Continued race winning success for KTM in the World Enduro Championship might look easy but as in all sports it’s a real team effort that keeps KTM’s riders on top of the podium.
Modern cross-country motorbikes can take a lot of punishment and when used in normal conditions, offer very satisfactory levels of performance and reliability provided they are cared for and maintained properly. The extent of the strains put on them, especially in enduro racing, can vary significantly. Therefore a certain degree of preparation is always a good idea. In more extreme riding conditions, it is particularly advisable to optimise or adapt the certain aspects of the technology in preparation for this. The following tips based on years of experience in enduro racing should help KTM-EXC riders to overcome tough enduro conditions and better prepare for any problems. Preventive action is better than corrective action. Based on this philosophy, our tips will help ensure that the technology performs to the best of its abilities, giving you unbridled riding pleasure, whilst raking in all the off-road trophies.
AND ALSO:
Practical tips in general for all track types and conditions:
More...Anyone taking part in enduro competitions or riding over extreme terrain must make sure that they prepare their machine carefully. We can offer some useful tips for preparing your KTM enduro based on practical experience, in particular for riding in...
Expert advice
on hard riding
It's 5 a.m. on 13 March 1953 and several workers are push-ing three motorcycles out of a workshop and onto a lorry in Mattighofen in Upper Austria. Their destination, the Vienna Spring Fair, where motorcycles with tanks labelled with the 'KTM' insignia will be seen for the first time.
KTM's origins date all the way back to 1934 when the com-pany's founder Hans Trunkenpolz opened a repair workshop in Mattighofen and soon after became an official supplier of DKW motorcycles. In the post-war years, the workshop mainly repaired lorries that were urgently needed for the reconstruction process. Trunkenpolz made the best of the situation and manufactured the missing spare parts in his own company. By the start of the 1950s, the industrial production of spare parts was the company's main source of income and the repair business took a back seat. A new, second mainstay was therefore required to replace the falling number of repair jobs.
As only very few people could afford cars at the time Trunkenpolz decided to develop a cost-effective light-weight motorcycle of 98 cm³ that could expect a high turnover. At the time, the Austrian motorcycle industry consisted of a handful of manufacturers. However, most of these did not build their own engines and instead relied on products manufactured by the market leader Rotax, based in Gunskirchen in Upper Austria, a Fichtel & Sachs branch plant until the end of the war.
The first KTM motorcycles manufactured in the nineteen-fifties were wonderful machines that are still heart-warming to think about even today.
Leo Keller takes a fascinating look back in time through his rear-view mirror.
Heartbreaker
An already lightning-fast factory model, equipping the RC8R with original KTM kit parts turns it into a truly competitive racing bike.
fast, faster,
fastest
Volker Schinkmann doesn't just win. He laughs in the face of death as he shoots across the finish line in first place on his RC8.
Racing rules, despite a life-threatening kidney disease.
There's nothing easier than going off like a shot on a motorcycle. The merciful rider took the
KTM 990 Supermoto R for a spin.
The challenge of safely transporting the brand new KTM LC8 Adventure R from the maharajahs to the mouth of the Ganges was met by author Thomas Lang on his adventurous journey through India and
Bangladesh to Nepal.
Learn, accelerate and push it to the limit. Marc Marquez and Cameron Beaubier, the two teens working for Red Bull KTM, prove their worth in the 125cc road racing World Championship 2009. Interim result following the first seven Grand Prix races.
DIRT TRACK
Dirt Track in the USA is held on hard pack natural oval tracks of varied lengths: a quarter of a mile (400 Meter), a half mile (800 Meter) or a whole mile (1.6 km). Every track is different and conditions also change from lap to lap. "Groove" is what the ideal line is called after a first free lap. This is the one that promises the best traction and therefore the fastest lap times.
There are also TT events as well as oval circuits. They are flat natural tracks with a number of left corners and at least one right corner in the tightest place. Most also have a jump hill. TT stands for the abreviation for Tourist Trophy.
Two-cylinder Dirt Trackers with about 100 hp let fly on the mile and half mile oval circuits. One step below these are the 50 to 60 hp single-cylinder bikes (they use only modified four-stroke motocross bikes). These mostly start on the quarter and sometimes also on the half mile oval circuits and the TT tracks.
Dirt Track Racing is a typical American spectacle: colourful, fast, loud and spectacular. The bikes in the top league have V2 motors, broad handlebars and very big start numbers. Races always go around the oval shaped tracks to the left. The racing surface is either hard pack ground of loam, which mechanical rollers pack down to create a hard surface with plenty of grip and where it is possible to go into the corners at astonishing speed. The tracks are different in length (see info box). In the AMA Pro Racing Series, professional teams and riders from all over the country battle it out for the Grand National Championship, in short GNC.
The action is incredibly hard and absolutely breathtaking. This is a knife-edge battle for dominance at full speed and it’s contested by tightly packed groups of riders. Fights for the slipstream advantage on the straights and the wild drifts in the corners are daily bread and butter for this furious wheel-on-wheel and handlebar-on-handlebar, no holds barred gladiatorial contest.
The American Dave Waters, with his privateer Dirt Track KTM, is making sure that a V2 bike from Mattighofen is getting into the action in this spectacular discipline.
Indian racer, model and actor Dilip Rogger took his starters' orders in Oschersleben on a KTM RC8. Brennraum is on high adrenaline.
the fastest indian
on 2 wheels
Hugo Arriazu's business card says: "Professional freestyle quad extreme rider". The stunts that the Spanish KTM rider is able to pull off are breathtaking and sensational in equal measure.
It’s easy to believe that race winning ‘factory’ bikes are night and day different to standard, production machines. After all, winning world championship titles is a serious game where only the very best equipment can deliver the performance needed to achieve podium-topping results, right?
Well, you might be surprised to find out that not all of Johnny Aubert’s Enduro 2 class 450 EXC factory bike is an exotic, hand-made, special. Truth is the bike that has topped the E2 class on both days at each of the opening five rounds of the ’09 WEC series is more standard than special, built from a long list of largely production parts to give Aubert exactly what he wants.
It’s the most successful bike in the ’09 World Enduro Championship, helping Johnny Aubert dominate the Enduro 2 class. But just how special is Aubert’s 450 EXC? And how different is it to KTM’s production E2 class four-stroke?
Winning enduro races is what KTM does best. But as everyone knows to be the best you have to be better prepared than everyone else. Riders have to be fit, motivated, and ready for whatever a race might throw at them, but winning is a team effort. To keep KTM at the top in the WEC a small orange army of highly important ‘back room’ staff - mechanics, suspension technicians, a chef, and time keepers – attend every world championship event.
For the KTM Enduro Factory Team a World Enduro Championship weekend is much more than simply a two-day affair. First off there’s the huge amount of work that is done readying the bikes and trucks before they head away from the Farioli team base in Bergamo, Italy. But of course it’s the work that’s done when the team arrive that is crucial to the success of the riders.
Continued race winning success for KTM in the World Enduro Championship might look easy but as in all sports it’s a real team effort that keeps KTM’s riders
on top of the podium.
Climb aboard and fasten your seatbelts: KTM invites you on a breathtaking trip around the Salzburgring high-speed track in the X-BOW!
Stefan Nebel and Didier Van Keymeulen are going full throttle on the KTM RC8 R racers in the Superbike IDM. A look back at the first half of the season.
better, more stylish, funnier
At KTM, the departments responsible for PowerParts and PowerWear work tirelessly to supply new, better and funnier parts for the company's trusty orange steeds and their sometimes "crazy" riders. This mainly entails optimising their shape and performance, although style and coolness also come into the equation. These people never cease to amaze the Brennraum crew and we have therefore chosen 10 items which we think are particularly worth a look. Our favourites are...
pimp your bike contest 2009
First, KTM customers showcased their pimped bikes, then the judging panel selected the lucky winners. The end of a contest that has seen an overwhelming response.
After scooping the Indoor Enduro World Cup title, Manuel Cervantes had a surprise bonus in store
KTM factory rider Ivan Cervantes won the all-new Enduro Indoor World Championship ahead of Taddy Blazusiak (also KTM), Fabio Mossini and Mika Ahola after battling hard in three gruelling finals. "El Torrito" also earned himself a KTM Supermoto T, awarded by the Spanish importer as a special bonus. The bike comes with equipment bags, which are particularly useful when touring, and was given to him by PR representative Deborah Nicolescu . As you would expect, the Spanish motorbike enthusiast was not only surprised but completely over the moon.
Special Prize
