it seems every time we look, 20 more "New" companies have popped up!

Seems the Chinese market will have to seriously "thin the herd" and distill things down to the very best manufacturers. But it's been going on over 12 years and really, NO ONE has emerged like a HONDA or a YAMAHA as happened in most markets back in the early to mid 60's.

The other key element the Japanese understood was just how important racing was to marketing a new, unknown motorcycle to a bunch of racist lunk heads. The Japanese endured unspeakable racism in the USA in early days.
After a few World Moto GP Championships, a few IOM victories ... the racists had to retire to their Harley's in their outhouse. This isn't something I read or "heard about". I lived it and saw it first hand, face to face.


This is true, and we've discussed this here before. There is a BIG gap in the small ADV market that the Chinese have spotted. The Japanese aren't responding in a big way. (YET) KTM and India's Bajai are in there too.

But selling it is the hard part ... and getting punters to swallow that initial depreciation is a tough sell. Like Hyundai and Kia ... for the first 10 years their cars were devalued to nothing after a year or three. Now ...? Much better. (I know as I'm currently buying a 2nd hand Hyundai Genesis (a poor man's Lexus at half the price)

No doubt, but as I mentioned above, this is NOT NEW. Yet Chinese Moto companies are still badly scrambling for a foot hold. The problem is the market ... it's not like what was happening back in 1962 when Honda burst on the scene. We kids did not really have any alternative back then. Small Japanese bikes meant just about any kid with a paper route could buy a Honda 50. And man, you could not KILL those Honda 50's (we tried).
Now, kids are more into cars. Scooters are also on the scene more than back then. It's a tough environment ... but eventually the Chinese will RULE IT.

IMO, these are the key things they need to do:
1. Merge very best companies together
2. Go racing
3. Hire young and very talented Italian, German, UK and American designers ... then build those designs to suit markets
world wide.
4. Stop competing to the lowest common denominator. We are not India and NO ONE in US, UK, EU markets wants a 125 runnabout. Build real motorcycles ... and do it BETTER than the Japanese. (and good luck with that!)
Go UP MARKET.

Double post, sorry!

Looking at the wk website they had bikes at the IOM TT this year, so maybe times are a changing.

So, unless they're unusually honest about power output, that'll be about 20bhp then

No arguments with much of that and I know that cheap Chinese bikes have been around for a decade or more. We have a shop in the local high street that 20+yrs ago used to be a car spares, go faster bits, fluffy dice kind of place. That market has almost vanished and they've had to diversify so as well as cans of oil they're now selling drones, air rifles - and from about 10yrs ago the occasional no name (and no spares) Chinese mini bike. A teens and twenties (male) toyshop really.

Japan went through its million mini manufacturers phase in the 50's - as the UK did in the twenties. You probably remember Bridgestone, Lilac, maybe even Tohatsu but how about Mitsubishi, Subaru, Showa, Nissan, Mazda and Olympus - all of whom made bikes in the 50's along with hundreds (early 50's) of others. By 1959 competition had reduced it to under 20 and then down to half a dozen 10yrs later. The Chinese are somewhere in that 20yr shake down but I've no idea where and you can't really extrapolate the Japanese experience to what's happening now in China. Whether WK is a Chinese Honda or a Chinese Silver Pigeon (a didn't make it beyond the mid 50's make) only time will tell.

Producing cheap and cheerful for the masses does seem to be the Chinese USP at the moment and I wonder whether there is an upmarket position for them to occupy - with motorcycles anyway. Thinking around it, the majority of aspirational bike brands seem to be supported by (or attached to at least) some other kind of enterprise and I wonder how viable they are as stand alone businesses. At least when the Japanese went up market they were able to push high tech modernity against agricultural machinery (Harley) and staid 30's conservatism (anything British / Euro). Honda also had the sales success of the step thru's to keep them solvent in the meantime.Good luck trying to go down the route of even higher tech nowadays - although there might be an opportunity in F1 at the moment if Honda's engine efforts are anything to go by

I'm not sure the Chinese bike manufacturers face the same export or die dilemma as the Japanese did so the pressures of US or Euro sales success are not as urgent. Their home market is so much bigger that exploiting that will take some time and going head to head with the established brands must look like a very expensive proposition with not that much reward. Fine if they can find a niche (like mid size road trailies) but I'd be amazed to see an R1 lookalike any time soon.

However, what do I know - there will probably be one announced next week.

Quite so.
In addition, Chinese manufactured parts are for sale in the UK (for example on the ubiquitous ebay) for Japanese motorcycles. e.g. after market wind screens can be had for much less than £20 including the cost of shipping from mainland China/Hong Kong.
It's hard to imagine anyone else can compete at that price point, except maybe India.

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Dave

There are folks in the north of England who advertise on ebay for servicing Chinese bikes and scooters; they were doing that a while ago last time I looked and that was all they advertised as their business. I guess they could make a living at that. Perhaps nowadays they are selling them also.


Absolutely. An acquaintance of mine used to visit China as part of a BT team to sell them telephones; they recognised what profit could be made if they could sell one phone per head of Chinese population.

EU/USA sales of Chinese bikes will just be the "icing on the cake" at a pricing which is way out of line with the home market or any so-called 3rd world market; hence the Mash marketing of their bikes at nearly £4000 each while hanging a "French design" label on the product.

There are 16 Mash ads on UK ebay at present:-
mash in Cars, Motorcycles and Vehicles | eBay

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Dave

I remember watching CNN (I think it was CNN) in China when I was there a few years ago and they were doing a report from a remote village about the first person there to own a fridge. They then interviewed someone from the fridge manufacturing company and asked them what they thought the market for fridges might be in China. "About 700 million" was the answer.

In similar vein, and at risk of going off topic (but it is still "Chinese"), I caught a news item a while ago - I can't recall how long ago - about a Chinese factory that produces 3 million pairs of socks per day; so, that's near enough a bilion pairs per year, every year, more or less (based on very rough mental arithmetic over a bottle of ).
And the world population is somewhere around 7 billion? Or is it 8?

Anyway, what about the logistics of maufacturing, distributing and selling 3 million per day?
Doing the same for rather less quantities of small motorbikes won't trouble them.

ps In the cold light of morning, without , I doubted my maths.
http://www.chinasocksmanufacturers.com
So, it's 12 billion pairs per annum from a single factory conglomerate.

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Dave

I've just found the single page publicity brochure that I picked up a while ago about the Mash Roadstar.
Pertinent data:
Single cyl 4 valve SOHC. dry sump, air cooled, 398cc (the pics show a twin exhaust valve design)
29 HP claimed
FI by Siemans
5 speed box
Electric and kick starter (how handy is that)
780 mm seat height
151 Kg Gross weight
13 litre tank and no mention of fuel efficiency

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Dave