HOW ABOUT ADVENTURE RIDING? There are people out there who advocate this style of enduro bike for adventure riding. I think they’ d be wasting their time( but with some caveats). I see it as an offroad race bike and an awful road bike. Sure, it’ s okay to do a few kilometres on the road, but to go any distance on it is hard work. To me, there are better choices if you want a road-going dirt / trail bike to go exploring on. Honda’ s CRF450L, for example, is hugely more refined for tarmac and gravel road work and it’ s not too bad at real off-roading either. Then there are the 690 KTM variants or the old rock-solid Suzuki DRZ400Es too. If you’ re looking for a machine to do serious kilometres exploring on, I’ d say get a twin-cylinder adventure bike. If actually trail riding off road, then stick to dirt or trail bikes. Did I race this bike in NZ Enduro as a keen competitor? The short answer is … no, but if there was a 500cc four-stroke class then perhaps I would have. For NZ conditions, which are generally very wet, I still don’ t think you can go past the much lighter two-strokes over the course of a day in tough, muddy conditions. So, that’ s about it. I loved my KTM 500 Six Days for the riding I predominately did. It’ s an awesome machine that never failed to bring a smile to my face, even though I get to test all of the latest trail and dirt weapons. It makes a fantastic trail bike, I loved it in the Woodhill Sandpit bike park and it was more than happy to do the odd race if I felt like it … and it never missed a beat. But more and more riders are using them as hard core adventure bikes, so in the next issue we’ re going to take a look at the 500 and the 690 variants. Josh Martin at adventureguide. co. nz rides a 500 together with the editor who rides a GasGas 700, so we know the nitty gritty for riders who want to hit more technical trails.
50 KIWI RIDER