NOT THE USUAL BIKE These days the Romaniacs field consists almost exclusively of riders astride 300cc twostroke machinery . Because Chris ’ intention for Romaniacs 2022 was never to be competitive , just to have a good bit of run and make some memories , he went old-school and took along the enduro bike he just happened to have at hand - a KTM 500 EXC-F . Yep , not only did Chris Birch win the Silver Class of Romaniacs after not even planning to be riding the class , he did it on a bike that is more likely to be found kitted up for lightweight adventure riding than taking on the Hard Enduro circuit . “ With all the time in Europe I said to KTM , ‘ Hey I need an enduro bike while I ’ m over here , can you help me out ?’ They said ‘ Sure , would you be happy with a 500 ?’ Hey , to me , so long as it was orange and an enduro bike I was happy . “ Then all of a sudden we ’ re riding this thing in Romaniacs ... okay . I was the only 500 EXC-F and I think the only four-stroke in the Silver Class .” To top things off , the big four-banger was
in mostly stock condition , with Chris only performing the basics any of us would do for a trail riding bike when it came to modifications to prepare it for Romaniacs . This meant the stock tyres were binned for a set of Chris ’ favourite Mitas tyres along with the usual basic suspension and gearing changes topped off with a gripper seat cover . “ I think KTM head office was pretty stoked with our result . KTM ’ s whole thing is Ready to Race and we did virtually no modifications to the bike ; it was essentially a stock bike . We basically got it out of the box and went racing . “ The smaller front sprocket was for the more technical riding sort of thing . But that was also a big part of trying to keep the heat out of the engine as well . One thing I was really worried about was cooking the engine and overheating the clutch . So , by really lowering the gearing quite a bit , I was able to do a lot more on the throttle and just leave the clutch alone .”
BIT OF A SLEEPER So , after seven years away from competing at Romaniacs , Birchy rocked up to the start line
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