Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

.'lIln~ .Juha Salminen's World Enduro Championship-winning KTM 525 EXC PUIIV e Juha Salminen's uro Championshipwinning KTM LaIIIIII ./ Finn .tuba selminen rode this KTM 525 ID the 2003 WOI'Id Eftckaoo ChampIonship UtI•• Our European comtspOlldent, .Iontr Edmonds, • former WEC rider himself, got the chance ID ride It, a _II. Gue. . what? He liked It. A loti STORY AND PHOTOS BY JONTY EDMUNDS Iter both Juha Salminen and KTM the '03 World Enduro Series has been a challenging one. With the Austrian marque landing only one WEC title - the Over 500cc FourStroke crown thanks to Juha himself, the fact that "Wonder Boy" also managed to finish as the best-placed rider in the overall Scratch classification meant that KTM was still able to hold its head high come the end of the season. Having poured serious amounts of time, effort and money into the '03 series in an attempt to further strengthen their position as "the dominant brand," to have finished the year with just the Over 500cc Four-Stroke title would have been seen as a well-below-par effort - r not only by KTM management but also by competing manufacturers. The 2003 season certainly wasn't an easy year for Juha, either. Starting the season injured after being hit by another rider and fracturing five ribs during a beach race in the south of Spain, the fact that he was also changing classes for the third consecutive season meant that lost early- season saddle time was something he could ill afford. Once the '03 season did get under way, he also found himself pushed harder than he'd anticipated by a young Spaniard by the name of Ivan Cervantes. That, coupled with the fact that he was up against a highly motivated Stefan Merriman in the Scratch class, as well as the fact that he lost a possible, and probable, 25 points with a day-one DNF at his home race in Finland, meant that Juha arguably worked harder in '03 than he has at any other point during his hugely successful career. FACTORY FINERY At first Sight Juha's bike doesn't look that different from any other half-liter KTM. It's big, orange and clearly not a preproduction machine in the same way that KTM's new, and yet to be seen in enduro trim, 250cc fourstroke is. But closer inspection tells a different story, though. First off, the bike, like all the KTM Racing and Farioli KTM team bikes, features official WP suspension. That means a set of 48mm USD forks and a WP shock take care of the rough stuff. Featuring a titanium spring and both separate high- and low-speed compression adjusters, the shock, as well as the forks, featured Juha's "Scandinavian settings" during the test after he had revised the setup for Finland and Sweden, having reckoned that he had been "a little bit missing" at earlier rounds of the WEC series. The steering angle. along with the bike's chassis, is standard with the forks held in place by a set of billet KTM clamps. Next there's the titanium Akrapovic exhaust system, the Talon wheels, billet clutch cover, McGrathbend Twin Wall Renthals, drilled plastic sump guard, and SX-style rear end, which all help separate Juha's bike from your run-of-the-mill Katoom. But what makes Juha's KTM different from the standard machine available in all KTM dealers, apart from the factory suspension and assorted other goodies, is unsurprisingly what lies beneath the outer cases of the motor. One of the biggest changes, and certainly the biggest weight-saving change, is the removal of the bike's electric starter. According to the KTM Racing team's experienced Finnish mechanic Tobi (a mechanic who arrived on the WEC circuit from the motocross world at around the same time as seven-time World Champion Kari Tiainen), that does away with between six to seven pounds. It's also explained that it is done not so much to save weight but because it makes the bike noticeably easier to turn. "The bike has nothing for electric start," Tobi explained. "When you take those heavy things out, the bike is easier to turn. It is only about six or seven pounds, but when you compare it to the standard bike, it is much easier to lift up out of corners. Okay, the scary thing is the starting, but with the Keihin carb, when you kick the bike good, it starts immediately." The CDI unit is also different to standard, allowing the bike to rev higher and freer. Explaining that a computer made the black box and that it allows the engine to produce "more revs than standard," I'm also told that "for standard people it is dangerous because they will break the gearbox, or worse." What I'm sure he was relaying to me was the fact that the CDI unit can be connected to/was manufactured via a comp\!ter in order to produce a power curve to suit Juha's preferences, one that is different to that used on the standard bike. By explaining that "a normal driver" would likely break the bike's gearbox, I took it to mean that the bike builds rpms notably quicker than standard, and as a result, any missed gear change or overrevving could result in race-ending damage to the engine. I guessed I'd just been warned! The engine itself is a hand-crafted blend of motocross (SX) and enduro (EXC) model parts. At the heart of the bike is a lightened crank with a shortened stroke, giving the bike an actual engine size of 509cc. Fitted with a camshaft from a motocross (SX) model, the gearbox also features a mixture of MX and enduro parts, which gives Juha his preferred transmission. As expected, the finite changes and tweaks would remain secret. The only two other notable pieces of information I was told were that the front brake setup is a little special and that Juha, unlike teammate Samuli Aro, prefers the slightly narrower enduro footpeg over the wider MX peg. Why? Well, having come from a trials background, he likes to be able to feel the bike a little better and to be able to move around on it. Or so Tobi reckoned. Juha also later

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