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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/270748
INTERVIEW RED BULL KTM'S KEN ROCZEN P76 too, and did a lot of winning, es- pecially early in the year. But he started to struggle a lot later in the series, and it seemed as if it had to do with his fitness, be- cause he was fading late in the second motos especially. While he admits he wasn't in the kind of shape he could have been in, which led to him teaming up with Aldon Baker, he doesn't believe that was the main reason for his late-season fades. "What also played a big role was that I wasn't happy with the bike, at all," Roczen said. "So, that was not the first year that happened, but it just got to a point where it was really hard for me to put in time on the bike. I really just struggled after a while. It got too hard and it was not fun and stuff like that. So that was the main reason why everything translated to being me not hav- ing 100-percent good training. I faded in the motos. It just got to be too much. "It [the bike] was beating me up too much, but I also mean, because I wasn't that happy, it was very hard for me to put in mo- tos and keep myself fit," Roczen said. "Because it's already hard enough when you have fun and you like your bike. So, if that's not the case, then it makes every- thing double hard. And everybody is going fast out there, you know? And I'm pretty sure they have a lot on their plate too. I started off re- ally good, even though, I'm not the kind of guy that when I'm not happy with something and I do good, I'm not the kind of guy that all of a sudden says, 'Oh, every- thing is cool. Everything is nice.' It just didn't work out that great." Roczen tried to push through all of that, but as he said, it just got to be too much. But normally, Roczen isn't all that sensitive to setup, unlike his teammate and multi-time champ Ryan Dungey. "I mean, I want my stuff to be good and then I'll just run it," Roc- zen said. "Like every time I come in, I tell them, 'no changes.' I just don't think it's good to change too much. If there's something a little off, maybe a little tweak- ing on there, sure, but I mean [Dungey] is literally every single practice, he comes in and it's a click away and this is low and this is high and this is weird. I just leave it alone. And if I don't feel that comfortable, I blame it on myself and I'll just keep the bike the way it is. Because every time you change something, it reacts different, so that's not going to PHOTOGRAPHY KTM IMAGES/SIMON CUDBY He says there will be more of this. We don't doubt him.