It's not long ago that Chinese supersport motorcycles were seen more as a joke than real competition to established brands. To some folks, things are still that way. But it's going to be difficult to discount them quite as much, now that ZXMOTO has officially won a WorldSSP race. That means it's capable of beating out the best supersport machines in the world; or at least, what were the very best. Now, they have company in the form of the 820RR-R/820RR-RS.
The Chinese manufacturer, which was founded in 2024, is on a meteoric rise in the motorcycle industry. It's not hard to see why, either, since Zhang Xue founded it. For those unfamiliar, he's the very same man who founded KOVE in 2017. His new company ZXMOTO first revealed itself to the public at EICMA in 2025 with a six-bike lineup, and the flagship model was the 820RR-R/820RR-RS.
Aboard a race-spec 820RR-RS, Valentin Debise took victory in Race 1 and Race 2 at the World Superbike Championship (WSBK) in Portimao. That makes ZXMOTO the first Chinese brand to ever win a race in WSBK, which is impressive in its own right, but there's more.
Debise won the Race 1 by a whopping 3.685 seconds, while he took the checkered flag by just 0.5 seconds in Race 2. But those were just the third and fourth races ZXMOTO has ever competed in, making it the second-fastest rise to success in the championship. Ducati takes the cake after winning the first WSBK race it competed in, a feat that Triumph later equaled in 2019. But after those two well-established players, it's ZXMOTO; not bad company to be in.
I know that plenty of you will think, "That's cool, but I'm still buying a Yamaha R9." But before you completely dismiss the idea of an 820RR, know that it costs around $6,400 in China, produces 135 hp from its 819 cc inline-triple motor, and weighs 421 lbs. Its higher-spec sibling, the 820RR-RS, costs $1,000-$2,000 more but spits out 150 hp, has Öhlins, Brembo, an Akrapovič titanium exhaust, and magnesium/carbon fiber parts. Sure, you can tack on a few grand by the time the bikes hit the US dealerships, but they'll still be cheaper than the established competitors.
