Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128244
IfTM RCB Sup em ilfe But we ca n m ak e the li nk b et w een going rac in g and our series p roduc t io n street m o dels , and th at ' s with - - Superb ik e. This is our future." Hence the deb ut of the RC8 , which has in fact been under develo pment for the pas t year, according to KT M's chief engineer Wolfga-ng Felber. At 40 years of age , Felber is a former 250 cc Grand Prix road racer of the p rivateer era in the 1980s on Rotax tandem -t w in two-strokes who later beca m e a Germ an Supermono champio n wi th his sel f - bu i l t , sel f - t un ed KTM Singl e Racer. " O ur ma in target from the begin ning for t he RC 8 was to c rea t e the most light weight twi n -cylinder Superspo rt s b i k e ye t m ad e , w ith an e x t re me ly comp act d e sign wh i ch would let us t ake m aximum ben efit from the very small size of the LC8 motor, " reveals Felber. "We sta rt ed design work 15 months ago, in July last ye ar - though because we didn 't ha ve so much ca pacity in- house but still w anted to p rodu ce a sport ing 18 D EC EM BER 10,2003' cue roadbike concept model using the LC8 motor, I originally ent rusted the development to some frie nds of mine outside , to build it up pretty much as a project bike. So the man in charge of the R& D has been a German journalist named Werner Koch, who's very well known for his experience in testing bikes and also has built several project motorcycles before, and to construct the prototype, I called on my German former competitors from my Superm ono racing days, the Uno specialist chassis co ncern in A ugsbu rg, not far from Munich, h e a d e d by Norbert Rieder and Klaus Wassermann: At th is stage, th e RC8 was a whati f project, run as a semidetac he d ope ration from th e m ain KTM factory, says Felber , an d wi th a pract i call y Latin way of going ab out things. " Norm ally with someth ing li k e thi s you have a lot of m eetin gs with marke ting m en and de sign co nsu lta nts, but th is wa s so un com pli ca t ed ," he re c alls wi th a sm il e. " W e j ust sat around a t abl e with a bl an k sheet of e nevvs paper, out in the garden outside their small workshop, and started drawing up frame co ncepts and bike layouts and this was the right atmosphere to create something very special, which I believe we have done with this bike: It was decided from the very first that the RC8 should employ a tubular steel spaceframe - not only because of Uno's expertise in designing and building such chassis, evidenced by it s success in winning the 1995 European Supermono Championship with Tommy Komer riding the works Uno-Rotax. "The RC8 has a tubular steel chas sis, which looks different from ex isting models from other companies," says Ste fa n Pi erer , "a nd the tu be fra me is a deli berate choice becau se we ' re ex pe rie nce d in thi s secto r, and it also suit s th e faciliti es of ou r new chass is plant ope ning in Mattigh ofen next year: Five or six different desi gn s wer e i niti a lly d ev el op ed by Un o , eac h rej ected in favor of th at finally fitted to t he b ike launched in J apa n , whi c h employs a fully tria ngulated ch romemoly t u b u l a r spaceframe with the engi ne used as a fully stressed member, u n li k e on KTM 's other V-twi n designs so far, like the 950 Adventure and 990 Duke. This means the LC8 motor is mounted at four separate points within the chassis , including both cylinder heads , and has the swingarm pivoting in both the engine crankcases and the rear mounting point. " This creates a stiff structure which still allows the bike to 'talk ' to the rider," say s Fel ber. " We believe it's the best sol ut ion." The fir st R _C8 prototype was complete d exactly one year ago , since wh en it's covered tho usa nds of m iles on !he street com pl etely unno ticed ~y p ap arazz i ca meras o r motorcycling anoraks . How so? .Well , as an indica. :' . ~ - " .... .. tion of the bike ' s extremely slender buil d, it' s spent most of th e past year m asqueradin g as a home-b uilt special cla d in a rep lica Hond a NSR500V ':'twin fai ring with a hole cu t in the nose