From fixing bikes in a village to winning on the world stage: this founder just made Chinese motorcycle history

On March 28–29, 2026, at the Portimao round of the FIM Supersport World Championship (WorldSSP), part of the WorldSBK series, Chongqing-based ZXMOTO made history by winning both races with French rider Valentin Debise on its self-developed 820RR-RS — becoming the first Chinese motorcycle brand ever to win at this level of world production-bike racing 🏍️🏆🇨🇳

And while that alone is huge, what’s really making people emotional in China right now is the old footage of founder Zhang Xue from 20 years ago 🥹

Back in 2006, 19-year-old Zhang Xue was just a broke motorcycle repair kid from rural Hunan. He had dropped out at 14, lived above a repair shop, and was completely obsessed with racing. A Hunan TV crew once tried to film him, then nearly left after his beat-up second-hand Honda kept failing in the mud and rain. But Zhang refused to give up. He reportedly chased the crew for more than 100 km through heavy rain on that broken bike, crashing, bleeding, and freezing, just to ask for one more chance to be seen. His logic was brutally simple: being on TV didn’t matter — if a real racing team saw him, maybe his life could change 🌧️🛵

Fast forward to 2026, and it did. The same kid who once begged for one shot in the rain is now the founder of the first Chinese motorcycle brand to stand on top of a WorldSSP podium. So yes, that old documentary is going viral again — because this is basically real-life Fly Me to the Moon for bike guys 😭🔥