Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

r:2~O:;-; 6~Ia~-;-;;5-= S:-pe~--:- o-o-----------------O~ M 9:-;:;O--:: u-- M-;- t temp gauge, fuel readout and a couple of warning lights are all- plus a telemetry data-logger strapped to the handlebar of this work-in progress prototype, monitoring all the sensors mounted to it) equals ISOO rpm. It does so in o ne pie ce , I'll fre e ly admi t to not attempting to back it into tarm ac turns. But I did ride it quite hard enough during my day of mixed weat her co nditions, both o ff-r oa d and on , to ap preciate w hat se rious fun this ne xt- mode l KTM is to ride - even more so , tho ugh in a diffe re nt way, tha n th e more aggressive , more pe rfor mance-focused 990 Duke . Th e reason is that the 950 Supe rMoto rew ard s eq ually well when be ing ridden hard and fast , o r w hen tak ing yo ur own time and going wit h t he flow - either wa y, it' s still a blast to ride. It'll pull away from res t pract ically off the fast idle, which I know The KTM and BMW Megamot:o 5erie§ Coming soon to a racetrack near you The new 950 5upe rMoto has been cre ate d in the oppos ite way fro m normal KT M pr actice. whe re it's the custom to deve lop each new custome r mode l in racing before putting it into production , complet e with the be nefits of lessons lear ned in the w hite heat of com pet ition. This time around, it's the st reet bike w hich com es first, followed by the racer - even tho ugh as of yet there's no cat egory of racing cateri ng for 950cc V-tw in supe rmoto dirt rod s. Solution : l et's create on e! "Together with BMW we are wo rking on a co nce pt which will , see both our com panies' big twi n-cylinde r bike s competing together in a serie s we 'r e calling Megamot o," KTM boss Stefan Piere r reveal s. "It'll be a mixtu re of supermoto and a little bit of road racing, whic h we foresee taking place at major events like Mot oGP or World Super bike, or even a Form ula I GP - it needs to be part of a bigger program, and I suppose for BMW w ill re place their Boxer 14 NOVEMBER 17,2004 • CYCLE NEWS fro m riding an Adventure with the same engine and mapp ing but fitted w ith the rev counte r absent from the Supe rMoto's minimalist dash (digital speedo, Cup se ries, which they 've run success fullyfor the past few years . We'll need racetracks like Assen or Hockenheim, or eve ntually Daytona, which have a litt le bit of space to run this in but with specta to r viewing facilitie s. W e' ll start off the serie s in just the centra l Euro pean co untries, like Au stria, Ger many, Sw itzerland , maybe France and Italy,as well as the Benelux regio n. Then, if it works o ut okay, we'll take in Great Britain and hopefullyexport it to the USA but it ail depends on how the co ncep t develops. The plans are still coming together, but the serie s will definitely take place in 2006, w ith maybe a coup le of introd ucto ry races in the second half of next year to help us under stand bette r wha t we nee d to do to put on a good show. It sho uld be fun!" KTM's 9S0 Super Moto project leader, Philipp Habsburg, is already working on a race version of the SM950, wh ich will take shape over the winter and undergo testing next spring. once the street versio n of the bike is up and running off the KTM production lines. "We' ll give it a litt le more perfo rmance, but not a lot - 98 bhp is quite enough for you to have fun w ith and please the crowd by hanging the rear w heel out on the tarmac, " he smiles. And expect a racer-with-Iights further down the line , once the Megamoto series takes off. It's the KTM way! 40th Anniversary thanks to a smooth, very progressive dutch whose light action and untiring operation is an object lesson to Ducati - feeding liquid power fast and progressively until about halfway through the powerband, I'm guessing at the 5000 rpm mark. That's when the KTM really takes off, and there's a burst of extra acce leration up to what the spec sheet says is the 7000 rpm peak torque mark (w he re 66.5 ft.-Ibs. of torque is o n tap) and beyond. Though t he reduced inertia of the lightweight l C8 engine internals (see Technical Side bar) allows it to pick up e ngine speed ve ry qUickly, the SM950 has a wide spread of torque , w hich means it'll take almost any gear you choose, though in prac tice you'll end up using the fast , clean-sh ifting, six-speed gearbox's quite close ly spaced ratios to kee p short-shifting in success ion to ride the torque curve, getting quite a buzz as you keep throwing gears at it, SMstyle. A figurative buzz, that is fo r unlike the prototype Super Duke mo dels I've been riding in both 950 and 990 guise for the past two years, there 's no trace of undue vibration through the seat and foo trests on the 950 SuperMoto meaning Halbsburg and his team have done their duty inquellingthe vibes. "We 've alte red the weig hts of the tw in counterbalancers on this 2005 -model e ngine and changed their inclination to eac h other to alter the phasing," Habsburg says. "I think it's come ou t quite w ell!" I'd say so - and the resu lt is an untiring, pleasant ride to spe nd a day aboard. And thanks to the agile handling and responsive steering, aided by the com pacted mass , narrow build and light weight of the lCa motor, it seems more like a single to ride than a twi n - that is, until you come to twist the throttle! The 950 Supe rMoto carries the same mechan ical package as its Adventu re co unterpart, even to the extent of retai ning the same 43mm Keihin 01 carbs rathe r than adopting the Keihin EFI of the mo re potent 990 Super Duke. "The 120-bhp, 999cc lCS motor is our dedicated fuel-injection engine for the time being," Halbsburg says, "and having take n the decision to use the less powerful 98-bhp, 942cc version in the SuperMo to, on the grounds that you can't really ride a quite tall Nalked bike like this at more than I 10 mph without being very uncomfortable, we therefore retained for the time being the carburetors fitted to the dirt bike. But for the 2007 model year, we will have to fit fuel injection to

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