RX3 and RX4 Comparison – The ExhaustNotes Blog

The RX4 on the road. I wanted to get a shot at the truck scale, but conditions were not conducive to good photography.

The next two blogs (this one and the next) address more differences between the RX3 and the RX4, including the weight, the dash and instrumentation, the rear fender, tire sizes, the radiators, the radiator bottle fill port, the kickstand, the rear brake and gearshift levers, the rear wheel adjust mechanism, the swingarm, and the engine mounts. This blog will focus on the bike’s weight and the two bikes’ highway performance. I’ll sweep up the other differences mentioned above in the next blog.

Let’s talk about the 450-lb gorilla in the room first, and that’s the RX4’s weight. The RX4 is a heavier bike than the RX3, and I guess the question is: Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It’s all a question of perspective and intended purpose.

For starters, I still don’t have an accurate, measured weight on either bike. That’s a shame on me, although I will tell you that I tried.

My plan was to get the RX4 weighed first, and then return with my RX3 to do the same. I took the RX4 to our local certified truck scale, but the bike was too light to register on the scale and a loudspeaker-borne voice basically told me to get out of Dodge. It was a scary experience. There’s a monstrous Petro truck stop on the I-10 freeway about 10 miles from where I live, and I thought it would be a simple matter to roll the RX4 onto the scales and come back with The Number. That was my plan, anyway.

I entered the super-busy truck stop through an area teaming with idling 18-wheelers, engines barking and belching, crammed together weighting (or is that waiting?) to funnel onto the Petro parking lot scales. On my RX4, I was acutely aware of three things: The guys driving these monsters couldn’t see me, the engine noise and fumes were overwhelming, and the RX4’s fat rear end (those Tourfella bags are wider than the bike’s handlebars) made maneuvering through the 18-wheeler maze a dicey proposition. The pucker factor was elevated, folks. Big time.

I made it through, though, and I was finally on a scale with a platform as long as, well, an 18-wheeler. There was this elevated control house sort of thing next to the platform. It wasn’t clear to me what was supposed to happen next, as I couldn’t see anybody running the operation, and there was no digital or analog readout telling me the weight. I stopped the bike and dismounted, and I walked toward the elevated control house when an electronic voice from the Heavens boomed. It was way louder then the idling diesel engines surrounding me and I could tell: It was pissed. At me.

“Can I help you?” It didn’t come across as a request that implied an intent to be helpful. It implied anger. Seething anger. Directed at me. As a two-wheeler, I was but one-ninth the vehicle I was supposed to be.

Well, yeah, I want to weigh my bike. I mean, why else would a normal person be here?

“You’re setting off my alarms.”

Sorry about that, dude. What alarms?

“You’re too light and my alarms are going off!”

I want to weigh my bike (sometimes repetition helps, I thought).

“You need to get out!” There it was. No more implying or inferring. It was out in the open now. It was as if I was wearing a MAGA hat on the Harvard campus. I was not welcome.

Okay, I can take a hint. Hell, a weight is just a number anyway.

Which brings me to my next point. What’s in a number?

Whatever the answer is to that question, I can tell you these three things: One, the RX4’s official number from Zongshen is 450 lbs. As I said before, I don’t know if that is the right number, but I suspect it is not. Two, the RX4 is substantially heavier than my RX3, and weigh heavier (or should that be way heavier?) than my TT250. It feels it, and it feels to me like the weight rides higher. Three, the RX4 is a substantially better road bike than the RX3, and the bike’s added heft and longer wheelbase (along with that marvelous 450cc motor) probably plays a role here. Anyway, the bottom line here is this: There’s no Joe Berk official weight yet (read that to mean a weight actually measured on a scale).

Like I said, I can feel the difference in heft between the RX3 and the RX4. It’s enough to make me wonder: Am I man enough to take this puppy off road? I suppose I could be. I know there are a few guys who actually take GS 1200 BMWs off road, and those things have seat heights and weights that require altimeters and maybe truck scales to measure. But would I want to go off road?

The short answer, I think, is this: If your main objective is off-road riding, there are other choices. I’d go for my TT250 or something else. If you are primarily a road rider, though, with the occasional off-road excursion, then the RX4 is a good choice. In my opinion, the RX3 would be better off road, but that’s just what I said it was: My opinion. Your mileage may vary, as they say. I was thinking about the stretch to the Sierra San Francisco cave paintings in Baja, and to me, I’m right at the limits of what I feel comfortable with on that gnarly stretch on my RX3. It’s heavily rutted, there are big boulders, and it’s a challenge. But then, I freely admit I’m not a dirt biker. I know there are guys reading this who are thinking they would have no problem taking the RX4 off road. If you’re one of them, you’re probably right.

If you are primarily a road rider, though, the RX4 is the better choice. I put about 100 miles on the RX4 on freeways and surface streets here in So Cal, and I can tell you this: The RX4 is clearly a more capable road machine than is the RX3, especially at freeway speeds. I didn’t get a long enough stretch to measure the RX4’s top speed, but I can tell you there were spurts where I cranked it up to an indicated 99 mph and there was still more left. That’s indicated (not actual) top speed, and the speedo is 10-12% optimistic. Zongshen claims a top speed of 97.5 mph for the RX4, and that’s probably accurate. The RX4 is a bike that can cruise comfortably at 80+ mph all day long; the RX3 has essentially run out of steam at that speed. The RX4 makes running with the big dogs seem easy. It is rock steady at high speeds, and it’s comfortable. It feels secure.

In many ways, the RX4 reminded me more of my Triumph Tiger than it reminded me of my RX3. The Triumph was essentially a touring machine/sports bike styled like an off-roader with saddlebags. The Triumph was heavy and I only took it off road once on purpose (and that was enough). I rode the Triumph off road a few more times when I had to in Mexico, but it really was not an off-road bike. I know there are guys who ride the big Tigers off road, but it’s not where the bike wants to be. It wants to be headed to the next state, or maybe the next international border. That’s what the RX4 wants, too.

My Triumph Tiger. In many ways, the RX4 is quite similar to the Tiger. It was a stellar long-distance touring machine; I think the RX4 is, too.

I’ll make a prediction: Within the next two years, someone (perhaps several someones) will do the Iron Butt on the RX4. I don’t mean a single 1000-mile Baby Butt day (good buddy Rob Morel has already done that on his RX3). I’m talking the full-tilt boogie here: The 11,000-mile, 11-day Iron Butt. I think that’s going to happen. And I think the RX4 is the bike that will do it.

I was talking to Steve Seidner about this a day or two ago, and he asked me to mention to you that CSC is taking deposits now on the RX4 (here’s a link to get to their page for placing your deposit). CSC will sell a lot of RX4s. The bike is that good.

Wow, where to begin? I thought I would do this in a single blog, but I quickly realized it’s going to take more than a few.

Joe Gresh thought it would be a good idea to do a comparison between the RX3 and the RX4, and since he’s the brains in this outfit (I’m the good looks), I started the photos for the comparo earlier today. There’s a lot to discuss, and I don’t want to try to cram it all into a “Gone With The Wind” single blog.

So, here we go with the first set of comparisons, and I guess as good a place to get started as any is with a shot from the rear of both bikes…

My RX3 on the left, and the new RX4 on the right. The RX4 has a 19-inch front wheel (the RX3 has an 18-inch front wheel). As a result, the RX4 leans a little bit more to the left than does the RX3 when on the sidestand.

You’ll notice that my RX3 has the stock plastic luggage and the RX4 has the optional Tourfella aluminum luggage. The RX4 will come stock with the same plastic panniers as the RX3, but it will have a taller tailbox than the current RX3 design. The current RX3 tailbox won’t close with a full face helmet, but the taller stock plastic tailbox to be provided on the RX4 will. I’m hoping the 2019 RX3 will have the taller tailbox, too.

The Tourfella luggage is a great option. Both sets of luggage are lockable; the stock plastic bags use the bike’s ignition key. The Tourfella luggage has a separate key. The Tourfella bags have considerably more capacity than the stock plastic bags, and when I rode in Colombia with good buddies Juan and Carlos, my AKT RS3 (a carbureted RX3) had the Tourfella bags. You get a huge increase in capacity (which is nice), but the aluminum bags are wider and I’m guessing they are heavier. You’ll see a slight decrease in fuel economy and top speed with the larger bags on an RX3; I don’t know what they’ll do to both stats on an RX4.

I like the looks of both sets of luggage. I’m a guy who travels light, so the stock bags have been good enough for me on my adventure tours. One other minor disadvantage of the Tourfellas is they are wide. I scraped a taxi splitting lanes when debarking from a ferry ride down the Magdalena River in Colombia. Joe Gresh’s RX3 had the Tourfellas in China, and I watched him have the same problem a couple of times when splitting traffic there. But those big aluminum Tourfellas sure are nice. They are a high quality bit of kit, too. And like I said, you can carry a lot of stuff in those aluminum boxes.

Here are photos shot from the rear of each bike, starting with the new RX4…

The Tourfella luggage on the RX4. It’s 34-inches across those two aluminum panniers. That’s wider than the bike’s handlebars.

And here’s my RX3. It’s one of the very first delivered to the United States, and I’ve done some serious traveling with this motorcycle. It has the stock plastic luggage.

A dirty bike that’s seen a lot of miles…my kind of machine. The width across the stock RX3 panniers is 29 inches (they are 5 inches narrower than the Tourfellas in the above photo, and they are 2 inches narrower than the RX3’s handlebars). I don’t know what the width of the stock luggage will be on the RX4.

Next up are two photos of the exhaust outlets. On the RX4, the muffler has two openings, suggesting the bike is a twin (it’s not; it’s a single like the RX3).

The RX4 muffler. It’s stainless steel, and it contains the bike’s catalytic converter. Two openings aside, the bike is a single. The exhaust note is sweet. I’ll do a video in a future blog.

The RX3 muffler, with its single outlet. It’s also a stainless steel muffler, and it has an awesome exhaust note.

As I mentioned in my earlier blog on the RX4, the new bike sounds like the RX3, but you can tell it has a bigger and stronger engine. Both bikes sound almost as if they have a custom pipe. They are both actually a little bit louder than I’d like, but the sound is great. Good ExhaustNotes, I’d say.

Moving to the other end of both motorcycles, let’s take a look at the front brakes. The RX4 has twin-piston calipers and dual disks…

Dual discs on the RX4. The braking is a bit stronger than an RX3 with the CSC larger single disk.

The RX3 has a single disk with a twin-piston caliper up front. My bike has the CSC larger diameter brake rotor. I think this is a worthwhile addition to the RX3, but I also think the stock RX3 brake is sufficient.

The larger diameter front disk rotor on my RX3. It works well.

If you look closely at both of the above photos, you’ll see the two front wheels are different. I’ve already mentioned the RX4’s 19-inch front wheel (the RX3 has a standard 18-inch diameter front wheel, with a 19-inch wheel available as an accessory from CSC). What is also shown (but maybe is not so obvious) is that the RX4 has aluminum rims, while the RX3 has steel rims. I think that might be what makes the RX4 handle so well. Aluminum wheels mean less unsprung weight, and they also make a motorcycle handle more crisply.

The production RX4 motorcycles will have anti-skid braking, and unlike the the 2018 RX3 ABS, you’ll be able to turn the ABS off on the RX4. That’s something you dirt denizens asked for, and your voices have been heard. The RX4 will come standard with wire wheels (like you see in these photos), and cast aluminum wheels with tubeless tires will be an option. The RX4 wire wheels require tubes.

Here are couple of tangential thoughts intended for the wizards at Zongshen (they read ExhaustNotes, too, you know). I’d like you guys to consider adding the dual discs, the aluminum-rimmed wire wheels, and the switchable anti-skid braking on the 2019 RX3. That would make an already great motorcycle even better, I think.

Both the RX3 and the RX4 have Cheng Shin (CST) tires. They’re bigger on the RX4 (more on that in the next blog). These are good tires. They hook up well and they last a long time. I get about 6,000 miles out of a rear tire on my RX3, and as is the case with most motorcycles, the front tires last about twice as long as the rear tires.

Staying at the front of the motorcycle, let’s now take a look at the face of both bikes. This is my RX3…

CSC changed the windshield and headlight design on the RX4. During my trips to Chongqing, I saw that Zongshen evaluated using the same RX3 windshield and headlight on the RX4. I thought keeping the windshield would have been a good idea, but hey, what do I know? The RX3 windshield has been universally praised by everyone who has ridden an RX3, including every magazine that tested the bike. It is a good design. It just works…there’s no turbulence, and it’s well below your line of sight. But like I said, who am I? I don’t make a million motorcycles a year. Zongshen does.

The RX3 headlight…well, that’s not the RX3’s strong point. Being charitable, I’d say it’s anemic. I don’t ride at night if I can avoid it, but I recognize that the stock headlight doesn’t light up the world the way I’d like it to. The spotlights you see on my bike are from AKT Motos in Colombia. I had them on the RS3 I rode there, and I liked them so much that my good buddy Enrique Vargas gave a pair to me when I left his beautiful country. CSC sells accessory spotlights, too, but I kept the AKT Motos lamps on my bike. I use the spotlights as headlights on my RX3 when I ride at night. Many folks who buy an RX3 put a brighter bulb in the headlight, and that works well. I have one that my good buddy TK gave to me, but I haven’t put it on my bike yet.

You’ll also notice the very cool headlight guard on my bike. That was another gift from Enrique in Colombia. CSC now sells a similar headlight guard. Mine is Colombian, and I’ve kept it instead of the CSC headlight guard because it was a gift and I like it.

Onward and upward…here’s the front end of the new RX4…

A clean, modern look: The RX4 front end.

The RX4 headlight and windshield design are much changed from the RX3. Like I said above, CSC could have gone with a front end look identical to the RX4, but they opted instead for the new look. It’s grown on me. I would be okay with either one, and at first I recommended staying with the RX3 look because I feel it is an iconic Zongshen motorcycle face, but I like the new look, too. The new RX4 windshield is adjustable (the RX3 one is not). The headlight is a completely different design, and later tonight, I’m going to move both bikes onto the street to see how the headlight illumination patterns compare. I’ll try to get some photos so you can see the difference.

I’ll write more comparing the two bikes in the next several blogs. This blog is already longer than I intended, and there’s a lot more to cover in these comparisons.

You know it’s coming, folks. Like I always say: Stay tuned.