Joy-Riding KTM's Factory Racers

Just about every race series is wrapped up for the year, but before parking the 2009 race bikes for good, KTM decided to take them out to Glen Helen for one last “hoorah.” Actually, in this case, it was more like a “yahoo” – a gaggle of media yahoos to be exact. Local media – Cycle News included – were invited out for a day of fun on the actual race bikes of four factory KTM riders: Tommy Searle, Mike Brown, David Kamo and Russell Bobbitt.

A day of tooling around on these top-level competition machines was certainly a treat, but an eye-opener, as well. In a nutshell, the biggest surprise after sampling all these racers is how close they all are to stock. We hate to disappoint you, but the reason guys like Brown and Russell are champions is because they really are that ridiculously skilled – not because of some secret weapon underneath them.

Don’t get us wrong; the machinery of these top pros is amazing, but if you ever thought that a factory bike would take you up a skill level, you’d be wrong. Because it definitely didn’t happen to any of us today. It all comes down to the rider. After spending a day on some of the top race equipment on two-wheels, we got a feel for the setup of each rider as well as some of their personal preferences.

The Katooms on the menu today were WORCS Champion Mike Brown’s 450 XC-F, Russell Bobbitt’s National Enduro Championship-winning 250 XC, David Kamo’s big-bore National Hare & Hound XC-F and the 250 SX-F of World Motocross and AMA Motocross factory rider, Tommy Searle.

The first, and certainly anticipated, characteristic we noticed on all four bikes was super-stiff suspension. Even Brown’s GP racer was stiff as a rock! Even though he’s technically an off-road racer, Brown is a born and bred moto-guy and still runs a very motocross-type setup. In fact, his is nearly the same as the factory motocross 450 SX-Fs. Speaking of motors, another thing they all had in common was plenty of power on tap. But it’s not ridiculous arm-yanking power that doesn’t make it to the ground; each bike is set up based on terrain, style of racing, and the rider, himself, to be the most effective and useful. It was interesting to see where that was for each rider.

The Glen Helen ride day also brought into sharp contrast the subtle differences between the bikes, such as bars, peg position, gearing and brakes. Unlike normal test days where we spend ample time dialing the test bike to suit our own liking, we rode the bikes just how the racers ride them. No adjusting clickers, setting sag or moving levers. Just hop on and go – which made for quite an interesting day as we took to the hills, the track, the ridges and the single track of Glen Helen.

Our two test riders (novice and expert) had two very different experiences on these full-fledged racers, and we’ll give you all the interesting (and humorous) details from the ride day soon. Watch the pages of Cycle News for the upcoming feature on KTM’s factory racers.