Beyond The Pavement

By Heather Wilson

My Friday morning at the 2017 KTM Adventure Rider Rally in Crested Butte, Colo., started with a new experience: throwing a leg over a KTM 1090 Adventure, but not at the controls. I was riding two-up, and I was a bit nervous.

Not because of the operator. It was Paul Krause, three-time Baja 1000 and five-time Baja 500 winner, two-time Dakar finisher and 10-time ISDE participant.

We were on the Ohio Mill route, 67 miles long and rated by the organizers as “medium” difficulty. It was exhilarating, to say the least. It started with flowing dirt roads out of Mount Crested Butte, Colo. Then we got to the “hero loop,” where riders could challenge themselves.

Let’s just say the rain the day before greatly changed the traction on the hill.

Several riders had to stop and unmount their front fenders because the clearance was not enough to let the mud to fly out. It packed the fender and locked the wheel.

Half of the group rerouted, and those who made it up the hill continued on the route. If you were lucky enough to reach the top of the hill, there was a breathtaking view of mountains in the distance.

Sure, I was anxious, but it was also fun and exciting. We were traversing the unknown and getting through relatively unscathed—in a word, it was “adventure.”

Rally Of The Orange Bleeders

I’ve never seen such a sea of orange adventure bikes like the one at the 2017 KTM Adventure Rider Rally.

Nearly 400 avid motorcyclists—yes, some on brands other than KTM—participated in the 14th annual rally in September.

I ride a KTM 250 Freeride R and a KTM 390 Duke. But, at 5 feet 6 inches, I didn’t feel tall enough or strong enough to handle the KTM Adventure with no prior experience on bigger bikes in such challenging terrain.

Still, I was looking forward to taking in the landscape of Colorado from the passenger seat.

“Adventure riding is mostly for bikes 640cc and up, with larger fuel capacity,” said Mark Hyde, KTM Ride Orange Manager and former International Six Days Enduro competitor. “It’s meant for riders who want to get out and cover big distances, but who still want to get into the back-country and actually hit some trails.”

Hyde said adventure bikes are the Swiss army knife of motorcycles, because you get to ride a little of everything.

“With the introduction of the 950 Adventure bike and the Dakar Rally, we wanted to do something for our adventure customers,” Hyde said. “This was how the rider rally was born. Every year, we have gone some place different. Crested Butte is the first location we made a return visit to.”

KTM uses the Rever mobile phone app to map the routes in advance. Riders can download the app, search “KTM Adv” in the communities and view all the routes. At the event, participants could follow the GPS route on their own or participate in a guided ride led by pros like Krause, Mike Lafferty, Taylor Robert, Ronnie Renner or Quinn Cody.

“Usually we work with a local KTM dealer or one of our many KTM friends that live in the area and have local knowledge,” Hyde said. “Then we come out and pre-ride things to check it out. We also check out hotels, camping, catering and things like that.”

The event also featured demo rides, vendors and riding school workshops. Additionally, breakfast was hosted every morning, and an awards dinner was held Saturday night that included some fun awards, such as “The Voyager,” “The Tourist” and “The Kurt Caselli Superman Award.”

Adventure For Two

For those who think passengers at an adventure rally just casually ride on the pillion seat, taking in the scenery—they’re wrong.

I was holding onto the passenger handgrips with quite a bit of force, bracing myself for the bumps and leaning with the bike, trying to be the very best passenger I could. My arms and shoulders were exhausted after each day.

In some ways, riding passenger is more challenging than being at the controls because the muscles you rely on are untested, and for inexperienced passengers, there’s little muscle memory to make the necessary movements automatic.

With this in mind, we headed northwest out of Mount Crested Butte on the Paradise Basin route.

Also rated “medium,” this route was much rockier, but the gravel and dirt roads traversed fields of grazing cattle—sometimes cattle even got onto the road—and switch-backs up and down the sides of mountains. I confess to a twinge of fear looking over the edge of the cliff at times.

Getting Technical

Friday night, KTM held a technical seminar led by Hyde, Robert, Cody and Lafferty.

“Besides being a professional adventure bike racer, my day job is working in research and development at KTM,” Cody joked.

He talked about his experience riding a KTM 1090 adventure in Romaniacs, one of the premier extreme-enduro style events held in Romania each year since 2004.

“Our No. 1 concern was overheating,” Cody said. “We took the standard air box out, removed the front portion of the fairing to be able to fill the radiator on the trail, and richened the fuel mixture so it would run a little bit cooler.”

He added that while the bikes use the stock WP suspension, they did change the valving, put narrower rims on the bike and added a skid plate. Seat Concepts made a low seat, so he would be able to paddle through the really nasty stuff.

“We needed to figure out where to put the ropes,” Cody said. “There were times we spent 30 to 40 minutes with guys pulling the bike up the hill. We changed one clutch pack. It shows what a good, solid platform this bike is.”

Cody answered questions from attendees about the specs of the KTM 1090 Adventure and shared some tips about setup.

“Wide rally pegs allow you to steer the bike more with your feet,” Cody said “And the KTM dongle easily saves your settings for the modes.”

Lafferty, an eight-time AMA National Enduro champion and the current KTM Ride Orange event coordinator, shared his experience riding the same model in a national enduro in 2017.

Robert, an extreme-enduro and off-road racer, discussed his experience racing the International Six Days Enduro.

Day 2: Heartrate Check

On Saturday, I rode two-up with Patrick Garrahan, four-time AMA District 36 champion and nine-time ISDE competitor, who earned four gold, three silver and one bronze medal. He is currently a district sales manager for KTM.

We rode the Schofield Pass route that was 82 miles and rated “hard.”

Riding this route alone would have been hard enough, needing to stand and balance in tough sections. Riding two-up was an added challenge for the operator.

Garrahan navigated several rock beds traversing the mountains.

When I say “rocks,” I’m not talking dirt road with gravel. I’m talking 6- to 12-inch rocks spread across the path.

At times, I felt my heart was about to beat out of my chest. His route selection was amazing, yet terrifying—hugging the edge of the cliff, with what I’m sure was a drop-off hundreds of feet down.

We saw several rivers and waterfalls during the ride, even a historic mill constructed in 1893 in Crystal, Colo.

Day 3: Easing Back into Reality

On the final day, the morning started with the “Adventure Games.”

The games of balance and slow-speed maneuvers in the parking lot were organized by Jimmy Lewis, a member of the winning 1991 U.S. ISDE Junior Team and long-time motorcycle journalist.

Lewis also offered riding schools throughout the weekend, teaching techniques to handle the larger adventure bikes.

After the competition, riders once again saddled up to tackle more Colorado terrain.

Cody was the third pro I rode two-up with during the weekend.

We set out on the Taylor Park route, a 93-mile course, and ventured off on some OHV trails along the way.

It was an intimate group for the last ride of the weekend, as many riders were beginning their journeys home. Seeing the vast and varying terrain certainly made me take a moment to evaluate and appreciate life.

Riding along, the stress and noise of life just faded away. It was totally serene.

Toward the end of the day, “reality” began to set back in. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we lived in a fantasy world and could ride our motorcycles every day?

Fellow Riders

Talking with the participants throughout the weekend was refreshing. It was great to meet so many men and women from across the country who love to ride, live for adventure and enjoy sharing their experiences with others.

Eighteen-year AMA member Gary Forster of Shedd, Ore., said he’s attended the rally for many years and made the trek with a group of eight guys.

“My favorite part is meeting all of the people,” Forster said. “I don’t think we’ve met an arrogant person here the whole week.”

Ron Lemaster of Bartersville, Ind., an AMA Charter Life Member and six-time ISDE participant in the 1970s, agreed that meeting the people was one of the best aspects of the rally.

“We just want to make sure we have a great location and awesome riding,” Hyde said. “If you have that, everything else just seems to fall into place. The support from everyone at KTM is a big part of this, as is getting our pro riders to the event. It adds something special that no one else has and the vendor support is also amazing.”

Get Involved!

If you have an adventure bike or want to get started in adventure riding, you can find rides throughout the year by attending one (or all, if you like a challenge) of the KTM AMA National Adventure Riding Series events. Visit www.americanmotorcyclist.com/Riding/Adventure-Riding.

And check out the KTM AMA National Adventure Riding Series promo video on YouTube: Search “American Motorcyclist Association” on YouTube or go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOcb244EK4k.