Dakar Rally 24

This page will detail the plans and mods for the Rally bike, that I’ll need to plan this year to buy and mod next year (2011). Scroll down for latest updates: 

Original jan/Feb 2010 post: 

The plan for 2010 is to buy a practise bike! My bike as stolen 7 months ago and this kind of limits the training and experience required for the Dakar Rally! 

I had a great KTM 300EXC-E  an electric start 2 stroke that had loads of torque so it could be ridden like a 4 stroke bt was as light as a two-stroke (until I put a larger 13l tank on it anyway!  

A stock 300exc-e

Although the KTM 300 was great, it was pretty potent (being the largest capacity 2 stroke you can get!) and could be tiring at the end of 3 hours (well all right about and hour and a half if I’m honest!) So I had thought about getting a Husaberg 390  – it’s had great reviews and is meant to be more manageable and the ultimate club class weapon. 

But then Martin contacted me saying he may be able to get a good deal at the other extreme – a brand new Kawasaki KX450! An ultimate motocross weapon and probably the most powerful in the class! But it can be adapted to enduro (or cross country/XC closed courses not on roads) quite easily and if it was good enough for Britain’s number one – David Knight then it might be good enough for me? 

But KTM remains the most supported bike for rallying (with Yamaha being a close second) and as all the Dakar bikes will be limited to 450cc from next year this makes the KTM 400EXC a prime candidate, as bar the piston size it’s identical to the 450 which would allow me to get to know the mechanics of the 450 but have a more manageable 400 for hare and hounds events in the meantime.  

So let me know what you think and stay tuned to see what comes out on top! 

Update 18/03/10 – Desert Rose to the Rescue! 

After coming back from the Desert Rose Riding Academy in Malaga I spent the first week or two of March looking for bikes and couldn’t find any late (2008/2009) second hand wrf450s or KTMs without buying new 2009 models from dealers (way too expensive at £5,700!). 

But a call to Zippy about enduro dates a couple of weeks ago, let me know that Patsy was selling a couple of the school bikes. A quick phone call later and i had bought a lovely 2009 KTM400exc! Well I think it’s lovely – I still haven’t seen it yet! It was a very quick deal and should be good a being a school bike ‘it’s been dropped more than revved’ and well looked after mechanically with a reasonable 30hours on the clock it should be good! 

The Desert Rose Riding Academy 400s at rest

Collecting it hasn’t been nearly as easy as buying it – Patsy had to prepare the bike (smarten it up with original plastics and make sure it was ready to go) before setting off to support 12 riders (12!) on the Tuareg Rally. I had to sort out some transport  – i.e. my trailer (converted from a BT utilities transit van/truck it’s a large box van with bench, light, and gas hobs! ideal for biking but heavy for a little FRV!) 

I haven’t used it for biking as I kept my bike with Martin at Trail and Offroad and consequently has been full up of stuff/junk/household bits and bobs (running machine, bikes, inflatable spas! etc) trouble is I didn’t have anywhere to unload it as my garage was full up of stuff/junk/household bits and bobs (more bikes, camping stuff, ski/motorbike/car kit and portable spas! etc). So I bit the bullet and spent about 10 hours last Saturday clearing and sorting  – I didn’t manage to get rid of anything ! But did manage to rack it and make more space (to fill with stuff from the trailer ) but now I have a nice empty trailer  

Only trouble is last time I used the trailer I tried to tow it without hitching it up properly and found that an electric lead and break away  safety cable won’t pull a tonne of trailer! (as it went grinding to halt in the middle of the road after I pulled out of my house in busy traffic!)  So I had to re-wire the 7pin trailer plug but didn’t have much luck as none of the lights seemed to work when it was connected. So this week I took it to a garage (handy local garage where you can drop off/pick up out of hours) who gave it the once over  – only to then tell me that they didn’t fix it as they needed the car to re-wire it! Very dubious – I’m sure they could have re-wired a standard connection mapping, but didn’t so I have to do this again myself tonight.  If I can get the trailer working tonight I can pick up the bike tomorrow night and do my first event of the season on Sunday!

Update 25/03/10 – Pick up! 

I eventually picked up the bike on Saturday the 20th , meeting Paty’s husband Clive (and getting some good advice on the Heroes Legent Rally which follows the traditional Paris to Dakar route -worth considering for a practise in Ocotber!) The bike looked great – very good nick with new plastics etc and as Patsy had promised ready to race at the CEC hare and hounds the next day!

The new KTM400XCE being blessed from above!

The only issue was strapping it down in the trailer as I had managed to lock my straps in a draw in the trailer and only had a couple of dodgy straps and with a rogue clothes dryer in the back of the trailer moving around it’s no wonder I found it a bit askew at the petrol station half way home!

So it was ready to race and performed well on Sunday (see main page for write up), I won’t be adding too much after market kit unless things break or need specific adaptions for rallies or events (I don’t go for shiny farkly stuff), I thought I maybe adding a bigger (clear) tank  but having completed the 2.5hour CEC hare and hounds without hitting reserve I may not need to! I will think about getting the suspension sorted though as these are set up for some ridiculous weight of about 12stone (168 pounds/76kgs) instead of my 16.5 stone (231 pounds/105kgs race weight) and it’s meant to make a big differene. Although I’m not sure I’m good enough to recognise the diference we’ll see!