Ktm 950r Super Enduro
CW RIDING IMPRESSION
KTM 950R SUPER ENDURO
Riding into the Danger Zone
RYAN DUDEK
MY HEART IS THROBBING, MY LEGS ARE trembling, my arms are pumped rock solid and I’m desperately gasping for air. Sliding sideways while drifting toward the edge of a 70-foot cliff at 85 mph on a bike that weighs more than 400 pounds will do that to you. The weird part is that it’s been a week since I was forcefully pried off the seat of KTM' s new 950R Super Enduro. yet I still feel this way. I continue to tell myself it was a controlled slide and that what I’m feeling now is just part of that bike’s never-ending rush, not traumatic nervousness. After all, the 950R is built for those kinds of extreme off-road conditions and high-speed dirt action.
KTM. eager to prove its "Ready to Race" slogan. held the world press launch of the 950R in Eisenerz, Austria. better known as Erzbcrg. This is where an open-pit ore mine was taken over by 1500 crazed
motorcyclists and turned into a four-day race event. After a thorough test session two days earlier, I was able to enter the Twin-Cylinder King Class and actually compete aboard the new 95 OR. Why are my fingers shaking? The Erzberg race is similar to America’s Pikes Peak event but is an all-dirt 10.5-mile course that climbs 2400 feet and has more than 40 turns, with speeds that can exceed 100 mph. The format is rider against the clock, with two chances to be the fastest up the mountain. Although I had a couple of close calls with disaster in the race, I am 99 percent certain that what I’m feeling now is some sort of lingering adrenaline rush. All I have been able to think about is how far the Super Enduro shot rocks from its rear tire as it rocketed me up the trail and turned the surrounding scenery into a blur. This same basic engine, called the LC8, has had a similar effect before in the 950 Adventure (see sidebar for the latest update on that model). Now in a lighter package, the claimed 98 hp V-Twin ignites the rear tire and scorches knobbies clean off; after just two runs up the hill, 21 miles, the tire
was toast. On slick roads, I found myself running a gear high to keep the revs low and traction high. Any time the rear tire had grip, the acceleration was phenomenal. The front wheel would rapidly gain altitude, throwing my body rearward and leaving my fingers and toes as the last hope of holding on. I once saw an indicated 108 mph in sixth gear while the 950 was still accelerating, but I had to chop the throttle for fear of being eaten by the iron mountain. When a bike gets you moving that fast, it better have a great chassis, and the Super Enduro sure does. Overall, it’s a large bike-wheelbase is 62 inches, seat height a tall 38 inches-though touching the ground with both feet is about the same as on a typical 450cc enduro bike. The riding position is quite comfortable, with the aluminum Magura SX handlebar and the placement of the other controls feeling very natural and similar to those of KTM’s other off-road offerings. The 3.8-gallon fuel tank feels big, but the extra effort it takes to climb over it and get your body forward on the bike is rewarded with an average fuel range of 125 miles.
Shiny orange paint coats the rigid, ome-moly-steel trellis frame that’s plemented by excellent WP suspension at both ends. The fully adjustable 48mm inverted fork boasts 9.8 inches of travel, while the shock yields 10. The stock fork setting suited me fine, no adjustment needed, but the shock needed a little tuning. At first, the back end was jumpy over small rocks and bumps but I fixed it by turning the rebound out three clicks. This also helped keep the rear wheel on the ground for improved traction.
With that shock setting, the Super Enduro’s handling overjumps or blitzing along a line of whoops was amazing. I never would have believed that a bike this big and heavy could be so smooth over large obstacles.
KTM says the 950R’s dry weight is 419 pounds, some 18 pounds lighter than their claims for the 950 Adventure-though on the CW scales, our Adventure testbike weighed in at 485 pounds. Still, that’s a lot of mass to negotiate over rough terrain. Which is why KTM’s Joachim Sauer told everyone attending the press launch,
“The Super Enduro is for experienced riders. It’s designed for an enduro specialist, someone who might be looking to move up to the next level.”
I agree: The 950R is not to be taken, uh, lightly. Even though its weight is easy to control, this bike is not suitable for newbies and riders with limited off-road experience. Despite its 13 inches of ground clearance, the 950R has a low center of gravity that helps
it be manageable when vertical; but any time the bike unexpectedly leans very far, the weight quickly becomes apparent. I had this happen more then once when the front tire would lose grip and wash out. Easing off the throttle always allowed me to get the bike back to upright.
In fact, it seemed like I was always turning the right handgrip closed. Going too fast is easy to do on this bike, but shifting down a gear and taking advantage of the excellent Brembo brakes would get me slowed down before anything bad happened. Up front, braking is provided by a single 300mm floating disc clamped by a two-piston caliper, while a 240mm floating disc does a good job at the rear.
On the dirt, anyway. The Super Enduro is a street-legal dirtbike, and its brakes are good for fast pavement work but not great. As part of the press introduction, the KTM people laid out a twisty asphalt loop near town. So with all the gas tanks topped up, a group of us hit the pavement for a ride. Before long, it turned into a back-and-forth dicing session that put an ear-to-ear grin on my face. Luckily, the tires put
some reasonable limits on our speed before the police had a chance to shut us down altogether.
Not only do the tires put limits on street speeds, they do so in the dirt as well. The semi-knobby Metzeler Karoos are a suitable adventure tire but don’t work exceptionally well either onor off-road. They are, of course, a deliberate compromise between street and dirt, so it’s not surprising that they don’t excel at either. The 950R’s wheel sizes are closely matched with those of regular enduro machines-a 1.85-21 front and a 2.50-18 at the rear-so it should be no problem to find suitable off-road or road rubber to fit.
With that said, I would like to blame the tires for my not finishing first up the hill at Erzberg. Yeah, that’s it-the tires, not the fact that I was scared to hold the throttle wide-open longer, or that there were nine riders better than me. I finished tenth with a time of 10:07. My stock 950 performed flawlessly on both runs, controlled slides and all. Factory KTM rider David Knight aboard a works 950R set fast time up the hill at a blistering 8:52.
Wow! I wonder what his adrenaline rush feels like. U
