Sunday, December 2, 2018

KTM ULTIMATE RACE, Park City, Utah

KTM's annual rally took place this year in beautiful Park City, Utah. A first for the event, this year featured "The Ultimate Race" - a qualifier for a special 790 class in the upcoming Merzouga Rally in Morocco. I showed up with a KTM 1090 Adventure R and a notebook to get an impression of the event from a rider's perspective. A fun and often challenging course, the event was very well received, and I'd guess the first of more to come.




Story appears in the 2019 July/August issue of Roadrunner magazine:



Two key features of the qualifier were a timed special test on a short enduro course, and a timed wheel swap on a KTM 1290 R.



A fresh Konflict Motorsports suspension rebuild arrived two days before I had to leave for Utah, so buttoned up the bike and got one quick local shakedown ride in before aiming north.




TKC70 tires were definitely not the correct choice for an event like this, so I swapped out for some Goldentyre GT723s on the way to Utah.



Trail Tech's Voyager Pro and Garmin's 276Cx were run in tandem for navigation. An interesting test of two very different GPS units.


A very fun time. Looking forward to more events like this in the future!