Incas Rally

Incas RALLY

Kawasaki's new KLX300 vs. Peru

DOES DRAGGING YOUR BIKE THROUGH SLIMY, GREASE-like mud, rafting down whitewater rapids (bike on board), trials riding a burro or zooming down a pristine stretch of a white-sand beach sound like a motorcycle race? It did to Franco Acerbis and ESPN's Motoworld, and so the Incas Rally, an 800-mile "adventure" run around Peru, was on.

I was invited to represent mom, apple pie and Team Cycle World, so I rounded up a 1997 Kawasaki KLX300 and decided to give it a very different kind of testing agenda. Without a clue as to what to expect from the rally (early info suggested that Indiana Jones or Crocodile Dundee might be a better rider choice), I knew the KLX would be a safe bet. It was a stock four-stroke, which would make the quality of Peruvian gas less of a concern. The 300’s lack of bulk would come in handy, too, since some of the special tests would involve lifting the bike and maneuvering it around in strange situations (visions of rope bridges and snake pits danced in my head). Plus, prior experience with the KLX’s 250cc predecessor had shown Kawasaki’s midi-Thumper to be compatible with big altitude changes-a good thing, since we’d be riding from sea level to 14,000 feet.

The only mods to the 300 before shipping it off to South America? The addition of a manual compression release from Stroker (4201 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807; 714/528-9670), just in case I needed to quickly clear the cylinder after a crash, and a stronger Renthal handlebar with Acerbis Rally handguards attached.

I arrived in Cuzco, Peru (elev. 13,000 feet), and the thin air hit me like a punch in the gut. Two needle-clip positions and three sizes down on the main jet fixed the KLX, but I continued to breathe hard throughout the three days of competition. The rally would be a team event; I was paired with a fierce Italian enduro racer named Arnaldo Nicoli, who didn’t speak English. Perfect-I don’t speak any Italian.

The backbone of the rally was motorcycle racing, but other than that, it was anything goes-as in a burro race through an ancient mountain village (we won), or roadracing on an airport landing strip (we lost). We were never told the exact rules of any particular special test until right before we left the starting line. The first test was conventional enough, a blast over the twisty dirt roads and trails roaming through the mountains outside Cuzco-just watch out for the overabundance of livestock, please. Even at elevation, the KLX carbureted crisply, though with a noticeable reduction in power output. Still, I was able to keep right on the heels of Nicoli and his factory 400cc Husky Thumper, both of us finishing ahead of the rest of the competition to take the day’s victory.

Another of the tests was a 15-mile race along a river, whitewater rafts and guides waiting at the end of the trail. Here, we had to load our machines onto the raft and head back downstream to the finish. Our language barrier hurt us, both when tying down the bikes and in maneuvering the raft through the almost Class 4 whitecaps, but a second-place finish kept us in the overall lead.

You’ve heard of Machu-Picchu, the fabled mountain-top capital city of the Incan Empire? Well, there’s this road that tour companies use to deliver visitors from the train tracks 2000 feet below; a bus takes nearly 45 minutes to negotiate the windy switchbacked asphalt. Enduro ace Kevin Hines and his Honda-based CRE did it in just under 7 minutes. I was third-quickest, first four-stroke. Here, the KLX’s tractable power played to my advantage as a light rain and sand on the pavement made it a slippery go.

After a train ride back from Machu-Picchu, it was onto a cargo plane bound for Puerto Maldando, a city flooded with scooter-riding locals, for a survival run through the Amazon jungle on some of the snottiest terrain I’ve ever seen. The suspension bridges crossing the tributaries of the Amazon River were holding, but pouring rain took its toll on the trails leading to them. Though it took a bit of pushing, Nicoli and I made two-and-a-half laps of the ever-deteriorating course, almost lapping the field. This was the high point of the rally for the KLX; never did it even hint at boiling over, and the clutch took all kinds of abuse without so much as loosening up at the lever.

Next special test, a roadrace on airport runways, threw most of us for a loop. Two by two, we went at it to find the best pavement-burner on a dirtbike-a perfect way to shred the brand-new mud tires I had mounted earlier. I managed to beat a Peruvian XR600 rider in my first heat, but another XR600 pilot from Venezuela put it to me in the second round. In the end, it was Suzuki factory roadracers (and rally virgins) Aaron Yates and Mark McDaniel doing what they do best, with the win going to Yates. But you should have seen them out in the jungle...

Then it was back on the plane, heading for the coastal town of Tumbes. The final test, worth double points, was an “Australian Pursuit” beach race around the coastal resort. The course consisted of 4 miles of wide-open running at the edge of the ocean, followed by 4 miles of blow-sand and silt through the foothills above the beach. Not the hot ticket for a slower bike like the KLX. Per the rules, the rider in last place got black-flagged each lap until only the winner was left.

In my heat race, I was off to a slow start along the beach, but in the nasty inland section I managed to make my way up to fourth place to secure a spot in the final. Nicoli took second place in his heat, but we both needed a decent finish in the final to take the overall in the rally. When the start blasted off, though, I was passed by everyone-even a cameraman on an XR600! Inland, I quickly moved up into the top six before dust made passing almost impossible. I stuck to the tail of a Chilean KTM rider, however, and made my pass at the one-hour mark when he pitted for fuel. I was able to make another lap before gassing. My partner moved up to second place, and our combined 5-2 score was enough to give us the overall win in the event.

In Peru, the KLX proved to be a fun, durable ride, requiring very little maintenance. It was fast enough to hang with bikes twice its size on all but wide-open stretches, and it flat outhandled them in slow, nasty terrain. Last year’s KLX250 was a playbike par excellence, a great little trail bike, a good choice for tight, tough enduros. The KLX300 is all that and more-in fact, it’s an Incas Rally champion.

Jimmy Lewis