VOLUME ISSUE NOVEMBER , P 7 7
to the tank is the same concept,
but it's completely different and
not interchangeable with our
old fuel tank fuel pump. We've
kept the fuel injectors the same,
but they're now working at their
maximum capacity."
R A C E R T E S T I N G +
I've gotten to do a lot of cool gigs
in my time at this magazine, but
I've never done a press launch
that doubled as a race meeting.
Such was the case at the
2023 Barber Vintage Festival,
where Joe and Brittany Kar
-
vonen, Krämer CEO Markus
Krämer, and lead engineer Felix
Richter handed me my own GP2
890 RR for four days.
Racing and testing are two
historically different things be
-
cause as soon as you see a guy
in front of you, racing always,
always takes precedence over
testing, but it did give me a lot
of track time to experience what
the RR was capable of.
If you read my test from 2020
on the 890 R Krämer, you'll
know how impressed I was. A
purpose-built race bike is al
-
ways preferable to a production
machine, and the 890 R was as
sharp a tool as I'd ridden since
I tested a Moto2 bike at Phillip
Island in 2011. Fast forward
to the 890 RR and things were
ratcheted up somewhat.
The most obvious of which
is the engine. Far from being a
slightly worked street bike mo
-
tor, this RR's heart is much more
adept at track torture than its
predecessor. There's far more
midrange torque, so much so
that we kept lowering the gear
-
ing further and further to keep
the motor in its beefy torque
happy spot for the tight last sec-
tor of the Barber lap.
However, you can now wind
the motor right out to the
10,500-rpm limiter, and it'll
make power almost all the way
through the rev range, whereas
the hard action limiter on the
890 R was something you des-
perately wanted to avoid run-
ning into. This makes for a more
flexible motor, one you don't
have to be quite on your toes
with, compared to the 890 R.
Likewise, the quickshifter. I
didn't get along with the hair-
trigger quickshifter of the 890
R (like many a customer, it
turns out), but the unit on the
890 RR is a far nicer, smoother
setup. You're still mated to the
standard 890 Duke gearbox and
need to be a bit careful of your
shifts, but this is one of the big
improvements of the bike.
As is the overall electronics
package. The Mectronik MKE7
ECU, with its nine-stage traction
control system, was light years
ahead of the 890 R, which didn't
really have any TC to speak of. I
was hindered a little in that the
wheelie control algorithm wasn't
ready yet, so the electronics
would cut the wheelie thinking it
was the traction control, which
meant I couldn't carry a nice lit
-
tle floating wheelie to maximize
acceleration. This will be fixed
for the production machine, so
don't worry if you plan to throw
down your hard-earned money.
As good as the new motor is,
the shining star of the Krämer
package is still that stunning
chassis. I don't know about you,
but going around corners fast
has always been more interest
-
ing to me than pinning it down
a straight, and here, the Krämer
has almost no competition.
Mission control for the Krämer GP2 890 RR is the five-inch AIM
MXS1.3 dash with a built-in lap timer and pairs with the Mectronik
MKE7 ECU that provides all data logging opportunities.
