Time to own up.

A couple of weeks ago, I sucumbed to the pressure of many of my friends who, having heard that I was looking for a bike to compete in the UK Rallies, advised me to buy a KTM. I had thought about stripping an Africa Twin, or a Transalp, or a Super Tenere down to race spec, but all I spoke to pointed out the flaws in such a plan, and suggested that a 640 Adventure would be the way to go. After a couple of weeks scouring the "For sale" ads, I found a very clean '05, which is currently sat in my garage waiting a good testing tomorrow at my local practice track.
Pics to follow.
Mark

earthmover said:

640 Adventure would be the way to go. After a couple of weeks scouring the "For sale" ads, I found a very clean '05, which is currently sat in my garage.

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Nice one.
Now you can give Denise her Honda back.
T.

Timpo said:

Nice one.
Now you can give Denise her Honda back.
T.

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about time he got a man's bike

The thing is, you both speak an element of truth.......
Mark

earthmover said:

The thing is, you both speak an element of truth.......
Mark

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And if Denise wants to go out mid week trail riding on her new bike and possibly have her photo taken give me a ring

Pics as promised





Garage is starting to feel a tad cramped now.



Both the Honda and the KTM are due to get dirty tomorrow, looking forward to it muchly.
Mark

Nice looking bike mark!



nathan

It would be my dream garage if only the 12 was a 1150 adv your a lucky man.

Looking at the KTM's do they damage easily? There seems to be alot of expensive looking plastic to knacker when you drop them and why don't TT do frames to fit their boxes to a 990?

Nice bike by the way

Trippy said:

Looking at the KTM's do they damage easily? There seems to be alot of expensive looking plastic to knacker when you drop them and why don't TT do frames to fit their boxes to a 990?

Nice bike by the way

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Unfortunately Mark tends not to drop his bikes, but if/when he does i hope to be there with the camera

If I was ever to change the 1150 I really like the look of the 990 but the above 2 reasons would put me off a bit.

Trippy said:

If I was ever to change the 1150 I really like the look of the 990 but the above 2 reasons would put me off a bit.

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There's someone, I believe off this site who makes Carbon Kevlar protectors for the bottom lobes on the fuel tank.

Ooh look what I found.

Timolgra said:

Unfortunately Mark tends not to drop his bikes, but if/when he does i hope to be there with the camera

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I do wish you hadn't said that Tim...





Not quite so clean now, is it?



Andy poking it with a pointy stick. The mud built up under the front guard and stopped the front wheel. I had been warned that this could happen, but of course, I had to go and prove it!



I am stood where the "off" started. The bike is where it ended. Yes it is now facing the wrong way.
Wet, slick clay, hard tyres, and 20psi (no rim locks yet) plus a handful of throttle. Result!



If you look carefully, you can see the gouges where the footpeg and stand have dug in. There is also a nice smooth patch where my elbow and shoulder slid along.

So we did a couple more laps of the "Enduro" loop, before heading back to the farm for a brew, and to try the MX track. We had been told that the track had been re-graded and some more mulch added, but it was in pretty poor condition. They weren't wrong! After binning it twice more, I admitted defeat and went home.



So what have I learnt? The tyres are probably OK on gravel roads, but they were less than useless on mud. Not helped by the lack of rim locks, I daren't drop the pressure too much, but I think a couple of psi would have helped. I have a Michelin Desert front and a Baja rear ready to go on, which seem a bit more aggresive.The front mudguard will definately be being replaced with a high level one very soon, the low one is probably fine in anything but thick mud, but I do expect to encounter some more of that.
The bike handled surprisingly well for all that, we were riding through a couple of the woods sections, and despite both wheels sliding, you could flick it around quite well, relatively speaking of course. Steering with the throttle round trees is an interesting experience! On some of the straights with grip I was hitting 45, and it felt very stable, but on the slick stuff it was in control of our destiny, not me. Momentum can be your friend, and your foe!
It is probably slightly too tall for me on any real tricky stuff, but I intend to try a standard seat on it before doing anything with the suspension.
Now to wash it off!
Mark

And yes, the pictures are rubbish. I forgot to change the settings on the camera.
Mark

i take it the guzzi project hasn't taken off mark?

nathan

Losttheplot said:

i take it the guzzi project hasn't taken off mark?

nathan

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I went to have a look at the Guzzi, and the Moto Morini's, but there were lots of things that I didn't really think would stand up to what I intended. It was a nice idea, but as I said in the first post, everyone suggested that the KTM would be the better bet. The fact that it has modern suspension was the main thing that swung it, it would have been a lot of work to get the older bikes as well sorted, and I'm lazy. I am a lot happier about my choice today, I was concerned that it was going to be too much of a handful, but it wasn't as bad as expected. Next trip will have to be some more technical going, and see how I fare then. Pity you live so far away, you could come and have a try.
Mark

earthmover said:

The fact that it has modern suspension was the main thing that swung it, it would have been a lot of work to get the older bikes as well sorted, and I'm lazy. I am a lot happier about my choice today, I was concerned that it was going to be too much of a handful, but it wasn't as bad as expected. Next trip will have to be some more technical going, and see how I fare then. Pity you live so far away, you could come and have a try.
Mark

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Did it feel as flightly as the enduro bikes or more stable?? Actually thats probably a bit of a difficult question to answer seeing as it doesn't look like you've found much grip and dumped the bike anyway!

Thanks for the offer of a ride, maybe take you up on it at the next rally...

nathan

Losttheplot said:

Did it feel as flightly as the enduro bikes or more stable?? Actually thats probably a bit of a difficult question to answer seeing as it doesn't look like you've found much grip and dumped the bike anyway!

Thanks for the offer of a ride, maybe take you up on it at the next rally...

nathan

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I have never really got on that well with the KTM geometry myself, I always prefered the Husaberg. KTM's always seemed a little too quick steering. This is a different kettle of fish entirely, I haven't got rake and trail figures to compare, but can pretty much confirm that it will be kicked out a lot more than the enduro models. While I was experimenting with the suspension on the roads at night, it has behaved impecably, just need to find some long gravel roads now.
Mark

That 640 is a great looking bike. I had one out on test from a dealer in London (Brackens) and I would have bought a new one but the trade in offered for the GS was just silly. I was a bit concerned about the front fender being so close. On the older models they had a high level one and only single disk. I wonder why they changed that?
Am I being daft or has there been confusion between this bike and the 990 Adv in this thread?
I went with a 950 Super enduro R in the end. Great bike but I do wonder what life would have been like on a 640 Adv. I would have loved the tank range.