Originally Posted by Des Senior

Don't be too quick to knock Chinese manufactured bikes. The brand owners have been chasing cheap labour all round the world so are well used to instilling and ensuring their global quality standards. They don't just give them a set of drawings and say "off you go"!

A friend of mine had a Honda Innova as well as the Chinese branded equivalent, both made in the same plant in China. The Honda was everything you'd expect, slick, reliable, well finished, and the Chinese bike made for the local market was shoddy, sharing only an engine and a shape. If European and Japanese companies manufacture abroad they are very careful to make sure the product quality stays the same, the only effect should be that it costs you less because the poor sods who make it for pennies earn less in the process.

So regardless of where each bike is made you should judge it by the standards of the parent company not the local market. That said I intend to buy either a 790 or a T7, as I want a relatively lightweight bike that can eat up the miles but doesn't flounder like a whale off road. My thoughts were the KTM, as I believe they have made great strides in reliability while still maintaining a performance focus, but I'd consider the Yamaha if the weight is comparable.