The suspension action is very plush but still quite bottom resistant. I felt it used a lot of the travel, a lot of the time, but then I’ m much heavier than Tommy. For Auckland locals it is set-up like a Riverhead bike versus a Woodhill machine. For out-of-towners that means the suspension is set to favour tree roots and the like at the expense of bigger hits. Considering Tommy’ s lighter weight, his 300 EXC suspension will be plush, but, most importantly, very comfortable and, therefore, not fatiguing over long races, and yet it’ s plenty capable of absorbing the big stuff when necessary, making it a confident and competent package. The front brake is the usual KTM fare, which means it is class leading and has been for many years. It’ s light to use, strong on stopping power and have excellent feel with decent pad life. Out back the rear has a smaller diameter disc than most Japanese brand ones and I think slightly lacking in feel and strength by comparison. However the trade-off is that being smaller, it’ s less vulnerable to track side damage, while performing almost as well. In general these are very fine stoppers. So overall this is a quality machine in all regards. KTM’ s slogan of‘ Ready to Race’ is accurate and as a company their dirt-bikes show the most uncompromising focus to racing for a production machine of all the brands. And it’ s fair to say that while TPI might be the latest and greatest, and all the rage at the moment, the carb is not dead quite yet.
38 KIWI RIDER