K R Ä M E R H K R - E V O 2 R
RACER TEST
P96
which, if you wanted to
build into a class con-
tender, you'd be unlikely
to see much change out
of $18-20,000 when all is said
and done.
The 1990s craze for Super-
mono racing—a class designed
for road racing machines with
single cylinder four-stroke en-
gines—never really died out in
Europe as it did everywhere else.
The class was an engineer's
playground, with grids dotted by
home-built specials or ex-Grand
Prix 125/250cc chassis sporting
motors like Yamaha's 660 single
cylinder SZR or Honda's XR650.
The most famous of the racing
Supermonos was undoubtedly the
Ducati Supermono, which fetches
incredible money these days for
an original in good condition, in
some cases well over $100,000.
This is the ground the Krämer
plays in. Supermono racing rep-
resents some of the most enjoy-
able, cost-effective road racing
you can undertake—especially
considering these machines don't
rip through tires like a supersport
or superbike can. Supermonos
challenge your riding by putting
it under a microscope. You don't
have the horsepower underneath
you to fix the corner you just
screwed up—it's all about main-
taining corner speed and overall
flow—and this is something
a Krämer does better than
almost any bike I've ever
ridden.
It may be a single-cylinder
racer, but the Krämer produces
such prodigious corner speed
and thus fast lap times that it is
more than competitive against
Twins Cup racers, which opens
up many classes for Krämers to
compete in the U.S.
Krämer Motorcycles are im-
ported into the U.S. by young
couple Joe Karvonen and his wife,
Brittany Taplin, out of their Sisufab
workshop in Fargo, North Dakota.
An odd place, I'll grant you, for
some of the most potent racing
motorcycles in the country to call
home, but Joe and Brittany are
(Below) With the fairings
off, it's easy to see just
how trim the Krämer really
is. Ready to race with a full
tank of gas it only weighs
276 pounds.
(Right) AIM dash logs
GPS data, rpm, water
temp, gear position,and
vehicle speed.
