Remember when Kove’s rally raid team was making its surprising Dakar run in 2023, and their big boss Zhang Xue was leading the charge? It was the same thing again in 2024, where the Chinese businessman was held up as the figurehead of the race team, a man who’d been frustrated in his own attempts to race rally raid when he was younger. As a result, he was instead creating opportunities for other Chinese riders to challenge the Dakar. Or so the story went, until he mysteriously left the company.

What was the reason? The official story was that he’d left to “pursue his dreams.” Wait, wasn’t that what he was doing at Kove? Pursuing his dreams of Dakar racing?

As it turns out, Zhang Xue left Kove to go work at a new company called Zhang Xue Motorcycle, or at least that’s the story floating around the web after the bike in the video above was unveiled at the Chongqing Motorcycle Show a few weeks back. This is a four-cylinder 500 racebike, supposedly designed by someone poached from a Big Four OEM.

The specs, if the details in that video are correct, are interesting. The ZXJC ZX-500RR supposedly has a top speed of 240 km/h, not bad from a 500! The machine weighs 168 kilograms, or 370 pounds. An up/down quickshifter comes standard, as does dual-channel ABS.

Supposedly, a 500 retro model is coming soon based off this same engine, with 820-series models (including an adventure bike) later in the year.

We’ll keep an eye on the company and see if Zhang Xue’s origin story changes as things move along.