Since my XR is is not with me I had to make the last rides of the season 2017 with my KTM. And since I’m a married man nowadays I needed to add the passengers footpegs and go for a 2-up-ride. It’s quite crazy thing to do with this KTM 690 Enduro -but it wasn’t so bad after all!
First we stopped at small pond in the forest. You can’t see it from this picture but it actually has a little bit ice on the surface!
This was in the beginning of november and we already had some snow here and there!
But the nature is still very beautiful and it calms your mind to ride in the middle of Finnish forest.
This is Sjunby Castle and rapids in Siuntio. We visited grocery store hear nearby and bought some sausages to grill them on the Sandfjärden beach in Kopparnäs.
This time of the year there’s no-one else in these places so we really enjoyed our time!
After a couple of hours it was time to ride back home. The darkness comes so early! But we still had some nice places to stop and take pictures!
My wife had 1 very important job while sitting on the backseat of KTM! She had be the rearfender and take all the water-mud-dirt to her back. I think she did quite well!!
And then it was the laundry time!
dirt bike
The temperature went down for easter! It was something like -5 during the night and didn’t go up more than close to zero in the daytime. But still we desided to take a ride!
This is my first time to the top of the sandpit wall! I’ve tried it maybe two times before in this place, but now finally I made it!
In this same video I almost fell in good speed because the ground is frozen and I loose control of the rear wheel! You can see this in 09:35.
The second video is from Rausjärvi:
This same road I rode a day before and it was much more soft. Now the cold weather and the frozen ground made it quite easy.
Third video is a fast gravelroad from Ahonpää (Nummi-Pusula) to Antiainen (Karkkila):
Next video is 4 bikes going over the stream in Lammassaari:
I also made a short video to IG just a few minutes before:
And for the last I was shooting a video when my battery died, this was in Karkkila:
And finally one of my friends had a helmetcamera too and he desided to make a collection from yesterday. This is fun to watch!
Thanks Ville for the video!!
Yesterday it was local Ducati dealers season start with the possibility to take a ride with new models of 2017. I was interested mainly about this new Desert Sled and its OffRoad possibilities.
But the bike is big! When you sit on it, you’ll not feel it could be an easy ride in a difficult surface. It is also very heavy bike! It’s over 200kg with gasoline in the tank. And with roadsize tyres it could not be enjoyable ride in a rocky or very soft (soil & mud) surface!
Riding in the streets with it the experience is much more nice! The engine has nice power from the low rpm and the suspension is nicely stiff even with the heavy guy like me.
The same suspension feels too tight in the offroad and it has no settings to change.
The bike has tyres that gives you an idea that it would be a nice ride in unpaved roads. And it could be like that as long as the road is in good condition. The worse the surface of the road gets more uncomfortable this bike is (I think). The whole bike is more like a show off to your friends and other riders -so that they could think you’re somekind of real adventure rider. But you’re not.
Engine is soft and it has no soul. Where’s the spirit of Ducati V2???
RallyRaid products makes nice additional tanks for KTM 690 Enduro. I bought one for my bike last autumn but it took too long for me install this to my bike. Now I finally did it!
At first I removed the rear fairing… As you can see my bike is totally dirty!
Then I needed to empty the fueltank, so I needed to lift the airfilter box a little bit up so I could detach the fuelpipe.
Then using the bikes own fuelpump I removed the fuel. I had too much gasoline in my tank (about 8 litres!)
When the tank is empty I could start to remove the fuelpump from the bottom of the tank.
I only needed to take the pump out from the tank, remove the wires and then I could add this fuel connector adapter to the bottom of the fuelpump.
Then I needed to drill the holes to rear fairing (18mm) and start install the rear rack. This rack has the new bolts that will go throught the holes in the fairing for the proper installation.
After the rack is installed it’s time for the additional tank itself.
I was lucky with my miniblinkers that I installed last autumn. They are in perfect position and I didn’t have to change anything!
My bike is missing the passenger footrests so I needed to make an contemporary ironbar to keep the the tank still.
Here the bike is ready:
But still very dirty… So finally I washed the bike!
And finally I got the chance to test my bags I bought last autumn. These are from Poland (check: http://www.xcountry.pl). I will also try these in real action and I will make tours that will take many days!
I can’t wait to hit the gravelroads and tracks!
I bought this KTM about year ago. I have almost zero experience of changing tyres but now I’m going to learn this! Just because these enduro-bikes eats the tyres so quickly I need to change them even 2-3 times per year. First I needed to get my bike back to the garage:
I have MB Sprinter as my working car and I can easily fit my bike in there!
Front rim was removed in about 10 minutes!
And rear was removed 5 minutes later.
I’ve seen it done many times so maby I could say that I have quite a lot of experience! But I didn’t do it myself ever! This was now my first time! Tomorrow I will have new tyres in my bike and the trails are calling again!
Soon all the snow will be gone! And I haven’t done almost anything to my KTM yet. Ok, yesterday I did install the protection shield by touratech under the engine, but it was easy installation!
Then today I was at the garage again and desided to take a short ride even there’s some ice and snow on the road! I rode about 5-600 meters and took one short video of the sounds. Remember it has the LeoVince silencer now!
Before the season really starts I still need to install the extra tank. After that the bike is ready for all the adventures to come… in the season 2017!
Today I took a ride with some best paths I know nearby. Temperature was +3 c but I had enough clothes and didn’t feel cold at all.
Here’s some videos from todays rides:
This path is only 7km’s away from my home!
In this path I meet some moosehunters but they say that they’re on the break so it’s no problem that I’m riding here…
Here I take a detour to the forest.
These paths goes very near to Turku higway and under it.
The longest video I took today. With some quite hard part in 17:00.
This is from the sand-pit in Ojakkala.
Here in 03:10 I try to make a jump from the small sand-pit but I fail. Then I’ll try to do it again, still too slow speed but I made it all the way up.
This is mainly gravel, with a shortcut path to another gravel…
This is a sandpit very near to Myllylampi (Vihti) and then a path just beside a railroad.
Again a sandpit (This one is in Lohja) and there’s a motocross track too. After that some forestroad with nice speed.
This is a nice path under the powerline.
And another path under the powerline.
Then finally some paths very close to my home.
Eli soratiet Kirkkonummella.
I live in the city (municipality) called Kirkkonummi. Here are some possible gravel roads to ride with motorcycle (if you like that stuff!?) These are the ones with no dead-end, so you can actually continue riding without turning back. This is map part 1:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YLJ-tpXfA4TDCePogyMZ72qw7P4&usp=sharing
And here is map part 2:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=15jh647UQ6s3biW98g_sS58UE1qI&usp=sharing
Some more roads actually goes out of the Kirkkonummi. But these few roads gives a somekind of possibility to practice riding in the gravelroad.
KTM 690 Enduro is 1 cylinder engine with quite nice power, easy to ride in almost everywhere! It has some vibration in the handlebar but it doesn’t bother me -So I desided to try my Sony 4k-camera in it.
But oh no… It just doesn’t work! The vibration makes the camera shake, rattle and roll (it makes the resonance depending the rpm of the engine), and in some parts it’s very disturbing watch the video! But then again in some parts of the video the picture is quite ok!
This is the first video of the routes I rode yesterday. Second video here:
Maybe one ore two still more to come…
Last sunday we had a groupride. I had a message that if you have ordinary streettyres you can manage this trip (in the gravel roads)… and we had quite interesting riders and bikes!
This was Aprilia Mille with Pirelli Supercorsa!
Then there was BMW F800ST with Continental Road Attack and Yamaha Tracer with Pirelli Road Pilot. And we had a few surprises in the route!
That’s me with my KTM 690 Enduro! There was a river going over the road but luckily it was only about 15-20 cm’s deep water. So everyone rode over it! Last attempt was with the BMW F800ST:
In the picture the water looks much deeper because the bike makes a wave… But we got all over it quite easily. This was so much fun!!
GoZa Mite 