Chinese manufacturer ZXMOTO and Spanish team Joyride Race Service have joined forces to create the ZXMOTO Joyride Factory Rally Team. It will make its debut at the Rallye OLA Energy du Maroc 2026, with Skyler Howes (RallyGP) and Tobias Ebster (Rally2) leading the charge. The new project hopes to “compete with the leading manufacturers in rally-raid” with the ultimate ambition of reaching the top and winning the Dakar.
The ZXMOTO 450 Rally made a strong impression when it was unveiled at EICMA 2025 (the Milan Motorcycle Shows) last November. Less than a year later, it is ready to make its debut at the Rallye OLA Energy du Maroc 2026, the fourth round of the 2026 World Rally-Raid Championship, taking place from September 28 to October 3.
Founded in April 2024, the Chinese manufacturer takes its initials from its creator, Zhang Xue, who was also a co-founder of Kove in 2017. The rally-raid adventure began with Joyride Race Service, a Spanish team accustomed to navigating the world’s deserts. Hence the name ZXMOTO Joyride Factory Rally Team, which notably includes Armand Monleon, a former bike rider who moved into car co-driving and finished runner-up in the 2025 FIA W2RC World Championship for navigators. Also involved is Sergi Duran Sanchez, who serves as team manager.
A project with “a long-term vision”
He is the one who explains how the project came about, “born from ZXMOTO’s desire to enter rally-raid with a long-term vision. They were looking to build a complete project and needed an organization with specific rally-raid experience, capable of supporting the development of the motorcycle and putting in place the sporting and operational aspects required to compete at the highest level. That is where Joyride Race Service comes in.”
“We bring our experience, our knowledge of the discipline and the structure required to develop the project under real-world testing and racing conditions,” the team manager continues. “The relationship between ZXMOTO, its engineers, the riders and Joyride Race Service is very direct. The idea is to work as a single project, where information gathered on track quickly reaches the factory and can be translated into concrete improvements to the bike.”
Two riders already victorious in the W2RC
The ZXMOTO Joyride Factory Rally Team will first be represented by two riders who have already made their mark on the W2RC. On one side is American Skyler Howes, winner of the Rallye du Maroc 2022 and two RallyGP stages, as well as third at the Dakar 2023. On the other is Austrian Tobias Ebster, runner-up in the Rally2 championship in 2025 and winner of six stages in the category, both as a privateer rider (BAS World KTM) and as a factory rider (Hero MotoSports). Why them? “Because at this stage of the project, we weren’t looking only for fast riders. We needed people capable of developing a bike and providing high-quality technical feedback,” says Sergi Duran Sanchez.
“Skyler has extensive experience in rally-raid, has competed at the highest level with factory teams and knows what a bike needs to be competitive. Tobias has a different and complementary profile. He is young, fast and has great potential, but he has already proven himself and has a very good understanding of this type of bike. Having two distinct profiles allows us to obtain different reference points and cross-check information. Their role is not simply to go fast, but also to help us understand the bike, identify its weaknesses and establish priorities with the engineers.”
“The W2RC, a demanding testing laboratory”
The 2,637 kilometres of the Rallye OLA Energy du Maroc 2026 will serve as a testing ground for the ZXMOTO 450 Rally, which is “in a technical development phase. It is not a finished bike, but a competition prototype that is refined with every session,” explains the team manager. “This phase has a clear objective: to identify every possible area for improvement. With each test, we introduce a concrete modification and improvement. It is important to understand that this is not about selling a finished product, but about building it: every session provides data that directly determines the configuration of the next one.”
In this respect, what better proving ground than the varied and demanding terrain of the W2RC to develop the ideal rally-raid bike? “The ultimate goal is twofold: to design a bike capable of competing with the leading manufacturers in the discipline while, at the same time, transferring all of this knowledge to the development of a production bike” intended for the commercial market. “Competition thus becomes part of a much broader project, in which the Dakar and the W2RC serve as demanding testing laboratories, with the lessons learned being directly reflected in the final product.”
The ultimate goal of the project? “Winning the Dakar”
Having entered the World Supersport Championship this year, ZXMOTO immediately established itself as one of the most competitive manufacturers. “Rally-raid, however, is a completely different discipline, one that requires realistic expectations”, warns Sergi Duran Sanchez. “Speed is not enough: reliability, range, ease of maintenance, ergonomics, and the ability to maintain consistent performance over several days in highly variable conditions are equally crucial.”
This explains the team manager’s cautious approach when describing the various stages ahead: “In the short term, the goal is to consolidate the foundations of the project: engineering, technical validation and running-in mileage, all of it built from the outset around a long-term vision. The Rallye du Maroc will be a key step in this process, allowing us to compete for several consecutive days and gather concrete data in race conditions. The Dakar will come later, as an extremely demanding challenge and, above all, as an important source of information for continuing to develop the project.”
“In the medium term, the goal is to have a bike capable of directly challenging the leading manufacturers in the sport, while following every necessary step to reach that level in a solid and methodical way, without taking shortcuts. But Zhang Xue, founder of ZXMOTO, has a more ambitious vision and is very clear about the project’s ultimate goal: winning the Dakar. This is not an immediate objective, but rather the direction in which the entire programme must move. We first need to build a reliable, fast and high-performing bike, develop the team and gain the experience necessary to compete at the highest level.”
Photos © rocketsvisuals_
