Rennie Scaysbrook | February 26, 2016
Our KTM’s road riding miles are done. Now it’s time to get serious!
Well, here we go! After a nervous few months, waiting and wondering if we’d get accepted, Cycle News and KTM have been given a big fat “yes” and we’ll be racing up the mountain at Pikes Peak for the 100th Anniversary of the world’s most famous hill climb this June.
The last nine months, we’ve been cruising the streets of Southern California on our long term KTM 1290 Super Duke R, slowly adding parts from the KTM PowerParts catalogue. Initially we put saddle bags on the orange beast to make it a very sporty sport tourer, and lately we’ve stripped it back to a badass streetbike with the Akrapovic titanium muffler and graphics.
It all seems like such a long time ago…
But this is where we want to be. The plan always was for us to race this bike up the mountain, a plan that was hatched way back in June last year. It’s ironic that the Pikes Peak organizers banned the use of clip-on handlebar sportbikes for use in the great race, because regardless of the rules we planned to race this bike anyway after seeing the success the Ducati Multistrada had over the years – a bike that is most certainly not a superbike.
There was the small hiccup of the capacity rules we had to get over, and thankfully the organizers changed them to allow for machines up to 1305cc, no matter what the cylinders (two, three or four), for the Heavyweight class. That makes Pikes Peak 2016 a battle of the big bore nakedbikes, and we’ll be faced against competition from Aprilia’s Tuono 1100, Kawasaki’s Z1000, Ducati’s Monster, and another 1290 Super Duke R for Heavyweight honors. Our category will be one with plenty of international flavor, with riders from the U.S, Great Britain, Corsica, Canada and me, from Australia.
What have we done?
So we started with a near stock 2015 KTM 1290 Super Duke R, which in itself a weapon but not exactly race ready. The main problem we face is weight. There’s lots of bits on the stock bike that can come off that will save us those precious few pounds, and the most obvious component that can help here is the exhaust.
Much of the weight that’s been shed comes from the big cat convertor in the middle of the pic.
The standard Super Duke exhaust is not exactly heavy, but the catalytic convertor sitting between the headers and the muffler is. So we junked the standard pipe, fitting up a brand new competition only, KTM PowerParts Akrapovic EVO titanium full exhaust, saving us about 12 pounds and giving us a handy jump in horsepower when matched with the new K&N airfilter and new fuel map. The welding on the exhaust is an absolute work of art and you can feel the difference in weight even when you wheel the bike around the workshop. Plus, it’s got a much bigger bark to match the bite.
The new pipe is sooo pretty!
To make sure we got the most out of the new exhaust and mapping, we fitted the KTM SAS removal kit to stop the bike running lean and backfiring off the throttle. It also allows for smoother acceleration and a more consistent throttle response. We also plugged the bottom of the airbox where the former SAS system matched up to it.
New rearsets give a touch more ground clearance and gets us through the rulebook.
New rearsets were fitted to give a bit more ground clearance but also to get us past the rule that started we had to run footpegs that were not on a hinge or spring, as standard pegs are.
New fork internals are much stiffer than standard, while the new triple clamps increase stability under braking and look awesome to boot!
The forks were sent to WP a couple of months ago and fitted with the competition cartridge kit, which gives us preload adjustment that the standard forks don’t have. We’d started off by running .95kg springs, which I found initially to be too heavy. We’ve gone back to 0.9kg springs, which for a big bike like this is still pretty soft. We’ll be testing these new springs out this weekend at Fontana along with the new WP competition rear shock to see if they’re a bit more suited to the way I ride the bike. I normally like a bit more compliance in the front, not super hard, and with Pikes Peak being quite a bumpy track I’m thinking the softer option will be the way to go.
And because we like a bit of bling, we fitted up some spanking new orange anodized CNC-machined triple clamps that are a bit stiffer than standard to help with braking stability. And they look totally pimping!
The new battery (the orange one), saved us eight pounds!
One of the biggest weight savings was made with the battery. We fitted a new lithium ion battery that gave us a saving of eight pounds over the standard battery! I couldn’t believe how heavy the standard battery was – the new one is so small we had to pack the battery box up with foam just so it wouldn’t bash around while I was riding.
Soft, sticky slicks – perfect for a 1300cc V-twin!
Pirelli have come on board with the project, and we took delivery of two sets of soft-compound SC1 front and rear slick tires that we got fitted up thanks to our buddies at Cycle City Motorsports in Lake Forrest www.cyclecitymotorsports.com. We’re still unsure as to what we’ll run on the mountain, but these tires will at least give us an idea of the suspension settings we’ll need to run on the big girl.
Time to get to the track and start shredding! Stay tuned for updates soon.
Finally (and most obviously), we stripped the seat unit, rear tail section and front headlight assembly and fitted the fiberglass KTM PowerParts units. These will be painted up in the race livery prior to Pikes Peak, but for now will remain in white testing mode…
We’ll be out testing our sensational Super Duke this Saturday at Fontana with the crew at fastrackriders.info, so if you’re there, come out and say hi! There’s be more updates on Project Pikes Peak as they happen.
