Chinese ER-6?

CHINESE bike maker CF Moto has, until now, been famous only for making some rather odd-looking automatic bikes and a range of half-decent quads – but now it's finally launched a couple of pretty impressive looking 650cc parallel twin machines.

The 650NK has appeared at a couple of shows and now it's in production and hitting dealers in China. But there's something familiar about it. Placed side-by-side with a Kawasaki ER-6 the similarities are uncanny; the frame design, the suspension, the engine... They're all rather similar. Even down to details like the engine's exhaust routing, the shapes of the cases and the position of ancillaries like the water pump, differences are hard to find. Even the claimed 72bhp power figure matches the Kawasaki.

As well as the naked “NK” version, there's a tourer (below), the 650TR, that's so far only been shown as a police-spec bike.

Chinese bikes are still slowly creeping into the mainstream market, but will they ever challenge the Japanese?