Rennie Scaysbrook | April 27, 2016
Photography by CN/Cali Photography
The time is fast approaching and we’re now knee deep in the Cycle News/KTM North America Pikes Peak program.
With only six weeks to go before the start of the official tire test – our first experience with the 1290 Super Duke R and America’s Mountain – we’ve been busy trying to get the orange beast handling in a polite manner for the 156 corners and bumps, straights and sweepers that await us this June.
But developing a bike for Pikes Peak is unlike any other form of development I can imagine for a road bike, save perhaps the Isle of Man TT. Pikes is genuinely unique, its elevation means the engine will be starved for oxygen and the snow that blankets the top half of the mountain for the majority of the year means track conditions at the bottom will be completely different from the top. This in turn makes setting the bike up even more difficult than if you went to even a big track like Road America.
Being Southern California based and without the means to travel to various racetracks that would suit the surface conditions we are likely to encounter at Pikes, we’ve focused a lot of the testing around Auto Club Speedway at Fontana thanks to our good buddy Imad at www.fastrackriders.com.
Absolutely, 100 percent, Fontana is not like Pikes Peak, but for us we don’t have many other testing options. Besides, a bike that has a good base setting can work well at the majority of tracks once you dial it into that particular venue – at least in my experience – so I’m hoping the same rings true at Pikes.
Over the past two months the KTM has gone from road to race. We’ve stripped back everything that isn’t required (for the full story, click here) and the amount of weight taken off, plus the extra horsepower from the full Akrapovic titanium exhaust, new race map and K&N air filter has made the Super Duke a real beast. It’s now a proper wheelie monster, something we’ve been trying to tone down by playing with suspension.
For my riding skill, I don’t need any more horsepower. I’m not one of those riders like Jeremy Toye who can genuinely use everything the engine has to offer, so for me the Super Duke already has plenty of power. What I want is a chassis that turns direction nicely and stops when required.
Initially, former KTM factory Superbike racer Chris Fillmore and I started with a 180N/mm spring in the rear from the WP catalogue. This, we soon realized, was way too hard even for Fontana, let alone the bumps we’ll see at Pikes Peak. We also didn’t have enough range of adjustment from the KTM PowerParts WP race shock – the Super Duke’s rebound was nothing short of violent. We’d already maxed out on the clickers and gotten nowhere, so the shock was sent back to WP for a re-valve and now we have a much wider scope of adjustment, along with the 170N/mm spring in the PowerParts catalogue.
We also sent the forks back and now they too sport the 0.9kg spring in the PowerParts catalogue, although the forks themselves have not been re-valved.
The front hasn’t been too hard to get into what Chris and I both agree is a sweet base spot, but the rear has caused us a few troubles, hence the re-valving.
My style is I like to carry high corner speed and feed the gas on, a remainder from my days racing 250 Production RGVs in Australia. The Super Duke doesn’t mind this style but the sheer force the engine puts out means to get the best from the chassis, it’s got to be a point and shoot riding style, especially in the slower mid-section of the mountain. This is where I really need to work on my style to get the best from the bike, but I think we’re in not too bad shape from the front of the chassis. It changes direction super fast, almost too fast between some of the slower chicane sections of Fontana, which is a good problem to have.
One area Chris and I are both agree on is the high-speed stability of the chassis is very good with the latest suspension on board. The chassis over powers the standard KTM steering stabilizer, so we’ve got a new WP one on order, but along the banking at Fontana and through the ultra fast left/right of turn one, the Super Duke feel super tight, so that should serve us well for the last third of the mountain.
Pirelli has come on board as a major sponsor and supplied a fleet of SC1 slick tires for us to shred through, and they have proved invaluable so far. I’ve ridden on Pirellis for years in Australia and love the progressive feel they have, especially on acceleration. The SC1 is super soft and the rear is pretty much cactus after four hard sessions at Fontana, although the front seems to last a bit longer.
We are undecided on what tires we will run in the actual event, but it’ll most likely be the SC1 rear and either a treaded race-spec front or the same SC1 slick we’ve been testing on (being in the Heavyweight class, we don’t have the restrictions on slick tires some of the other classes have). Tires are one of the complete unknowns for us as the track temperatures will play a major factor in what we run. During official practice, we ride very early in the morning and during the race itself, we run much later in the day. That means a massive increase in track temps, so I think final tire choice will have to wait until the last few days of testing and qualifying, or even race morning.
Our Cycle News/KTM North America 1290 Super Duke R is now back at KTM HQ for a full service, new front and rear brake pads, a clutch inspection (this one already had 5500 miles of traffic use), new steering stabilizer and possibly a new offset of handlebar we’ll test out at our final run in May before packing it up for Colorado.
Just quickly, I can’t go further without thanking KTM North America, in particular Tom Moen and Chris Fillmore, Pirelli North America’s Jeff Johnston and Chet Plewacki and all the crew at WP North America for everything they have done leading up to the event.
We’ve got one test to go, then it’s time to hit America’s Mountain for the 100th Anniversary of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb!