QJMotor SRT450RX Rally (2026) - Technical Review

Bikes in the 400cc-ish class are hot property at the moment and when that’s combined with the enduring appeal of an adventure machine and price tag to undercut its direct rivals it looks like QJMotor’s new SRT450RX Rally has the right recipe to be a success. To achieve its potential it’s got to overcome QJMotor’s newcomer status on the market, though, while beating off some stiff competition in the fast-growing market for small, twin-cylinder adventure bikes.

Pros & Cons

2026 QJMotor SRT450RX Rally - Price & PCP Deals

The old ‘plus on the road charges’ places an asterisk next to the SRK450RX Rally’s eye-catching, sub-£5.5k RRP and means that if you’re paying full price, you’ll actually have a bill of £5,799 including the extra £300 incurred by those costs. But even then, it’s a pretty appealing figure when put into the context of its direct competitors.

The closest rival has got to be CFMoto’s 450MT – easily the most popular machine in that company’s range since its UK introduction in mid-2024, outselling the next-best-selling CFMoto model by nearly 3:1 during its first 18-months on the market. The 450MT costs £5,699+OTR, making it a couple of hundred pounds more than the QJMotor, and you’ll need to add hundreds more to bring the equipment levels as high as the SRT450RX Rally’s.

Meanwhile, a Royal Enfield Himalayan 450 starts at £5,750, and Kawasaki’s new KLE500 comes in at £5,999. BMW’s new F450GS starts at £6,990 – substantially more than most rivals – but should hold its value well.

As a finance example, QJMotor shows you could ride away with a £499 deposit and a £108.88 monthly payment over 60 months on HP, without the end-of-term balloon payment of a PCP deal. That’s a total outlay of £7,031 over five years, APR 8.9%.

Three colours are available: black/silver, red/silver or white.

2026 QJMotor SRT450RX Rally - Engine & Performance

The ‘270MQ’ parallel twin engine powering the SRT450RX Rally is one of the mainstays of QJMotor’s international lineup, even though this is the first time it’s been offered in the UK market. In line with naming conventions for Chinese engines, the first digit represents the number of cylinders – two – and the second two numbers are the engine’s bore in millimetres, 70mm in this case. That bore is paired to a 58.4mm stroke, giving a total capacity of 449.5cc

The DOHC twin puts out its 46.9hp (that’s 35kW, bang on the limit for A2 licence holders) at 9,500rpm, with 30.2lb-ft of torque at 8,000rpm. That compares to 41.6hp/8,500rpm and 31lb-ft/6,500rpm for the CFMoto 450MT’s parallel twin, or 40hp/8,000rpm and 29.5lb-ft/5,500rpm for the Royal Enfield Himalayan 450’s single.

That power reaches the ground via a slipper clutch, six-speed transmission and chain final drive, and in line with the theme of offering plenty of kit for your money, there are gizmos including switchable riding modes befitting a larger bike.

2026 QJMotor SRT450RX Rally - Handling & Suspension (inc. Weight)

Like other models in the QJMotor range, there’s a distinctly Italianate tinge to the suspension and brakes thanks to a combination of Marzocchi components for the former and Brembo parts for the latter.

The Marzocchi connection runs deep: despite its Italian roots the company’s suspension is now made in China by QJMotor’s parent company, Qianjiang, so it’s adopted across the range. For the SRT450RX Rally, the parts comprise adjustable, long-travel USD forks and a fully adjustable monoshock at the rear on a rising-rate linkage, putting the QJMotor’s specs on a par with the rival CFMoto 450MT’s KYB suspension parts.

The brakes are a step ahead of its rival: where CFMoto uses J.Juan parts, made by a subsidiary of Brembo, QJMotor adopts a full-fat Brembo four-pot radial caliper at the front, on a single 320mm disc, and a single-piston Brembo at the rear with a 240mm disc. ABS is standard, of course, a Bosch system with switchable rear-wheel anti-lock, so you can turn it off when riding off-road.

A 21-inch front and 18-inch rear combination of tubeless wire wheels points at some genuine off-road ability, too, while the steel cradle frame that holds the whole lot together is par for the course in this class, as is the cast aluminium swingarm. At 184kg ready-to-ride (without the luggage fitted), the QJMotor initially appears heavier than the CFMoto 450MT, which claims 175kg, but the two figures aren’t like-for-like – the CFMoto’s is a ‘dry’ weight, and type-approval documents show its wet weight is actually around 185kg.

2026 QJMotor SRT450RX Rally - Comfort & Economy

The final verdict on comfort will have to wait until we’ve ridden it, but the QJMotor has all the ingredients for the sort of spacious, relaxed feeling that makes adventure bikes appealing in the first place.

The seat, 835mm high, is taller than the 800mm CFMoto 450MT’s and might be a little too lofty for the shorter-of-leg, but it’s not as high as the 845mm of BMW’s new F450GS and matches the Himalayan 450.

The long, one-piece seat, running well up the tank and with a gentle rise towards the rear, means there’s plenty of scope for shifting your weight fore and aft, and the high, wide bars promise plenty of leverage.

The footpegs have rubber inserts and plastic hero blobs for road riding, but those can be removed to leave a metal, toothed footpeg for offroad grip. 

There’s no word on fuel economy yet, but the Euro5+ compliant twin should be reasonably parsimonious and sups from a large, 18-litre tank, so range isn’t likely to be a problem.

2026 QJMotor SRT450RX Rally - Equipment

Here’s where the QJMotor really comes into its own, packing standard kit that most rivals exile to the options catalogue.

On board, there’s a portrait-oriented colour TFT dash with Bluetooth connectivity for the usual calls, entertainment and navigation functions via your smartphone, and a USB socket to keep your phone topped up. Less usual is the tyre pressure monitoring system – something that’s increasingly common on Chinese-made bikes but still relatively rare on machines from other countries – and both the seat and the grips are heated, at no extra cost.

The lights are all LEDs, of course, including auxiliary lamps. Those crash bars are standard, too, comprehensively running around the radiator and side panels and extending down beneath the engine, where they hold another standard protection part, the aluminium bash plate. To add to the bike’s ability to withstand offroad use, the mirrors can be swung upwards to a vertical position to help avoid damage. In that light, the decision to mount the indicators in the handguards – right where they’re likely to be hit by undergrowth or the ground in a minor spill – seems a strange one.

The metal three-piece luggage gives the right globe-trotting look and again comes as standard, with removable soft liners included. It can be removed when it’s not needed, of course.

In short, pretty much everything that you might be tempted to select from the options list of a normal bike comes as standard on the RX Rally (in other countries there’s a base ‘RX’ model with less kit, but we’re only getting the fully loaded Rally version.)

2026 QJMotor SRT450RX Rally - Rivals

The market for affordable, 400cc-ish bikes is red hot at the moment, ranging from retro singles like the BSA Bantam to four-cylinder sports bikes like QJMotor’s own SRK450RR, and when that’s combined with the appeal of an adventure bike it makes for a double whammy of appeal that attracts both customers and plenty of manufacturers to this arena. So, the QJMotor isn’t short of rivals. You can go Japanese with the new Kawasaki KLE500 or the Honda NX500 (nee CB500X), take an Indian-made option with the BMW F450GS, Triumph’s Scrambler 400 XC or Royal Enfield Himalayan 450, or opt for a Chinese alternative with the CFMoto 450MT. Then there are more leftfield options like Moto Morini’s new Allthrike 450, which is a Chinese-made, Italian-badged offering that could turn out to be a dark horse in this race thanks to an even lower price than the QJMotor and some similarly high equipment levels.

BMW F 450 GS | Price: £6,990

Read more

Power/Torque

46.9bhp/31.7lb-ft

Weight

178kg (fully fuelled)

CFMoto 450MT (Ibex 450) | Price: £5,699+OTR

Read more

Power/Torque

41.6bhp/31lb-ft

Weight

175kg (dry)

Kawasaki KLE500 | Price: £5,999

Read more

Power/Torque

TBC/TBC

Weight

TBC

2026 QJMotor SRT450RX Rally - Verdict

Although Chinese bikes still face derision from some quarters, it’s increasingly ill-placed as quality and performance from the country’s motorcycle industry is improving at breakneck pace. Are there still concerns about buying Chinese goods? Sure, from some perspectives, but it’s hard to avoid it these days, with major brands outsourcing production to China at a vast scale.

This is a bike that we really need to spend some time with before giving a definitive verdict, but QJMotor’s rapid expansion – its global model range now contains well over 100 different bikes, even if just a small proportion of those are offered in the UK – suggests it must be doing something right.

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2026 QJMotor SRT450RX Rally - Technical Specification

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