The adventure bike market is one that remains healthy in the UK, and we are starting to see a lot more smaller-capacity adventure bikes enter this market recently.

This was an opportunity for the Zontes T310 to shine, first released in early 2019, the T310 offered a bike to those looking to own a brand new bike packed full of tech with a pretty reasonable pricetag!

So without further ado, let's get into my full road test review, shall we?

We got to see the three new Zontes A2-friendly models hours after reaching the UK as they were on display at the Motorcycle Trade EXPO in January, one of these being the T310 adventure bike.

Roll onto late July and I dropped into our local Zontes dealer, Moonraker Motorcycles of Norwich. Greeted by staff and shown around the demo I was pleasantly reminded just how good quality the T310 looked in person.

The demo I tested is black on graphite with all the awesome-looking crash bars and matching metal works (which come as standard). 

At a quick glance does the Zontes T310 look like it is a £4k bike… no, without knowing you’d look at this bike and you’d expect to invest around the £6k mark. The finish and attention to detail are impressive for a budget bike, this doesn’t appear to have been whipped up from spare parts hanging around the warehouse. The T310 gives the impression that there has been an incredible amount of planning and design work gone into it, and the ride suggests this too.

A big winner for me was the extra metal work such as the crash bars, all fitting very well and matching colour perfectly, no different shades to be spotted here. The version we had was in black, and let's face it a black motorcycle always looks great and with the metal work it really does look the business. The matching stainless-steel exhaust looks great and is also cool to touch, and after riding it around for two hours in the midst of a British heatwave at 35c, it was still not hot to touch, so pillions should ride without their leg being toasted.

The T310 is powered by a 312cc single-cylinder, four-valve motor which for its engine class accelerates rather nicely! 

The acceleration is nice and smooth and the clutch is light as a feather so rapid gear changes are a delight and allow you to build up speed well. You aren't going to cringe when you hit the faster roads - you’ll be rather happy with what this 310 can do. I was surprised how well it handled the high speeds, it was nice and stable - the vibrations weren't too bad either!

When riding, getting up to 70mph happens rather quickly, and I reckon this would be capable of achieving around 90mph if you really put your foot down.

For the normal UK roads, the 37mm USD front suspension does a more than adequate job, though not quite sure of their full off-road potential to be honest – but that will be for somebody else to review!

When it comes to the brakes, you will find hydraulic discs at the front and at the rear, along with Bosch ABS, there is no sudden grasp on the brake lever in the hope of finding more stopping power, the stock stopping power is as expected and there were no moments of concern.

If you look or get shown around the T310 you instantly see the tech this bike has to offer, and although their offerings are not class-leading, to have these all on a new motorcycle at £3,999 is pretty impressive, it is giving people a smaller budget an option they didn’t really have open before (although we are now seeing more emerge).

The T310 is keyless and has a decent transmission range of around 1.5-2 meters which is just about right. Firstly, hit the lock/unlock button with the key nearby to ready the bike and disengage the steering lock. Hold the clutch in and hit the electric start button and the bike is brought to life instantly, to bring a halt to proceedings you actually use the kill switch, just make sure to flick it back ready for when you want to start it again.

Walk away from the bike when parked up and it will detect the key is out of distance and turn the electronics off. To do things properly though when walking away turn the handles bars as you normally would and hit the lock button and it electronically puts the steering lock on – no problems at all – it gives a reassuring clonk as well so you know the steering lock has engaged.

When the bike has been unlocked, the TFT screen springs into life. It displays a nice amount of information especially useful for a newbie, so as well as the standard speedo and rev counter you also have decent displays such as gear indicator, fuel gauge, and odometer. The screen for a TFT is admittedly quite basic, and in some light, it was almost impossible to read actually what speed you are doing (the numbers are rather thin and the colour isn’t so different from the background behind it) so this was a bit disappointing. Yes, you know roughly what speed you are doing, but always reassuring to glance down to confirm speed before going past a speed camera. Apart from this, the screen is nice and large, quite bright too and I feel it has some nice information displays as I mentioned earlier – just basic but what do you expect at this price?

The switchgear all felt solid to the touch and with backlighting looked pretty cool! The additional buttons for the electronic offerings such as the fuel cap, adjustable windscreen, and seat release are all nicely visible with icons that are easy to understand.

Zontes have done things differently with the indicator though, instead of the normal click-in to cancel, on the T310 you push the selector back into the middle position – no clicking, which to be honest, barring two mistakes where I ended up indicating in the opposite direction I just turned, this wasn’t really a problem, like most things you just get used to or adjust to it and away you go.

Now admittedly, I did have an initial worry that the 840mm seat height was going to be a tad too tall for my mere 5’ 6” frame, but this was instantly removed as I sat on the bike with both feet able to touch the ground comfortably.

The fuel tank is 15L which is a great size to have on a bike like this, it means you will get plenty of miles done before having to refuel again.

For me, the Zontes 310 is so light weighing in at 149kg (dry) but still feels nice and solid to ride and holds the road well providing that big bike feeling.

So the Zontes T310 comes in at £3,999.99 with a 2 year warranty, that is a rather impressive price and will give people on a tighter budget the option of getting an A2 licence friendly adventure bike brand new with plenty of tech!

The Zontes T310 is a budget and A2 licence friendly offering with plenty of spec. To be honest I have been pleasantly surprised, the quality at the time of testing was far better than I had expected and the T310 had clearly had a lot of time in R&D to make it the bikes it is.

Zontes has clearly tried to up the mark of quality and we will just have to see how it stands the test of time. The tech gives some really nice options, though understand this is a £4k bike so don’t have your level of what to expect set too high, everything worked though, and during my short test on the bike (4 days) I didn’t encounter anything alarming or cause for concern.

Visually the general looks of the bike is great, I’m not a massive fan of the look of the front LED light but that is relatively miniscule in the grand scheme of things, otherwise I think Zontes have done a decent job for a small adventure bike.

• Affordable and cheap to run
• Styling looks great
• Packed with lots of decent spec

• Aftermarket parts are tricky to get your hands on
• Wheels are quite small
• Dash lets this bike down slightly

And that's a wrap, my Zontes road test review is complete...

Last but not least, if you have your very own Zontes T310 or another motorcycle you need to insure, make sure to get a  motorcycle insurance quote direct with Lexham!

Engine	312cc single cylinder, liquid-cooled, 4 stroke, 4 valve
Fuel tank	15L
Brakes	Front: 260mm Single disc (ABS) Rear: 210mm Single disc (ABS)
Suspension	Front: Telescopic forks Rear: Monoshock
Seat height	840mm
Weight	149kg
Price	£3,999