It’s one week out from the first tire test of the 100th Anniversary of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Time has flown since we made the announcement. I can’t believe this is actually happening. We’re going racing up America’s Mountain.
The boxes at KTM are stacked. There’s almost half an extra Super Duke of parts jammed in.
This is the biggest build up to any race I have ever done. It’s been nine months of planning, building, arguing, spending, negotiating, writing, testing and racing. Normally my preparation for a race is spotty at best, a poor thing to admit I will grant you, but not this time.
KTM North America, with Tom Moen, David O’Connor, Chris Fillmore and many more, has gone so far above and beyond what I or anybody else at Cycle News could possibly ask of them. They’ve backed this project from the beginning, building not just a roadbike that was used for touring with bags but a badass streetfighter-style streetbike and now finally this beautiful racer using a plethora of KTM PowerParts that my own personal funds could never possibly dream of attaining.
WP has built the fork and shock to my specs, then worked on the shock constantly as I’ve bugged them to fix this, fix that. I feel guilty every time I ask something of KTM or WP but the end of the project is almost in sight, and I can already hear their collective sighs of relief.
Pirelli has been another one who has supported this project from the go. Chet, Jeff, Chris and Cory have been as enthusiastic about this program and we have and that has helped no end for the testing that has been required to get the bike into a raceable state. Pirelli has an impeccable record at the mountain, so that’s one less thing I have to worry about.
Alpinestars and in particular their media man Heath Cofran have donated some fine leather goods to keep my Aussie ass safe, and Airtech rushed a one-off bellypan that used to fit a 1973 Kawasaki Z1 900 (true story!) to the KTM in time for last weekend’s race at Buttonwillow.
My evenings have been spent on the cycle, pounding out the miles and trying to force some level of respectable race fitness into a body that spends the majority of its time at a computer. But my nights have been filled watching on repeat Greg Tracy’s sub 10 minute run and playing Sebastian Loeb’s Rally Evo game, the only Playstation game I could find with a near perfect Pikes Peak circuit layout, tar and all.
Hopefully it will all mean something, come June 26.
For now, there’s not much left to do other than to play more Playstation and watch more YouTube. Stay tuned for more as we’ll be doing a video blog from the event, plus features and videos.
We’re going to the Mountain. Let’s do this.
