Big bad BARRY ASHENHURST has
just spent two days with the latest KTM 300 EXC. Now he wants one of the damn
things. Settle down Baz, the budget's not that good at AMT...
We've done a lot of beedling
around in the dirt lately and the latest beedle was on KTM's 300 EXC, a bike
that for years topped the best-seller lists and that still has everything a high
performance two-stroke is supposed to deliver. The 300 EXC is quick, nimble, it
goes where you point it, has terrific brakes and it looks cool.
I know all this because I rode
the 300 during a two-day standup comedy routine with Mick Wharton's KTM Trail
Tours, 48 hours of raucous misbehaviour, calculated risk, stonkin' great hills,
the odd grog or two, and plenty of practice in laughing at other peoples'
misfortunes. Mick has a helmet-mounted crash cam that records every bloop and
trail blunder, a bonus that makes very amusing entertainment when replayed in
the pub and 300 shit-faced strangers get the chance to laugh their guts out
while spilling high-octane booze all over you.
But back to the bike. The KTM
300 EXC has been a favourite with Aussie dirt riders for a long time. Itıs
always been a potent enduro bike but trail riders have gone for it too, because
itıs versatile as well as potent. The 300 has had to evolve though, mainly to
keep pace with the growing preference for more race-oriented bikes. Some of the
changes not listed in the brochure are very welcome indeed, like the chain
adjustment marks on the swingarm, while others merely confirm that this is a
very well-designed package. Another thing we'd like to praise KTM for is the EXC
owners' manual. If NASA sold rockets they could base the owners' manual on this
one. It's a ripper.
Basically, the 300 EXC is
everything you'd expect in a classic race/trail bike. It's slim, light (about
110kg fuelled), highly manoeuvrable and certainly fast enough to get your
attention. The adjustable, though non-tapered handlebars are first class, the
iddy-biddy instrument pack is functional and easy to read if a tad optimistic
with an upper limit of 180km/h the switchgear is small and well designed and the
blinkers are tiny little things that won't snap off when you drop the bugger on
a downhill run through the rock garden.
RACE OR TRAIL Unlike some bike makers who switch suspension suppliers every second summer, KTM
has stuck with WP (because it owns it.) The principle advantage of this
arrangement is that KTMs now run a no-linkage shock setup that is both a
brilliant piece of work needing very little maintenance, and every bit as good
as the linkage-type shocks on Japanese dirt bikes. Our tester, former national
enduro champ Dave Cocking, said the current PDS shock is far less sensitive to
initial ride height settings than it was a year or so ago and performs extremely
well over rough terrain at high speed: "The fork is real plush and progressive,
so there's very little you'd have to do to this bike if you want to race it."
Or do anything else with it. The
300 might take some getting used to if you've spent a lot of time on
four-strokes the first time I rode it I hated it like a toothache but the
break-in period was certainly worth it.
After a few excursions on my own
turf it started to dawn on me that the KTM's neutral handling and wonderfully
accurate steering make it a real fun thing to ride, once you come to grips with
the two-stroke characteristics.
Its responsive chassis and easy
direction changes enable you to do things you might think twice about on a
heavier and less agile machine, especially in tight or gnarly terrain where more
mass could make a mess.
In the old days, when bin Laden
was probably a German beer and viruses couldn't crap in your hard drive, the KTM
300 EXC had a grunty engine that produced enduro-style power. It was a tough
bike but not difficult to ride.
Back then the 300 had torque at
low revs. It still has torque at low revs, but all that evolving has turned the
297cc engine into a more motocross-style powerplant with a BFM (Big Fat
Midrange) and a top-end that tends to drop off at the extreme end of the rev
range, although experts are the only ones likely to complain about that. The new
300 feels more like a 250, which means the power is snappier and more
aggressive.
That's okay for hotshots but for
average blokes it makes the bike more difficult to ride in slippery conditions,
especially if your tyres have degenerated into O-rings. If the ground is loamy
and offers good traction, like a nice Thumper layout before 200 bikes turn up
for practice, the 300 will hook up and deliver and give you the ride of your
life, but on mega-dry hardpack where traction is iffy, the 300 leaves tracks
like a snake on sand and you need really good clutch and throttle control to
manage the wheelspin.
I guess it all comes down to
whether or not you like two-strokes. Some guys like sidewinding and some donıt.
One thing's for sure, though. If you dig old-fashioned two-stroke power and like
to slash and burn your way through Sunday afternoons, this thing has the engine
to make it happen.