At the Sachsenring, after the introduction of KTM’s Moto3 GPR production racer, we spent five minutes with KTM’s Head of Motorsports Pit Beirer. We spoke to him about a number of subjects, including the evolution of the factory’s Moto3 chassis, the company’s cooperation with Kalex, and whether two-strokes would be better than four-strokes for racing.
Taking advantage of a quasi-home round for the MotoGP Championship at the German GP, Austrian company KTM debuted it latest “ready to race” machine, the 2013 KTM Moto3 250 GPR production race bike. A for-sale-version of its Moto3 Championship contender, the KTM Moto3 250 GPR borrows heavily from its GP-class predecessor, though comes in a slightly lower state of tune.
Featuring forged aluminum OZ wheels instead of magnesium ones, the production racer also comes sans Brembo brakes and WP suspension (items race teams would likely get from suppliers separately anyways). There is however one big technical difference, as KTM has reduced the bike’s maximum engine speed to 13,500 rpm, down from the 14,000 found on the factory bikes. This leaves the 2013 KTM Moto3 250 GPR production racer with just under 50hp on tap.
For some, the KTM 125 Duke is just not quite enough machine to get their two-wheeled juices flowing, and thus the KTM 200 Duke & soon-to-be-expected KTM 350 Duke were born. With the Austrian motorcycle maker KTM partnering with India’s second-largest motorcycle brand Bajaj to make the baby Duke, it should come as no surprise then that many of these models are ending up outside of Europe, and in Asian markets…namely India itself.
While us Westerners might think of the KTM 200 Duke as a fairly practical machine, buyers in India are a bit more skeptical, since their day-to-day travel can be a bit more varied than ours. You see, India right now is preparing for its summer monsoon season, and flooding in certain regions is more of a certainty than a special phenomenon. So while an underslung exhaust might look stylish to us Americans, to an Indian motorcyclist it could look to be more of a liability.
Hoping to purge that thought from Indian riders’ minds, KTM has put together this video outlining its wet-weather survivability testing. If you ever wanted to know whether you can park the KTM 200 Duke in wheel-high water for 30 minutes or more sans snorkel, check out the video after the jump.
You may remember Rok Bagoroš from his two-wheeled escapades on the KTM 125 Duke, but the 23-year-old Slovenian stunt rider has just graduated to KTM’s big-boy hooligan machine: the KTM 690 Duke. With the Austrian manufacturer making a special KTM 690 Duke to suit the needs of Bagoroš, the folks at Kiska have also given the new Duke a nice personalized and edgy look to the bike to fit Rok’s style.
“There’s a BIG difference between the two bikes,” says Rok. “The bike has five times more power then the Duke 125 and any mistake can result in a crash, as I’ve already discovered. The bike has amazing power but I’m slowly getting it under control. I have to remember that this is my first big stunt bike and so I have to learn how to handle the extra power and convert it into spectacular tricks that will be fun to do and thrilling for the fans.”
While Rok gets used to his new toy, we will just have to lament the fact that KTM is still not bringing this bike to the United States. Enjoy the photos and video after the jump, it is likely as close as you will get to the KTM 690 Duke on USA soil.
Caught testing in the wild by the folks at Infomotori, these “spy photos” of the KTM Adventure 1290 are the first good glimpse we have gotten of the Austrian brand’s upcoming revamped adventure bike. Expected to hit the North American market in the 2014 model year, the 2014 KTM Adventure 1290 features a water-cooled v-twin motor, which will likely be shared with the 2013 KTM Super Duke R 1290.
According to its leaked product road map, KTM is due to upgrade the SuperDuke for the next model year (meaning we should start seeing “spy photo” teasers any day now). Designated at the KTM Super Duke R 1290, we can only assume that the new model from Austria will feature a v-twin motor fits in the 1,200cc displacement category, though KTM has been notorious about having its number designations not quite lining up with the bike’s actual displacement.
For 2014, the Super Duke R 1290 will be the basis of another model, the KTM Adventure 1290, which will update the current KTM Adventure 990, and bring KTM more in-line with the offerings from BMW, Ducati, Yamaha, etc.
While we wait for those exciting new models from Team Orange, Italian industrial designer Micro Sapio has penned this concept of a KTM SuperDuke 1200 R. Unfortunately, all we have is the front and back shots, which make fully-appreciating the renders a bit of a challenge.
Of course the orange-painted steel trellis frame pops, though we are not a huge fan of the headlight being used here. However, the low-slung exhaust and single-sided swingarm are nice touches. Your thoughts?
The night schedule at Qatar means that writers and journalists end the weekend in a state of utter exhaustion. To bed at dawn for a few hours fitful sleep, up around noon, off the to the track for a full day’s – or night’s – work, then do the same thing over again. Race day is worse, the schedule is tougher, the adrenaline rush greater, the comedown even bigger. And there’s usually about twice as much work to do as well. It is still the greatest job in the world, of course, but it makes you long for sleep a couple of times a year. Qatar race-night round ups tend to be terse, and given my usual verbosity, this is no bad thing.
Slowly but surely, Bajaj Auto continues to gobble up pieces of KTM’s stock. Taking its investment position now to just over 47%, Bajaj has acquired another 6.3% of the Austrian motorcycle manufacturer, and is projected to continue acquiring stock in the company.
The second-largest motorcycle manufacturer in India, Bajaj is also the second-largest shareholder in KTM, with KTM’s largest controlling position belonging to Stefan Pierer (KTM CEO) and Rudolf Knuenz (KTM Chairman of the Board), whose combined holdings come to just more than 51% of the company.
Perhaps the only thing we don’t like about the 2012 KTM 690 Duke is the fact that the big Austrian thumper won’t be coming to the United States. Not quite sure how to exist outside of the off-road market here in North America, KTM’s street bike offerings are giving Hansel & Gretel a run for their money in the “worst sense of direction” category (we take that back, clearly Moto Guzzi is having a tougher time of it).
Despite our domestic suffering, our European brothers-in-petrol not only get to enjoy the hooligan machine that is the Duke 690 on the street, but KTM has managed to get the single-cylinder machine as the bike of choice for the European Junior Cup, a young-rider grooming series for racers 14 to 19 years of age.
The KTM Moto3 racer is a thing of beauty, and for bonus points, it comes in two varieties. One is the orange-trellis framed factory-built KTM, which will be campaigned by the three-rider factory team of Sandro Cortese, Danny Kent, and Arthur Sissis for 2012.
The other variety is the one engineered by Kalex Engineering, which features the same 250cc KTM motor as the factory version, but takes the German company’s prowess at chassis design, and uses a twin-spar aluminum frame instead of the factory team’s trellis variant. The venerable Team Aspar is one of the teams signed on to use the Kalex/KTM, and will have riders Alberto Moncayo & Hector Faubel aiming to beat the factory KTM squad at their own game.
With no Americans in Moto3, the entry-level GP series won’t get too much attention here in the US, but the machinery certainly looks pretty good to our eyes. Still clad in carbon fiber for the testing season, the KTM and KTM/Kalex machines are like tiny pieces of motorcycling art.
Though some are lamenting the passing of the two-stroke era, and its unmistakable buzzing sound on the track, we think the newest four-stroke GP class will please motorcycling’s audiophiles. Listen to the KTM Moto3 race bike warm up after the jump, and enjoy some eyecandy.
If you want a quick synopsis of how the European motorcycle brands performed in 2011, they killed it. BMW, Ducati, Triumph, and now KTM have all reported double-digit sales growth figures for 2011, a stark contrast to the still struggling sales of Harley-Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha. Reporting a 22.4% sales increase last year, KTM made a cool €20.7 million in the process of selling its 81,200 units in 2011 (KTM sold 66,327 units in 2010).
Leading the Austrian company’s growth was the KTM 125 Duke, which has been a huge hit in India, its country of origin, but has also helped grow KTM’s market share in Europe. KTM is also reporting that its latest EXC models have helped spur sales, but we suspect it is the new small-displacement Duke, which was made with developing markets in mind, that is really responsible for the surge in sales growth. KTM says that it expects sales in Europe and North America to remain flat, while the company expects to see growth in emerging markets continue (no surprise there).