VOLUME 58 ISSUE 47 NOVEMBER 23, 2021 P87
in love with it as their own race
bike. It's that easy to ride. And ride
fast. It oozes speed. It wants to go
fast, faster, fastest until it needs to
stop. And then it stops fast, too.
It's crazy like that.
Ben Kelley's Factory KTM
motor is not making a lot more
horsepower than a stock 350. I'm
not a dyno and I don't care about
HP numbers that much anyway,
but on the dirt, the bike is clearly
delivering power more efficiently
and propelling the bike through the
woods more effectively than the
stocker. It's smooth, in a word, on
acceleration with a building surge
of mid-to-top power that is a beauti-
ful enhancement of a 350's natural
power curve. I didn't feel a spike
or hit anywhere. This was a lot like
Knight's 450 of the past. His bike
was so smooth, it was deceptive.
Kelley's bike fit that bill, too.
Ergonomically, Kelley's bike is
a little stretched out for me. He's
over six feet tall and has bigger feet
than my size 10s. So, his footpegs
are lower and pushed back and his
seat is taller than stock. That's the
only thing that felt a little awkward
to me, so I put the stock seat on
for the race. His handlebar posi-
tion, lever angles, and all that highly
personalized stuff was easy for me
to ride with right off the stand.
One of the hardest things to
get and get working right, besides
a factory motor—which you can't
get—is suspension. And with KTM's
WP Pro Components suspension
bits, you can buy them, but they are
expensive. And then you need to
communicate with the shop to set
them up for your normal person skill
level. At that point, I don't know if
you're really feeling the benefits of
the fat tubes, cone valves and fancy
clicker thingies. I've ridden a lot of
sets of WP Pro Components on a
lot of different bikes, and they can
be set up great or poorly, just like
any other set of suspension.
I asked Ben Kelley before I
rode his bike if he thought his
suspension style was stiff, soft or
The author and his
dream bike. You'd
be smiling, too,
if they gave you
permission to ride,
let alone race, this
absolute weapon
of a dirt bike
