On-Track Off-Road #208

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AMA-SX

STANDING OUT #1

Eight rounds of 2021 Supercross are in the book and four winners so far but only two with repeat successes and already some air starting to appear between Ken Roczen, Cooper Webb and Eli Tomac in the standings. Who is your money on for that red plate?

Photo by Align Media

MotoGP

STANDING OUT #2

From all the online pre-season MotoGP team launches to-date the new Tech3 KTM Factory Racing RC16 seemed to generate the most fuss so far on social media. The French crew tend to have a knack for attractive colourways with their previous Monster Energy and Red Bull Organics also proving popular Photo by Sebas Romero/KTM

WorldSBK AMA-SX

STANDING OUT #3 Difficult travel logistics in Europe still didn’t prevent WorldSBK teams and riders moving to Jerez and then to Portimao for tests.

The sight of world champion Jonathan Rea running the fetching black winter test livery was an indication of the series getting down to work as MotoGP riders still have to lap with their own ‘superbikes’ and litter motocross tracks until they can travel to Qatar in March Photo by GeeBee Images

TEST

STANDING OUT #4

New tech is creeping into the vibrant adventure motorcycle segment of the market after Ducati’s clever 2021 Multistrada V4 radar systems and now KTM including Adaptive Cruise Control on the agile 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S. But for all the gizmos and versatility of using these big bikes in a myriad of conditions and for all sort of mileage, the basic riding experience is still the outright winner. In this aspect the KTM delivers Photo by KTM

AMA-SX

HEAD

SUPERCROSS

OF

Blogs by Steve Matthes & Mike Antonovich Photos by Align Media

450SX WINNERS Orlando 1: Cooper Webb, KTM Orlando 2: Cooper Webb, KTM

250SX WINNERS

Orlando 1 (East): Jett Lawrence, Honda Orlando 2 (West): Justin Cooper, Yamaha

SUPERCROSS

SUPERCROSS

SUPERCROSS

SUPERCROSS

SX BLOG

PALE GREEN?

CREATED THANKS TO

Well, we’re eight races down in the 2021 Monster Energy SX series and in two weeks in Daytona, we’ll officially have hit the halfway mark of the series. Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen at Daytona but it’s not a stretch to say that the defending champion, Eli Tomac of the Monster Kawasaki team, will have one win!

I mean, he’s good at the Speedway so there’s a chance he doubles-up but I wouldn’t bet on it the way he’s been riding this year. It’s weird, he’s been fast, but we just haven’t seen the ‘untouchable Tomac’ this season of the last few years. This comes off a 2021 450MX series that again did NOT see an untouchable Eli Tomac. We all just shrugged that off as a SX title-winning hangover, becoming a new dad and all the COVID stuff that’s been going around.

But now this: this is something else indeed. Even Tomac’s one win this year came when he was 3rd early on in Houston 2 and got into first when the top two riders crashed. Then he was getting reeled in by Zach Osborne

before he stalled and yet still, Dylan Ferrandis was on him late. A win’s a win for sure and it was thought to be the first of many for the rider wearing #1. Looking back though, this wasn’t typical Eli Tomac.

Up until these past two Orlando’s, I would be one of those guys that wasn’t really worried about Tomac’s speed or fitness. It was his starts and/or his opening laps that was costing him badly.

Honda’s Ken Roczen and KTM’s Cooper Webb were much better off early in the races and Eli just couldn’t close the gap on those guys.

I wanted to see Tomac get a start and get out front right away to truly get a gauge on how he is against Webb and

Roczen, the top two riders in the points. If he started with #94 and #2 and they just got by him and pulled away, we’d have something to talk about.

But these last two races in Orlando were a bit of an eyeopener for me. Just when ET traditionally starts heating up in the season, he seems to be regressing. Yes, his starts weren’t good, especially Orlando 1 but in both races he seemed to charge pretty hard to get into the top five and then…he just stayed there. In Orlando one, Jason Anderson was getting his Husqvarna very close before he went down. This past weekend Roczen got him late and then Anderson as well. It was bizarre to see for sure.

BY ADAM WHEELER

BY STEVE MATTHES When was the last time you saw Eli Tomac get caught and passed late in a race right?

Whether it’s fitness, arm pump or general tightness (that’s what many riders say when they don’t want to say they got tired), something is going on with Tomac that we haven’t seen the last few years. His worst season from the last four in terms of wins was the six he scored in 2019 and to get to that number he’ll need to string together five wins in the last nine races. Not impossible but pretty hard to believe right now.

People close to the situation say that Tomac had developed some new settings in the off-season for his KX450F but after a disastrous opening round, the team threw on his title winning 2020 set-up more and more so bike, one would think, shouldn’t be an issue.

The balls-fast Eli Tomac hasn’t been there this year and he now finds himself over a race down in the points. This coming event in Daytona, a place where he’s been so good for so many years, is huge for him.

Tomac’s gotta get a win and get things going in his direction again. Truthfully, looking back at SX history, it’s already too late to mount a charge and get past two riders but if it was ever going to happen, it has to start down at the Speedway in a couple of weeks.

SUPERCROSS

SX BLOG

CREATED THANKS TO

MAKING A WAY...

Just like that, we are halfway through the 2021 Monster Energy Supercross Series.

Holding multiple rounds in the same venues has changed how we analyze the competition, and the extended time spent in each city has made a sort of ‘mini-series’ within the 17-round championship.

Houston, Indianapolis, and Orlando were all noted for swings in the results.

In the 450 Class, BarciaTomac-Webb all won at NRG Stadium, Roczen put in a clean sweep at Lucas Oil Stadium, and Webb went two-for-two at Camping World Stadium.

The 250 Class had the usual mayhem. Colt Nichols, Christian Craig, and Jett Lawrence claimed wins and suffered crashes in the East Coast region depleted by injuries, while Justin Cooper took immediate control of the West Coast region when Jeremy Martin, Jordon

Smith, Alex Martin, and others crashed out of the opening round. Excellent racing through eight rounds has made this a season to remember already.

In a typical year, Supercross goes through a nonstop schedule that packs most of the action into the time between New Year’s Day and Easter, takes a single weekend off, and then returns for a handful of significant races that ultimately decide the championships. Different tracks and soil composition creates challenges each week, while cross-country travel to major cities, complete with planeshire cars-hotels, adds to the excitement and allure. It’s strange not to have all of that this year. Yes, we’re still venturing to various places, watching races on reconfigured tracks from round to

round, and even griping a little about the never-ending work obligations, but it’s a much different experience than we anticipated due to the exact reason we’re in this situation.

Feld Entertainment has implemented strict orders, a necessity in venues managed by the local municipalities, factory operations have required their staff to limit exposure in the real world, and interactions between functional groups are frowned upon and punishable.

How serious is the series taking it? Officials from Feld and local health departments watched hours of post-race content from the opening rounds, documented infractions captured in photos and videos, and reprimanded those that skirted the rules with vows to

BY ADAM WHEELER

BY MIKE ANTONOVICH clip their credentials and bar entry from future races. Fear of a COVID case and the turmoil that comes with it has been enough to get most to adhere to the rules, yet the virus has still managed to creep into the paddock through a handful of team members, photographers, and essential workers. A positive rapid test result will happen to someone important to the series this year. It happened in every other major sport over the last 12 months, from MotoGP to F1 to the NFL, and inevitably, will occur in Supercross.

I’m following the protocols as close as possible. Solo cross-country drives from our home in St. Louis, Missouri, have kept me out of the airport and away from the masses, and I rarely venture far from the track or hotel-rental house between race days. Not seeing landmarks or restaurants that the host cities offer (one of

my favorite perks about the job) and the increased time in front of the computer due to the rapid race order has been a little maddening, but it’s the responsible thing to do, of course, and entirely worthwhile if it means getting to see every moment of the action in-person.

The 10-day work trips to Houston and Orlando made me think about our contemporaries in MotoGP, all of whom went through something similar last year and will do it again soon.

The international series’ massive presence produced stringent rules in the paddock, far stricter than anything we have here, and the restricted travel kept many of the workers away home for weeks or months at a time. I’m sure they experienced some of the same things we are going through now in terms of time spent dedicated to working and apart from loved ones, and that they

had to think about how their passion for racing overpowered the desire for an ordinary life.

Supercross will take its first short break over the next few days, a much-needed rest for everyone involved, and then resume at Daytona International Speedway, the place of the “last normal” race. What a long, strange year it has been.

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in your hands makes you appreciate the effort, cost and construction that has gone into the product: TLD know it has to hold up to some track abuse but also be very reactive to a rider’s needs. We loved the ‘knee lines’ of the previous 2020 ‘Factory’ livery but the initial new designs have an elegant simplicity that should highlight the function of the kit. Expect well over a 300-dollar layout once you’ve added the SE Ultra gloves with a slide-on form and extra thin material where it counts. Premium level stuff.

It won’t look good to be going slow in Ultra.

FEATURE

THE GROWING

G MAN

ADAM CIANCIARULO ON THE MIC WITH MIKE TO TALK WRISTS AND THE ONGOING WRESTLE TO MEET ALL THAT POTENTIAL

By Mike Antonovich Photos by Align Media

FEATURE

D

espite what some may assume, 2021 is not a ‘make or break’ season for Adam Cianciarulo.

The Monster Energy Kawasaki rider has earned his place in the sport a few times over, first as an amateur prodigy, then as a hopeful but often injured young professional, as a champion in the 250 Class, and finally, as one of the main runners in the 450 Class. Now a fan-favorite, factory-backed rider, Cianciarulo will be a fixture at the sport’s highest level for years to come.

much of the offseason. He lined up for the most competitive year of recent memory with less than a dozen days of practice aboard the KX450F, strained an abductor muscle in his core a short time later, and has struggled to hold the pace of the competition late in the motos.

With the first leg of the long season complete, we spoke atlength with Cianciarulo about what he has encountered, how he’s handled it, and what he’s learned.

This is season two, when everybody starts to think: “is he going to do it? Did he figure out all the freshman stuff?” But realistically, this might be your most important growing year. You’ve seen how it goes, all of the good that comes, but know how it can go badly at the same time…

Yeah, I definitely had the same expectations to grow this year, to become a guy that’s battling for championships, and to be there every weekend.

And, unfortunately, some stuff That outlook has been helphappened in the offseason. I ful lately, as ongoing issues couldn’t really build on I what have prevented Cianciarulo was learning last year, and I from ranking where he and came in under the gun. But Kawasaki had hoped. A cyst on with that being said, every one wrist and pressure on the weekend goes by, and even ulnar nerve in the arm caused though the results haven’t a lapse in grip strength and been there yet, I still take the required separate surgeries, positives from it. I’ve been which sidelined AC through learning the best I can and It’s taken a little longer to get here than some may have anticipated, something Cianciarulo will readily admit, but he’s content with the way things have gone. The hard times and successes have forged the kid from Florida into a full-grown man, and he has a well-developed understanding of what goes on around him.

He strives for the best results possible, but knows that things out of his control will occur from time to time, and acts accordingly.

trying to enjoy myself, even during a period where I am struggling.

You’re a guy that’s had the ups and downs in your career, and you’re managing these low points pretty well. You’re older now and know this is just another bump in the road that is part of being a professional racer…

One thing I’ve learned I’ve learned over the years is that if I’m doing everything I can, doing all the right things, and not being lazy, [then] I can sleep well at night. I know I’m doing my best, and I know the results aren’t there at the moment, but I’m doing everything I can. I think that’s where maybe the maturity comes in a little bit. I’m not going to sit there and beat myself up for days because it’s not working out, even though I’m trying the best that I can. I’m just trying to keep it in perspective. And, ultimately, I have the best job in the world. Even when it’s bad, when it’s not going your way, it’s still awesome. And I try to keep that mentality at the forefront of everything that I do.

The arm issue was something that you kind of kept low profile, at least the surgery part. What finally spurred the decision of getting it fixed? Is it completely figured out, or is it something that you need to have tuned up later?

ADAM CIANCIARULO

“IT’S BEEN A COMBINATION OF THE OFFSEASON PREP THAT DIDN’T GO GREAT AND A STRAINED ABDUCTOR, WHICH HAS BEEN SUPER TOUGH FOR ME IN THE WHOOPS. IF YOU PAY ATTENTION TO ME, I LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT OUT THERE. BUT ALL THAT STUFF HAS BEEN A GREAT EXERCISE FOR ME MENTALLY TO SAY, ‘WHAT CAN I DO? WHAT CAN I CONTROL?’ AND NOT LET IT GET ME DOWN...”

FEATURE As soon as I got on the 450 for the first time, around September 2019, I basically woke up one morning, went to the track, and started having these issues with my hand.

It’s a difficult feeling to describe, but it’s a weakness, numbness, and overall lack of strength. And it was manageable over time. Certain tracks I would go to, if they were a little bit mellower, generally I would do better. But I mentioned it a few times; I think after Oakland or around San Diego, I was kind of talking about it a little bit. I wasn’t trying to really keep anything from anybody. I really like to be as transparent as I can.

It was something that I was dealing with and doing the

best I could to manage, but I didn’t really know what it was. I went to a few different doctors that had some suggestions but no real concrete answers.

When Pala rolled around, the last National last year, my hand was the worst it had been. The track was so hard, really choppy, and I struggled to hold onto the bike with the numbness and weakness. I went straight to a couple of different doctors to get other opinions on it after that. I had a cyst in my wrist, a ganglion cyst, and one thought that’s what the problem was.

I ended up getting that cyst removed very early in the offseason and had to take about

a month off. I got that done and got back on the bike, but there was still some inflammation from surgery.

It felt a little bit better, so I was just trying to get some riding in and get on Supercross. I was really anxious to start riding at this point because it was the middle of November. I was just getting on it, and basically, it just didn’t get better. I took some time off intermittently between when I got on the bike in November and before Christmas, trying to give it time to rest. It was maybe my sixth or seventh day on the bike, on a Monday at K1 one, and I just couldn’t do more than three laps going through the whoops. It was

I called my agent, Steve Astephen, that night and was like, “Listen, dude, I need something, and I need it now.

I need your help with this thing.” And he referred me to Dr. Viola, who’s based in Vail, Colorado, which most people know did Ken Roczen’s arms.

He’s one of the best in the country when it comes to this type of thing. I flew up there, got a bunch of MRIs, talked to him, and it turned out it was this infringement on my ulnar nerve. He relieved the pressure off the nerve there. He told me it will take a little bit to get all the sensations back

because the nerve has been blocked for so long, but it will come back. It’s certainly been getting better, and I’m getting a lot better. Had I not gone to him, there is no way I would even be able to be out there at the moment. I’m grateful I could figure it out, even though it basically ruined my whole offseason prep.

Did you ride less than a dozen times or more than a dozen times, total, through the offseason?

It was probably around 10 times. And the problem is that it wasn’t 10 times of quality riding; it was me going out there and trying to get comfortable and test. I think I did

one 20-minute moto before the season started. With the ulnar nerve, there were a lot of things that I couldn’t do, I was trying to rehab it the best I could, and I was just really underprepared. It was a bummer not to have the right type of prep, but it is what it is.

That’s life.

Yeah, you know this happens.

It is part of it. Did you and the team alter your expectations for this year, especially through this first part of the season?

The team has been really good at not really putting expectations on me. They want me to do my best. And obviously, my job is to win for them, and that’s where I need to be. With

ADAM CIANCIARULO

like my hand is just about to fall off the grip, and I couldn’t do it.

FEATURE

the offseason prep, I think everybody knew it was going to be a little bit of a waiting game to see how we were going to cope with it and how we would perform. We’re doing our best, and there have been some tough weekends. I want to be up there, I know I can be, but I need to be patient.

That’s one thing I’ve been this year, I’m really stoked about it, and that’s just kind of my mentality. Even though I’m not battling for wins at the moment, I’m learning how to win, and it’s helping me.

I can tell you’re not as caught up in things. You know what’s going on, and rather than just pinning it and hoping for the best, you are putting all the pieces together and trying to figure out what makes these things work. I watched you and Nick [Wey, coach] at the Stewart Compound when you hit that same section over and over. You don’t just do that because you want to; you do it because there’s a purpose behind it.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a combination of the offseason prep that didn’t go great and a strained abductor, which has been super tough for me in the whoops. If you pay attention to me, I look like an idiot

out there. But all that stuff has been a great exercise for me mentally to say, “What can I do? What can I control?”

And not let it get me down. In the past, I think this type of stuff would basically drive me completely insane. And there’s something to be said about just kind of accepting with where I’m at, doing everything I can, and taking the proper steps. And I believe in my program, I know I’m not lazy, and I will do whatever it takes to reach where I’m going. So it’s helped put my mind at ease, and I’m just trying to learn what I can from each race.

With the abductor, did you just wake up and it hurt, or do you know how this injury happened?

The only thing I can think of is one day at the Stewart Compound. I think it was the first day I was able to practice for real. It was right after Houston, and the track was pretty muddy, so I was maybe dabbing in my leg a little bit. I didn’t have one specific moment where I was like, “Wow, that hurt.” I just woke up the next day, and I could barely walk. That’s been getting better, too. Ultimately, it’s not what’s keeping me from getting where I want to go.

The people you have around you right now, with Nick Wey, the team, Oscar, and your family, are very well put together. They do a good job of building you up enough, not letting you get a big head, but also not letting you take yourself down too much. You have a balance and don’t ride the highs and lows as you used to.

Yeah, I think it’s really important to have people around you that keep you in perspective. One thing I love about my crew around me is that we have the same goals. That’s important. To reach the success you want, it’s important everybody be on the same wavelength. And Nick’s been there. He knows how to keep me grounded, how to keep me focused. Everybody in my crew genuinely enjoys being around each other and what we do. I have the best job in the world. And even when it’s not going great, I still feel like I’m winning.

You’re growing up. I mean, AC is a man now. I’ve been around you since the pro first races and some amateur days, and it’s been nice to see how you’ve come into your own.

ADAM CIANCIARULO

FEATURE

Yeah, it’s been crazy. You know, thinking that I’ve been pro since 2013, and there were a couple of lost years in there with injuries and stuff.

It’s nuts. You look forward to this as a kid. There are years of anticipation for what I’m living right now and doing what I’m doing. And now I’m here doing it. One thing I’ve tried to do, besides maximizing results and success and doing the best I can for my sponsors, is to enjoy this.

It’s cool to look back at old races, like five years ago, at something on the track I was doing. And it’s pretty crazy that I already have memories from a while back in my pro career.

I’m talking like I’m a veteran, and it’s crazy to think at 24 that I feel this way. It’s been fun, and I’ve learned so much about it. Anything you love so much and that you put so much into, whether good or bad, forces you to learn about yourself and overcome so many different emotions and ways of thinking. I think it speeds up your maturity process. You learn how to deal with things because you have problems and solutions that directly impact something you love so much.

It forces you to deal with them and to

ADAM CIANCIARULO

grow up. Besides everything that racing has given me to this point, I’m most grateful for that, the personal growth that I have seen, and it can be contributed to racing and me figuring it out.

From a young age, you were surrounded by the icons of the sport. You grew up training with RV, watched everything he did and saw what happened there. Even as a fan of the sport, you can’t help but notice what happens with guys during their careers. When you were young, did you think, “I need to pay attention to that?

Because that could happen to me one day.”?

Did you notice these things, the stresses those guys around you were going through when you were younger or were you just so naive to it?

I was always pretty aware of it. That’s just kind of my personality type. I’m a little bit hyperaware sometimes, and I wish I was a little bit less aware. That’s honestly something I work on, zoning out sometimes and not thinking about things much. But I think that personality trait has helped me. I’ve been around Dungey, Villopoto, Ken, and I even spent a fair amount of time around McGrath. You notice little traits here and there, and even though they’re all

unique and their own person, you notice the traits you need to be a champion and be a dominant force.

And I can’t say I’m like those guys in all areas, but in the areas that I feel are necessary for success, I try to emulate what I’ve seen. And ultimately, it’s all inside of you; that the motivation to get up every morning, to train and to ride, to do it with a purpose, and not just to go through the motions. Nobody can teach you that, but it certainly was inspiring for me, a young guy coming up, to see guys that all great in their own ways and how they want about their business.

FEATURE Riding at the Stewart’s is a change, and it’s very welldocumented that you’re there with Chase and Malcolm.

This is a super illustrious place that’s right down the road and that you’ve heard about your whole life. How is it to ride at the compound?

It’s been cool. Last year James and Chase reached out to me and asked me if I’d like to come over and think about riding there. I was able to get out there a little bit last summer, check it out, and really enjoy the vibe. I really enjoyed the privacy, and it’s a chill place to get your work done.

It has all the amenities, everything that you need is there, and obviously, with James’s career, it’s proven that you can get it done there [Laughs].

It was a difficult decision to leave the Sandbox, that’s a place I’ve been riding at since I was 13 years old, but it was time for a change. I’m one of those people that can just wake up one morning and can make changes quickly.

Not to say there wasn’t a lot of thought involved, but when I make up my mind, that’s kind of how it is. I’ve enjoyed a different experience at the Stewart’s there. Obviously, I didn’t get to utilize the place in the offseason as much as I’d like, but I’m used to it now and have really enjoyed being around the guys. A new environment for me is cool.

You’re a super fan of the sport. How is it to manage all of this? Can you still get caught up and get excited about it, or do you have to put yourself in check and think, “Hey man, it’s time to go to work?”

To put it lightly, I almost have a split personality when it comes to that kind of stuff. It’s just something I’ve had to do from a young age. People talk about how I’m like a nice guy or big fan of the sport and all this stuff, but it’s funny because the guy on the bike is so different from the guy that everybody sees. There are certain moments where I get caught up in all the trials and the successes of racing. You get caught up in these individual moments and have to remind yourself that no matter what, your entire life’s dream is what you’re in right now, and you’re living in every day.

It’s just about keeping it in perspective, and it’s made it more fun for me. Being a fan of it still, enjoying watching races, being out there battling, whether it goes good or bad, there’s still an element of satisfaction in doing what I’ve always wanted to do, and this is my life’s work. It’s something I get to, you know, go out there and display every weekend.

The weekend at Orlando One was especially cool because you came out in opening ceremonies and parked right on that triple. What was it like to ride out at a race you grew up going to?

I went to the last Orlando in 2007 with James and Ricky and all those guys. I don’t have a lot of really vivid memories as a kid, but that’s definitely one of them. When we were doing the track viewing and walked around the stadium, I was like, “This is it, this is where we all sat watching James and RC battle.” And like we’ve said, it can become so normal every weekend when you go to the race and all that stuff, but there are these little moments where it’ll pop up in your head, ‘wow, man, you know, I used to be sitting in the stands, and you know, here I am coming out’.

Those moments come quick, and they leave just as quick.

But yeah, they make the experience like that much greater to me.

You’re a big sports guy and other types of racers are fans of yours. Is there anybody that you found like a contemporary, someone else that you could say, ‘hey man, do you guys have this in your world? Do you have this kind of thing? How do you deal with it?’

You’re 24, eight years into a pro career, and established as someone who will make a change in the sport. Is that something that even registers to you? You could be a motocross icon…

I think I’ve always strived to represent myself the best I can within the sport. I love the sport, it’s given me so much, a life that I couldn’t possibly have imagined when I was a kid, and I certainly would like to be a part of it for a long time. But when I’m thinking about the future, I’m cautious these days. Growing up and having some expectations placed upon you, you kind of start thinking about where you see yourself going, as opposed to thinking about the process of getting there.

And that’s something now, even with my life after racing. I try not to think about it too much. It’s in the back of my mind, but I just want to do the absolute best that I can. I know that I will, and that’s what I’ve done so far.

And I know that I will have no regrets, and I take that into everything that I do. Being a part of this community is something that I’ve always just dreamt about, and I have a lot of respect for the people and the people in this industry and fans. I hope to be a part of it for a long time.

ADAM CIANCIARULO

It’s something I’ve thought about. I’m big into the NBA, but I kind of watch everything, baseball, football, everything.

And you try to see like, ‘who is the NBA’s version of me? Who is the athlete that best suits me?’ And I think I’m at the age where I’m still growing so much. That term is so vague these days, but you’re still kinda figuring out who you are a little bit, and with your age, it changes. You’re still growing every year. I still feel like I’m changing and developing every year, so I guess whenever I feel like I’ve kind of figured out exactly who I am, I guess then I’ll be able to find an athlete that matches me.

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MONSTER ENERGY STAR RACING YAMAHA

MALCOLM STEWART

FEATURE

BROADCAST VIEWS

By Adam Wheeler, Photos by James Lissimore

STEVE MATTHES HAS BEEN AN OTOR BLOGGER FOR ALMOST TEN YEARS AND HIS OWN PODCAST EMPIRE - THE PULPMX SHOW HAS GROWN UNCEASINGLY IN SIZE, COVERAGE AND RELEVANCE. FAR FROM BEING A DEDICATORY NOD TO STEVE AND HIS EFFORTS, WE WANTED TO KNOW A BIT MORE ABOUT PULPMX, THE REASONS FOR THE BOOM AND WHY IT CONTINUES TO CONNECT THE SPORT AND THE FANS UNLIKE ANY OTHER MEDIA OUTLET…

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or supercross and motocross fans and followers there are few better ways to ‘engage’ with the sport than through the PulpMX Show. The word ‘engage’ is apt because the lengthy weekly live broadcasts are as entertaining as they are insightful and frequently hot on themes seen only a few hours earlier on stadium floors or AMA Pro National dirt. Catching part of the show is useful for hearing the often-candid words and thoughts of the riders but also the personalities in the community and industry and the alternative (and outlandish) views of the cult characters that have developed a following thanks to their participation.

PulpMX is more than a decade in existence and crackled into life when the podcast phase was gathering more and more bandwidth.

It’s undoubtedly an all-North American product both in tone and the practicality of virtually all the participants being able to speak in their native language (hence the reasons the show’s format has not

FEATURE translated to Europe and MXGP on the same scale, despite the polished efforts of broadcasts like the MX Vice show). At the heart of it all though is the boundless Canadian who has amused and outraged. He has carved his own niche as someone with a lot of nuance and reduced scruples about bringing his ‘in the know’ status to a microphone.

Weigandt on the future of podcasting…

“I liked the fact that with a Podcast you can multitask, and it’s reached a point now where they are more hours produced across the board than anybody could possibly consume. At some point things will pare down and, at some point, the winners will win. I do think video is the next big thing and podcasts won’t only be the thing you do when you’re mowing the lawn or driving your car or working out. I think they might end up replacing regular television. A lot of the popular podcast shows have become video shows as well and that will take a lot of other entertainment time.”

“What I do worry about is that there are many people now trying to get guests and content, so how are the athletes and teams going to rank the outlets? There didn’t use to be so many media outlets in the industry and now hard decisions will have to be made. One of the cool things about our sport is that it hasn’t become quite so big that you cannot get to the athlete directly. It’s not like F1 and MotoGP where they are more layers and more boundaries; like only having 8 minutes with a guy. We might get to that point, which is unfortunate.”

“Initially with Steve, when he was working for RacerX Canada, we’d never really seen anyone so unfiltered with their opinions and that was kinda funny and interesting,” says RacerX’s Jason Weigandt, a PulpMX regular and one of the most respected journalists on the U.S. scene. “We figured that one day he’d dig his own grave…and that didn’t really happen the way we feared it would. There were certainly a lot of phone calls and angry people…but Steve

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did something that I hadn’t seen anyone do and that was double-down and back-up what he’d said. He never apologised for his opinion.”

“People tend to think the behind-the-scenes of the sport is much more dramatic than it really is,” he added. “And most of the day-today grind is no different to anybody else’s.

Steve lived it as a mechanic and managed to take that feel of ‘we’re all buddies, just doing what we love, not taking too much too seriously’ and broke down the barriers to take it front of the scenes. That’s the way his show has changed how we fundamentally consume media in this sport and that’s why, from all the other shows out there, his is the one that has enjoyed all the success.”

Success means numbers (in the tens of thousands per show) and a long list of sponsors. At the top of the pile is Fly Racing.

Former racer and Fly’s essential link to the sport, Jason Thomas, has not only championed PulpMX but also formed the role as a foil to some of Matthes’ more ‘experimental’ and forthright beliefs.

“I consider my role as giving an alternative perspective on what he might be talking about,” Thomas says. “Fortunately – and unfortunately – our opinions range quite widely on a range of subjects from politics, religion and supercross and motocross. Anything! I think it’s great we can maintain our friendship through those disagreements and the listener can probably identify with one of our opinions, which gives people something to latch on to. I think if you have very onesided views then you’ll have a huge listener base that might disagree and turn-off. I’m really proud to be associated with Steve and everything he has accomplished. I think he has a long way still to go. He will become one of the loudest voices in supercross and

motocross, if he isn’t already. Credit to him, it was his vision that got this going and it was his belief that made it what it is.”

PulpMX has the numbers but also the dynamic vibe to attract backers and interest. “He does a great job of promoting the brand and we now have a bit of an open-door policy with him where as long as an idea makes sense we’re willing to take a chance,” Thomas says. “He’s also been really loyal to us as well and we remember that. As a brand we always want to try and reach people in alternative ways instead of print advertising and standard old-school methods. We believe what Steve is doing with podcasts, live radio and YouTube – which is the next big one for everybody – we want to be a part of that.”

“All the success has spouted imitators because people listen and think ‘all he does is talk moto and give opinions…I can do that!’ but the sources he has, the opinions and the knowledge is based on something much more tangible than someone who can only say ‘I’m a fan…’,” says Weigandt. “He has a baseline of how these teams and riders really work and I think a lot of

FEATURE people have forgotten that part.”

And from the man himself?

Steve, how did you manage to move from pitlane to podcasting?

I was a mechanic for a long time, eleven years, and I was getting burnt out. My rider, [Tim] Ferry, was getting hurt a lot and we weren’t having any success, and I wanted a change. I still loved racing. I was listening to a sports podcast in 2006-2007 – this was early podcasting – and I thought ‘it would be so cool to have something like this for moto’ and just have the means to do long-form interviews with people like David Bailey, Broc Glover or Rick Johnson. I left mechanic-ing to get a job at Parts Unlimited and I started thinking about the podcast idea. I am a huge fan of the sport and a historian on the side, I grew up reading all the magazines. So, I bought a book called ‘Podcasting for Dummies’!

It didn’t seem that hard to do and I already had the contacts. I started the podcast for the RacerX Canada guys, as I was doing a little bit of work for them. This was in 2008. There was nothing like it in the industry and I enjoyed that.

I had a laptop and about forty dollars of equipment and now I have ten thousand worth! I called up Chad Reed for my very first podcast because I knew him from working at Yamaha. People dug it. My wife is a huge Howard Stern fan and she was listening to his radio show every morning with the funny asides and the skits and segments, and again I thought ‘I could do something like this for moto…’ but it had to be live and I wanted to take phone calls from people. So that led to the Pulp Show and it just grew into this thing that I never thought it would. The early shows were quite different to what they are now. I had a partner called Paul Lindsey for the first spell. In terms of technology I had some long, long nights! Trying to get a streaming service to work with wifi in the house, six phone lines and all the different mixes that need to happen

WEIGANDT: “WITH PULPMX I THINK HE CHANGED THE WAY THAT RIDERS INTERACT WITH MEDIA. THERE WAS A TIME WHEN THE RIDERS WERE ON A PEDESTAL, NOW THEY ARE ALL SELFDEPRECATING AND IT HAS BECOME MUCH MORE RELAXED. THEY WILL JUST ROLL WITH COMMENTS, AND EVEN THROW SOME BACK. SO MUCH OF THAT CAME FROM MATTHES BEING UNAPOLOGETIC. IT COMPLETELY CHANGED THE MEDIA GAME...”

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for people that are on mics or cellphones. I had some problems early on but I ironed all those out!

I was horrified! So, I’ve definitely got better and doing it for twelve years means you are bound to improve. I

Were you pretty bad at the hosting and interviewing at the beginning? Did it take some training and discipline to get good? Or was it just natural off-the-bat…?

I would say it was quite natural because I was such a fan of these guys. To be able to call up Bailey or Johnson and say “what was it like…?!” was easy. I also knew some guys and knew some stories, so I just had to get them talking.

I was definitely a bit rough in the beginning. I listened to some of the first shows last year and

Was it easy to get access to riders and people in the sport? Maybe they saw you as a mechanic or wondered what a podcast was…

Some guys were definitely like ‘What? We’re just gonna record a phone conservation?!’. I would tell them that the non-Pulp Show stuff wasn’t live, so it could be stopped or edited or the answer could be repeated. I never had a problem with access, thanks to being around a long time, so that wasn’t an issue. I feel that the part where I have to explain Pulp or podcasting is long over but in the early days I sure did.

When and why did PulpMX surge in popularity? Can you put your finger on it?

I can actually. It was a couple of things. Paul Lindsey was the first guest on the show and we didn’t quite see eye-to-eye and he was calling in from Colorado which made it quite tough.

We lost a couple of sponsors. Actually, our very first sponsor was an online store that said they would come on for a year. Then they said they’d guarantee six months. Then they pulled their deal after six shows! This was our #1 sponsor, our title! They said: “we’re not seeing it…” and I said: “but it’s only been six shows!” So, money became a thing. Paul and I parted ways but there was a guy called Kenny Watson who was living in Vegas who was an old friend of mine. He was a mechanic and was manager of the Hart and Huntingdon team, as it was then.

Kenny is a character with a million stories. He is one of the most unique people I’ve met in my life. So, he came on and was saying some crazy things and some mad stories, and we started to get some traction. I remember going to Daytona and people were hearing about the show and asking me if Kenny really said some of that whacky stuff. That’s when I noticed that it was taking off. It really went wild with the Jeff Alessi ‘lazergate’ thing.

FEATURE This was show #139 and two years into it. Jeff Alessi had pointed a laser pen at Ryan Villopoto on the starting line [July 2013 at the Washougal AMA Pro Motocross National] and had been ejected from the track. I tweeted about it and Tony Alessi [Jeff’s father] lost his s**t at me at the race and the team owner, Mike Genova, said “I want to come on your show on Monday and explain what happened”. He also said Tony would call in. I’d known Tony a long time and his attitude at the races was crazy. So, they came on and it was unbelievable: a total PR trainwreck on their part. The show crashed our servers. I still get requests to this day for the show number! Ironically, they were in my studio a year ago and they were great! At that time and with that situation it wasn’t good. It was a big step for the show though.

Speaking of the PR side, did you ever feel that you had to ‘hold back’ on the show? That some subjects or opinions would wreck any relationships or sponsor deals?

Not really. You know me! I say what I think. I never really had to do that. I’ve been in trouble and had my hand slapped a few times. People have been upset. But I’ve never had a big issue.

I call things as I see them, and I think that’s why people enjoy what we do because you are going to get an opinion one way or another.

Do you sometimes have to play a role? Do you have to exaggerate things to create that interest… or think ‘what can I say to rile JT this time?’

Haha. I have a ‘Racetech rant of the night’ on the show and sometimes I’m not that angry at something but I will ratchet-it-up. I’m a Howard Stern fan as well and I want people to listen whether they agree or not. There is a fine line where you don’t want to do things that alienates people…but sometimes there are moments where I’m getting a bit more passionate about a subject or an event than, say, I really am.

The difficulty lies in the fact that Stern is probably broadcasting to several million people but moto is such a familiar and enclosed industry…

I would still say what I think! The last few years of the show have been really successful and I make a good living from it. It’s given me some freedom in my life to say whatever I want. It’s a refreshing place to be, in the industry.

What about copycats? People must have wanted to jump on the coattails, but the Pulp Show has endured and blossomed…

There must be a lot of them now but we’ve moved on. The latest thing was to add video.

Actually, it was quite a while ago because we used to film the shows on a GoPro, sync the audio and throw it onto YouTube for people, and that was ‘OK’ but didn’t move the needle that

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much. Two years ago we starting investing in cameras, lights and the whole deal. So that’s taken the show to the next level. I feel that we have become a bit better and better as we go on, we discover stuff to make it a bit easier and smoother. There are a lot of other shows. I don’t listen to them because I want to do my own thing. Whatever those shows are doing is fine but I don’t tune-in because I don’t want to rob something! I’m competitive with other shows but I’m also confident that we are doing the best numbers. I think we are and by any kind of metric it seems like we are…so I know what we are doing is working.

Are you analytical? In the same way you might strip an engine are you looking at all the components of a show to see what works and doesn’t? Are you an audiophile for example?

Oh yeah. JT and Weigandt will bug me about it but I’m always trying to get the best equipment I can. I just replaced some material now that I didn’t need to replace. I bought a little remote podcast machine for the on-the-road shows.

It could have been done another way but this thing was expensive and meant the production would be better. We add our numbers every four months with audio downloads and now video views and, no kidding, every four months it grows. We had one four-month segment where we were the same and it didn’t really jump up at all but there has been an increase every time over in ten years that’s great. Really cool to see.

Is video frustrating? It seems weird that podcasts – which are normally a restricted visual medium – get such good views. You almost have to have that presence on YouTube these days…

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I never watch one!

I don’t understand these people! Who wants to watch someone talking? But, people do! Lots of them. You and I are in the minority and I don’t understand it. It’s weird but it’s been a big suc-

FEATURE cess for the show. I guess I’ll give the people what they want but I normally listen when I’m on a plane, on a mountain bike ride, working in the garage wherever. I wouldn’t watch one and it’s bizarre that it seems to be where it’s going.

One thing I think a lot of people don’t understand is how much work this stuff is. It’s a lot of hours. You don’t just sit behind a mic and push ‘record’. You gotta plan the show, get the guests lined-up, do you research and keep the show moving.

with the show and ready for the next one’.

What about some memorable shows or guests? For the right and wrong reasons…

We do something special for each ‘100’ show.

So, for #300 I brought in [David] Vuillemin, Ferry and Reed and that was really cool. I flew them in, turned on the mics and let them bench-race. That was awesome. For #400 I had [Adam] Cianciarulo, Nick Wey, Villopoto and Weimer but the last two got a little loose just like they did for the late 2020 show! There was Explain some of the cult. There seems to be one when Kenny Watson just walked out on me. a raft of recurring names and characters and He didn’t like my argument and just threw the even a ‘show about the headset down and show’… walked out. I was like You do have to be a ‘OK, he’s gone…’ and regular listener to keephad to carry the show up sometimes right? My for the next twenty WEIGANDT: “STEVE DOESN’T twitter and Instagram minutes. Stuff like that feeds are full of refercomes to mind. There SEEM TO CARE WHAT PEOPLE ences from shows a have been some really THINK OF HIM AND HE’LL GIVE long time ago! Or I’ll good interviews. We be yelling at JT about SOME OPINIONS BACK. THAT’S had a young Ken a burrito place. We get Roczen on the show.

A TRAIT NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE off-topic a lot! I get He’d just come to what you are saying. I America and I knew HAVE...” think a listener just has him a little bit from to jump-in and figure it Europe. He was a out and catch up for the great interview, he ride. If you listen a lot was really funny and then you’ll know all the inside jokes, about Wei- his English was great. As you know. At the gandt being cheap and JT, his career and all the next race he said he’d had fun so I always felt things that have happened to him. That’s what that was pretty cool. Adam Cianciarulo and I makes it special. Darkside has a wrap-up show. are friends and we hatched the whole ‘Finding My show is four-five hours and I know it is a Stew’ video out on the show one night. We’ve long time so I knew if I did an hour-long show had some dark stuff as well. Kenny Watson with this guy who wraps-up mine then you can talked about his addiction issues over the years. just listen to that if you don’t have the four-five It feels there has been a bit of everything. hours! It seemed like a perfect idea.

What about difficult riders? Anyone who just It took me ten days to get through the wouldn’t come on? Or, who was a challenge to Villopoto-Weimer show! interview?

It’s long, right?! But then I have people who Jason Anderson came on a couple of times and message me on a Tuesday saying ‘I’m done then decided he didn’t like me anymore and

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didn’t want to come back. I’ve had guys turn me down and others say they hate my guts and will never talk to me again and then a year-and-half later they are on the show! I think a lot of riders realise that quite a lot of people listen so I’m sure some don’t want to come-on and talk but they do anyway. Luckily, I’m in that place where it’s not too much of a problem to get people.

Who is a favourite then?

Adam is really popular and we’ll talk about sports generally or media relations. Zach Osborne is really good because he’s open and honest. He’s been on a lot. Kenny [Roczen] is harder to get but he will do it a couple of times a year. What I’m really proud of is that guys like Phil Nicoletti and Alex Ray were just names in the pack but in getting to be friends with them and knowing how funny and unique they are then being able to put these personalities into the show. They are hilarious for all the wrong reasons! But the listeners get into them, their social media following has grown and they become bigger names than what their results

would have given. It’s cool! Everyone knows AC and Roczen but there are some really funny stories further back in the pack and I feel like we’ve done a good job getting those out to the world.

Lastly, how do you feel generally about podcasting? Is it a trend that will still grow and develop or has it peaked? Will you have to become a YouTuber?

It’s a good point. I think I am already on the way to be a YouTuber and I think you have to be these days. I feel that podcasting will keep growing but perhaps the next step – like for all media – is a paywall, right? I don’t know how magazines, newspaper websites and other people trying to make a living can keep giving away free content. I think you’ll see who really wants to listen to a podcast or not with the paywall. The numbers will go down for sure but in terms of podcasting I think it will just keep on getting bigger.

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: M R E

R A AK

It will be hard to tell if he has – or wants to – formulate a plan to counter in 2019, or his internal debate will be solved in the coming months and when the season is finally closed. Of course as a fan of the racing then a fit, strong and freshly determined #222 means the tantalising prospect of a ‘Herlings vs Cairoli II’; and I don’t think it does any disservice to the likes of Ali or Fraser to borrow their contest definition; we are certainly talking about two titans of their sport.

As tempting as it might be for Cairoli to stick to his current routines and practices because of his age and the status of his career, I’ll stick my neck out again and declare that he’ll be plotting or thinking about one last major thrust. After all the miles, aches and injections over the

FORMER MXGP FACTORY RACER AND GRAND PRIX WINNER RUI GONÇALVES COMPLETED HIS VERY FIRST DAKAR IN JANUARY. WE DECIDED TO ASK THE 35-YEAR OLD ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE AND THE DIFFERENCES TO FIM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RACING…

By Adam Wheeler, Photos by Ray Archer & Sherco

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P

ortugal’s most successful ever motocrosser has never been so happy to finish 19th.

In an MXGP moto that would have delivered a grand total of two points and would be deemed a disappointing result for a rider of Gonçalves’ capabilities. At the end of almost two weeks and nearly 8000km gunning the factory Sherco for all its worth across Saudi Arabia it was a triumph for the Dakar rookie.

Gonçalves’ motocross achievements have often been tempered with injury at pivotal moments of his career but the smart and multi-lingual athlete has raced works machinery for KTM in two categories, ridden for HRC and Yamaha, won four Grands Prix and finished as FIM World Championship runner-up in 2009. In 2018 he stepped back from full-time competition and was the ideal choice to oversee Infront Motor Racing’s track preparation crew (he’d already been a ‘Technical Adviser) and was instrumental in a noticeable improvement.

He brought a GP rider’s touch and observation to the (often limited) means of altering the circuits and was also a wellrespected link between the paddock and the organisation.

Gonçalves eye on racing never

The presence of ex-motocrossers in the world’s toughest off-road dash is nothing new. Ex-AMA supercross star Andrew Short is perhaps the

ance over twelve days. I’ve done a lot of races: the world championship, Enduro and the Six Days but my feeling is that you cannot put the Dakar next to them because there are so many things around it, so many details that can affect your event. From mechanical to the liaison arrivals, radars during the stages and many others that not only interfere with your result. Your mind is thinking of many things at the same time and not only going fast, which is the priority in motocross. The feeling of

“THE DAKAR IS ABOUT A SERIES OF DAILY SMALL BATTLES AND A MIX OF FEELINGS, AND YOU DON’T HAVE THAT OVER SUCH A PERIOD OF TIME IN MOTOCROSS…” most obvious example from recent years. Gonçalves speaks wide-eyed of his Dakar baptism through a WhatsApp call. While the calm Portuguese is typically thoughtful and descriptive about his maiden taste of rally there is a sense that the ‘bug’ is there again.

Summarise the emotion of finishing the Dakar, especially compared to some of your other racing feats?

It’s actually really difficult to make any comparison. It’s such a long race. An endur-

finishing is amazing because of those long twelve days and when you have problems you have to solve like a mechanical or a small crash then it seems even longer. You have to make priorities every single day and those are always changing. I don’t have that much experience of course but I don’t think you can go to the Dakar with a solid plan and think ‘if I do this, this and this then that outcome will be that’. It doesn’t work because you have to adapt to a new day, every day. When you finish you think ‘wow, I made it’.

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wavered far: he represented his country again at the 2018 Motocross of Nations for what was a final appearance wearing the flag and a long stint begun in the first years of the century. In 2019 he dabbled with Enduro and then in 2020 took the plunge with the French Sherco firm to attempt Dakar on the 450 SEF.

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Were there any times during the race when you thought ‘give me a couple of training motos at Lommel instead of this…’?

Ha, there are many times when you are riding super-fast but not with much technique and instead having a big heart and going full gas at 170 for 20-30km. Moments like that were not really what I was used to; definitely not like doing a couple of 30 mins+2 motos at Lommel even if it’s rough and using technique and wheelying over bumps.

I mean, you have technical parts in the Dakar where you can use your ability – and that’s where the people from Enduro and Motocross really enjoy themselves – but there are many where you are just sitting down and holding it wide open. It is a complex race. It’s not something I can compare to anything I’ve done before. It’s like a big puzzle with small pieces everywhere.

Motocross and Enduro have their complications but much less against rally where you ‘live’ the event for almost two full wheels. Many aspects need to be in place for twelve days in a row. It’s a physical sport but your head must really be in it for this one as well.

Going back in time a little: your last contact with MXGP came when you were helping prepare the tracks and it coincided with an upscale in the preparation. What was the main reason for leaving that role? Was it the opportunity with Sherco?

Yes, that chance to race at the highest level again. Obviously, it was on a different ‘stage’ and in a different discipline but rallying in a factory team was like having the conditions I had a few years ago in motocross. That was the main reason. I still had a lot of energy to give to racing. Motocross was different for me because teams were interested in younger riders and that makes sense. They were investing in what might be the future. So, I wanted to look around for something else. I took the opportunity. Everything I’ve done in my life has been because I wanted to do it and I’ve tried to give my best to help something. That was also my goal in MXGP. I put a lot of effort into the job role. For some it was good, for others maybe it was not as good. One thing for sure: I slept well at night because I knew I was doing as well as I could. I was taking care of those tracks like they were mine. When I switched to rally and it was a new thing then the motivation went up.

You do new things, meet new people and learn new stuff.

Was that an easy decision?

Did you see potential in the MXGP role or were there frustrating parts about it?

I was never in a position where I thought ‘get me anything and I’ll race it’. I’ve always adapted to the conditions, whether that was a factory MXGP team or not. Even with the Dakar, it’s kinda been part of Portugal’s ‘culture’ for years now and we’ve had plenty of riders and drivers taking part, so I was thinking to give it a go on my own steam and not part of a team. It was on my mind and the opportunity with Sherco gave me a lot of stability, so I took it. However, it was not super-easy because I had been building something and trying to help in MXGP. I learned so much from the people I worked with there and a lot of the grand prix organisers. I really saw the other side of the racing. When you arrive to tracks [as a rider] you have your own priorities and you want the best for you but you don’t really know what is going on behind the scenes. Sometimes – as riders – we demand things and details and to make those happen can actually be quite tough! I also know that anybody who is building tracks or taking care of the championship on the whole will not make things that everyone will like. That’s a fact. It was a big learning experience and I also gave some of my input and I

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7500ks and many hours on the bike.

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just hope the future is bright for MXGP. You know full well that motocross can be a brutal sport and not very fair but was there a part of you that was apprehensive about the perils of the Dakar?

You cannot afford many mistakes there, that’s true. Many people know that motocross is tough and risky. Things are a bit different in Dakar because when you crash there then it’s not just a tumble or about losing the front end: it’s pretty hard and fast! I had one this year on stage eight where I think it was a big one. I was unconscious so I don’t remember it fully. I do remember being flat-out in the desert and I must have hit a rock or something else. There is always the fear of something like that, and especially the stories you hear from previous years. All I could do was physically prepare myself as best as I could and try to be mentally strong. It is a sport where you need to know when to go fast.

You cannot go wide open from

day one. You have to study it, and I didn’t have much experience. Things change a lot, every stage. The fear was there and it will always be for everyone. You just need to be strong and hope for the best, obviously.

that are clear and logical and I can make the connection with motocross and give my input but I cannot really think specific to Rally or Dakar. The team made a lot of effort this year. I already had a change of suspension from when I joined, to the Dakar and for 2021. The three bikes that started the rally reached the finish and that was important for the brand. I’m sure we’ll improve again. There are always things to look at on the bike, such as where the weight is distributed, and other aspects you can change. In motocross your fuel tank will be in a set position and that’s it!

Talk about the Sherco. It’s a 450 of course but you’ve ridden factory KTM and HRC bikes and renowned for being a good test rider.

What was it like to set-up for more than 7000km and twelve days?

Well, I’d never ridden a rally bike before I got on the Sherco, so I didn’t really have any comparison. It’s 150-60kg and much bigger than a motocross or enduro bike. The power is also very different and the suspension is far from what I was used to! Having done one Dakar I think the biggest thing I can still improve on the technical side is my own adaptation to the bike, the races themselves and the desert.

There are technical things

I imagine the powerband is in a totally different place.

In motocross you’ll want a lot of torque and bottom end but for rally I’m guessing you need more top…

Yeah, exactly. There are places that feel like one big plateau and you have to go full gas. It is easy to gain time without a big effort because if you bike goes faster than the others then that’s all you need. The transmission is also different because we move everything a bit further up. There was a lot to get used to and a lot to feel on the bike. It takes time. I also think it is difficult to make big changes to a rally bike through practice because you will never have the conditions of racing in the desert. I

Was the roadbook a bit of a culture shock?

It is hard! Especially when you have spent your whole career – more than twenty years – seeing the front fender! Now your view is taken up by this length of paper. It was a big challenge and when I signed the plan in 2020 was to do as many races as possible to gain experience with it in race conditions but then with last year being as it was….I was in Morocco when the lockdown

started and we were supposed to stay three weeks but I had to travel back to Portugal before it was impossible to do so. We didn’t go back to Morocco. So, I did the roadbooks in Portugal and a race in Andalucía, which was the only one before Dakar. Like I said before, this rally thing is not just about twisting the throttle and going fast. Your head is always connected to the roadbook to make sure you are going in the right direction and you are making the right choices. Your whole body is busy! When you finish a day or a stage you feel tired, even if the run wasn’t so physically tough. You are ‘working’ all the time to focus on the notes and the lines of the other guys. The roadbook is the base of everything. Before going fast you need to know where you are going.

Is there some guesswork involved as well? Some instincts and watching other riders?

Sometimes that’s possible, like in the dunes for example.

You get there and you see many lines that almost make a little ‘track’ going in the same direction. You can use that to confirm the roadbook and look to catch the waypoints. My goal was to always try to learn and navigate, even if there were many lines. But just following them means you are not looking out for the danger warnings on the roadbook; that’s when you need to slow down a bit. Following the roadbook is essential. Sometimes you are riding with somebody else, and it can be a guy with a lot of experience and in that way you can again ‘confirm’ you are going well and that’s a relief. It’s very different doing it on your own.

What’s the intensity like when it comes to concentration? You are clocking many hours in the saddle so is it as ‘busy’ as, say, trying to catch Cairoli in a moto?

I would say the [same] intensity is there…but it’s spread out. The older guys say that the rally is getting more and more intense and I would say that’s true of motocross now.

Some years ago you’d make a start, see your position, settle down a bit and build your

GONÇALES: MXGP TO DAKAR

was in Morocco and we could make tests and change but I was also learning the roadbook in Europe and everything feels smaller and you don’t reach the same speed. So, making the set-up is complicated because the bike suffers in a different way. The changes you end up making are only really confirmed when you are in the desert.

FEATURE race. That’s different now in MXGP. It’s intense and fast from the first corner to the last. Here, in rally, you might have 400km to do. At times the intensity is really high but in other parts you are bit more settled because the whole landscape feels so big and you are so far from each other. You are going fast, but just holding on and reading the roadbook. You cannot relax at all until you get back on the liaison to the bivouac.

Do you have more of a connection with the motorcycle? You are pinning it but also listening to it, nurturing it. In motocross you are normally just throttling it as hard as possible…

Yes, that’s right, and you need to be careful because the bike needs to go for twelve days. In motocross the practice sessions and the races is much shorter and more aggressive.

If you have a problem you just come in and the mechanic can solve it. In the Dakar you might need to do that yourself! You have to pay much more attention; doing something like hitting a large rock means you have to then check that everything is still OK. You also cannot be clutching the bike through the dunes. Finishing the stage is the priority and, of course, you don’t want to be losing time by having to stop, remove your helmet and problem-solving. You also

What was the fun part of the riding for you? Was it the slow and technical parts?

Or the outright speed?

For me it was when there was a little bit more sand and then the dunes. It is completely different to riding on a sandy motocross track. I always felt good on sand and I managed to go through the dunes with Kevin Benavides, who went on to win the Dakar. By being behind him and watching what he does I learned a lot.

You need to read the land, the shape of the dune and try to anticipate what is on the other side. It was interesting and I took confidence.

You were a great sand rider in MXGP, so it must have been a strong phase of the Dakar for you…

That’s true. When I said the sand was different I meant that it was so soft in some places that the bike was in danger of sinking to the handlebars and getting stuck and then in others it would be much harder and you could go through faster. It was difficult to read and predict how the terrain would be. Plus, you had to look at the colour of the dunes and the position of the sun because many times it looks quite flat…and it’s

not! I don’t think you ride a rally bike with the same level of confidence as you do on a sandy motocross track, purely due to the fact that everywhere you go is the first time you’ve put the wheels down.

On a motocross track you will have done a lot of laps and will know which rut and which bump to use.

How did the paddock react to you as there are quite a few motocross fans among the rally riders…?

Really nice. But when you get

emotions: the factory riders have the teams behind them and the aim of winning but there are also people there almost by themselves with their own personal reasons.

Is the cliché true: once you finished, did you immediately think about doing it again?

Yes, things changed a little bit after the Dakar because until you finish one then you don’t know what it feels like.

Beforehand, you know you are preparing for a big event and everybody gives advice for

“EVERYTHING CAN BE GOING WELL BUT THEN A FEW MINUTES LATER YOU TAKE A WRONG TURN, LOSE TIME, BE CURSING YOURSELF. IT IS SUCH A MIX OF EMOTIONS. ALL THE TIME.” back to the bivouac you are so busy because you haven’t eaten all day, you want some physio and you have to prepare everything for the next day. So, it’s not like we are all hanging-out but you do swap some conversation with other guys and it’s nice because the spread of people – and their race experiences – are so different. This year Joel Roleants’ [former MXGP racer] father was there. Many of them have different goals and objectives and most are for the adventure. Which is nice to see, and you can share many different

how it will be, but there are many parts of it that you need to experience for yourself to have your own conclusions.

The Dakar is not only about racing but personal discovery, I guess. I know if I did another one now then it would already be very different and I know a bit of what would be coming.

That feeling [of discovering it again] is there already. We don’t know how it will be for racing this year and I hope the conditions can change later on, but the plan will be the best preparation possible for 2022 with Sherco again.

GONÇALES: MXGP TO DAKAR

don’t have many means to fix things on the stage. So, you do need to be ‘connected’ to the bike

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TITULAR TITULAR MORE WAITING...PIVOT AGAIN As rumoured, 2021 MXGP slipped back from the first weekend of April in Oman to the third week of May in Holland and now optimistically waits to see if vaccine numbers rise, contagion drops, country border restrictions ease and the idea of public gathering together in Europe to watch or enjoy a sporting event is a realistic eventuality again.

The 2020 FIM World Championship was a salvage operation. The condensed season was hastily (and admirably) put together at expense to keep some sense of the status quo, both as a business exercise as much for the defiance against the crippling effects of the pandemic. As we saw many other sports found a way to exist among the limitations and certain public-dependent activities tried to adapt with audience-less broadcasts, outdoor shows and other initiatives.

MXGP can count on government backing for some rounds of the series.

For example, the international reach through TV/web broadcasts, social media

posts and media coverage of, say, the ‘Grand Prix of Bali’ justifies the investment made by the local authority or the tourist board. Naturally the cost of having MXGP is far lower than road race series’ based around a permanent facility. Still, even for those supposedly ‘flush’ GPs meetings, a lack of public carries repercussions for ticketing and the boost it brings to the amenities of the local area or town with a full paddock and racing fans flocking to the site for the better part of four-five days. For the majority of the circuits, clubs or organisers on the calendar the absence of spectators makes Grand Prix unsustainable. So, the whole sport has to keep flexible, and keep pushing back or squeezing

dates to maximise the possibilities of tickets being sold.

It’s extremely difficult and pretty worthless to speculate on how 2021 MXGP will end up. The championship is already becoming a late autumn sport once again with no less than seven races in October and November and the Motocross of Nations marooned in September. In my last Blog I assumed the inaugural Grand Prix Oman would have a good chance of going ahead, based on the recent Dakar rally successfully occurring in the region and MotoGP also taking place in Qatar (it since came to light that Dorna needed to negotiate a strict test-arrival-

BY ADAM WHEELER

BY ADAM WHEELER test & 12-hour-quarantine protocol with the Qataris just to get the paddock into the country without unbearably restrictive bubble policies).

Things change quickly. The return to the middle east for MXGP has now been pushed to 2022 and I’m hoping that other new ventures, such as the GP of Finland, don’t follow suit.

And, there are even question marks over MXGP’s first ever visit to Oss (north of Eindhoven) with WorldSBK moving their Assen fixture back to July and the Drenthe regional government currently putting a block on major events until June 1st. MXGP is likely to attract fans from other corners of northern Europe so will the North Brabant zone also make a deadline? Then, considering the complications of visas and travel to Russia in a ‘normal’ year, I have my doubts over the chances of going to Orlyonok for round two in June also. Headache.

Infront Motor Racing clearly have a strong dialogue with their promotional partners in the sixteen countries that

“RACERS WOULD HAVE ALREADY DONE THEIR BASE TRAINING AND THEIR TESTING. JANUARY AND THIS MONTH WOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT ‘BIKE TIME. SO, WHAT NOW? DO THEY EASE-OFF? STOP? CONTINUE RIDING?” make up the adjusted schedule and three of the dates have territories but no venues. That collaboration could be key in staging double-headers and rapid re-arrangements if-andwhen the calendar needs more modifications. But for every alteration – every pebble dropped in the pond – there is a ripple effect for national series’ and their own roster. On one hand the appearance of GP riders in domestic competitions is not necessarily

a highly mitigating factor but go deeper and the presence of younger racers that need to compete in their country and justify national sponsorship also make up the gates of the European championship and the next waves of GP runners.

Sunday clashes are an extra inconvenience.

The current minefield is a tiresome and risky walk for promoters and organisers but it is also a daunting prospect for the athletes. Any rider with a passing interest in the news would know that travelling and sporting events were under a growing question mark, and paranoia, variants and stuttering vaccination programmes meant that offseason was looking more likely to remain ‘off’.

Still, they would have already done their base training and their testing. January and this month would have been about ‘bike time’ before the first race opportunities appear on the

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horizon, mainly in Italy and France. So, what now? Do they ease-off? Stop? Continue riding?

“I kinda enjoy that, and I think it will count when it comes to the summer and autumn.”

I contacted double world championship runner-up and Monster Energy Yamaha factory rider Jeremy Seewer to ask. “Somehow we all saw this coming,” he remarked on the initial eight-week delay to the programme.

“I’m pretty relaxed about it but I’m going back home to Switzerland now to back-itoff. The racing is now so far away, and I know we’ll go into November again so it’s a long, long year. I’m kinda going into holiday mode again because I don’t want to lose energy for nothing. I will be training but with no intensity at all and will build that up again later. I’ll use the extra time to test some more parts actually and dial-in my bike even more.

We’ll go back to riding in Sardinia in two weeks.”

The Swiss remarked that the LaCapelle Marival International in France could be his first race on April 25th but other competitions in Europe might have already started by then. So, Oss doesn’t mean a full ‘reset’ for GP riders but does mean they will be ravenous for gatedrops before the world championship opens into the sand.

“We can keep on working to put everything together and do it without stress,” he added.

Fortunately, the disorientation of 2020 has provided a dose of experience for racers and athletes that have been conditioned to rigid seasonal timing of when to break, when to prep and when to peak. As well as skill, fitness, mental fortitude, hunger and strategy it now seems that increased adaptability has to be part of a rider’s arsenal.

PRODUCTS

MXGP: 2020 At the beginning of December Milestone and MXGP hustled to get the 2020 version of the official videogame onto downloadable platforms. Naturally the official names, teams, colours and bikes of the condensed season are in place (so there’s a chance to give Gautier Paulin or Clement Desalle one final GP win before they disappear from future editions of the series) and no licenced product would be worth the cash if there were not additional functions such as Track Creators and ‘Playground’ options to widen the appeal.

Unlike road racing, motocross has always been a hard and delicate blend to get right for gaming: go too far ‘sim’ and it becomes unplayable trying to convey the ruts and bumps, go too arcadey and the fan/user is even more removed from the experience.

Terrible physics for one gamer can be fun for another. We’re due to get a test version of MXGP 2020 soon and the delay around the 2021 championship gives extra validity for the product that is easily reachable now for the major consoles. Needless to say the game looks fantastic, and if it has any of the same dynamics from sister-title Monster Energy Supercross then it should play well and give a decent representation of the sport.

www.mxgp.com

PRODUCTS

www.leatt.com

LEATT Leatt came up trumps with their 5.5 Flexlock offroad boot. The Flexlock system involved an alternative approach to the engineering of the product and the way the boot absorbs and uses force on the lower leg. Compared to their market rivals, Leatt found that their tech reduced those forces on the knee and the ankle by more than 30% in each case, therefore having important repercussions on the group of almost 25 bones in the ankle and foot. The 5.5 (like the top of the range braces) came at a premium price so Leatt found a more affordable version (299 euros, 299 dollars and 255 pounds) in the 4.5, which they have just launched.

The 4.5 prioritises comfort (especially for wide feet apparently) and practicality with the SlideLock that slides one way and auto-locks, thus making the closure easier and more secure. The sole of the boot comes under scrutiny with the Enduro model providing practical tread compared to the motocross version and the use of DualZone hardness will ensure resistance against the grid of the pegs but the edges are softer for better comfort and mobility. Naturally the whole product is CE certified for protective standards. The 5.5 might still be the best option for serious off-roaders putting in a lot of time in the saddle but the 4.5 is a great middle ground option.

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PARITY PARTY...

When daylight disappeared at the Grand Prix of Italy, run at the picturesque setting of Imola, in September of 2018, there was little doubt about what the future of the premier MXGP class looked like.

Jeffrey Herlings had established himself as the clear frontrunner in the division; the idea of him not adding to his list of four world titles was laughable.

Jump to the present day and the dominant force in the FIM Motocross World Championship is not Herlings. Instead, Tim Gajser is coming off of backto-back premier class titles (taking his career total up to four) and has a considerable amount of momentum in his corner. Gajser was already a phenomenal talent, but the step that he made during the previous season was significant and has ultimately left pundits with a burning question: Who is going to be able to stop him and what will it take?

The all-new CRF450RW deserves a lot of credit for his visible transformation, as there were ultimately a lot less mistakes and more consistent performances across the various surfaces that a Grand Prix rider is faced with. Gajser always had two weaknesses: the sand and inconsistency.

The sand is certainly not as much of an issue now, as his impressive win total at Lommel would indicate, and he only fell outside of the top two at five of the 18 Grands Prix. That stat is particularly poignant as the new season approaches.

The aforementioned former champion, Jeffrey Herlings, is the most likely to best Gajser. Raw speed is both his greatest strength and weakness, and the stats support that. Herlings has led sixty percent of the laps

in his career – that is phenomenal considering that he is not considered the greatest starter – and won 90 of the 146 Grands Prix that he has competed in. That incredible speed has bit him on more than one occasion though, as he has missed 45 Grands Prix through his 11-year career (effectively more than two seasons).

It is no surprise that most believe that he will take the title if he completes every round, but then that is a challenge in itself. There is a thought-provoking statistic to consider here though; Herlings had a lead of 60 points before he got injured last term and that was after just six rounds with all of the competitors healthy. What would have happened had he not gotten injured? Would that have kept growing or

BY ADAM WHEELER

BY LEWIS PHILLIPS stabilised? Either way, there is no doubt that he would have been very tough to beat had he stayed on track.

Staying healthy is a crucial part of this game though and, unfortunately, few riders have managed to master that in recent years.

Just seven premier-class guys managed to take part

“IF THERE IS ONE THING TO EXTRACT FROM THIS SUPPOSITION, IT IS THAT THERE ARE SIX CAPABLE TITLE CONTENDERS IN THE PREMIER DIVISION. THAT IS SOMETHING RATHER SPECIAL!” in all 18 rounds last year, which is a bizarre and worrying figure. Antonio Cairoli was one of those guys who made it to each event, but he was far from at his best form and battled

injuries that would have sidelined an average rider.

Knee surgery has been done now though, and he has three months to prepare for battle. That should result in a much better Cairoli being sat on the line come May 23.

It is rather bizarre to think that fans and pundits alike do not really know what Cairoli is capable of now; he was already nursing a knee injury at round one last year and that meant that we never saw him at his best.

A shoulder injury sidelined him for a majority of the season prior, then he also battled niggling problems in that aforementioned 2018 season. Where does Cairoli fit in when he is fighting fit and in a good place? Any answers would simply be speculation at this stage – that is an exciting prospect.

The form that took him to his ninth world title in 2017 may not be as far removed as some would lead you to believe.

A strength for Cairoli would typically be his starts, although his prowess out of the gate pales in comparison to his Red Bull KTM Factory Racing stablemate. Jorge Prado is as fast as anyone and a better starter to boot.

That is a scary combination, because it effectively means that he will always have a presence near the front of the pack. Add in the fact that he rarely makes a mistake or sustains injuries (COVID-19 stopped him from being one of the seven riders at every round last year) and it is a dangerous prospect for his competition.

Is there even a chink in his armour? Any potential weaknesses are often offset by starting up front regularly.

Choosing one of those four protagonists as a favourite really comes down to splitting hairs, especially as a lot of pundits try to factor in injuries that may or may not occur. Romain Febvre has

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been bit by injury woes a lot, for instance, but eliminate those and he becomes a formidable contender. Strike the first two rounds of 2020 from the record and Febvre would have finished third in the championship, just four points shy of Jeremy Seewer in second. This is hypothetical, of course, but it is just proof of how competitive MXGP is if everyone can stay healthy.

Unfortunately, that dream is rather unrealistic if the past couple of seasons are anything to go by.

Seewer would be another realistic contender for the title, even though he does not get as much recognition as his peers (even those lower down the pecking order). Seewer has the outright speed to clinch Grand Prix wins though and is fairly good out of the gate; being in that fight for podium positions every single week is the missing link.

People forget that there was

a time – when the Grand Prix contingent left Mantova to be exact – that it seemed as though he was the clear favourite to take the 2020 championship. A slight dip in form in the latter stages squashed those lofty hopes though.

If there is one thing to extract from this supposition, it is that there are six capable title contenders in the premier division. That is something rather special! Fans longed for parity when Stefan Everts and then Tony Cairoli reeled off multiple titles in succession with little trouble.

Enthusiasts are right to be weary of getting too excited though, because first everyone must remain healthy. That is a significant challenge in itself.

PRODUCTS

SCOTT SPORTS Hot off the heels from their anniversary goggle with Pro Circuit, Scott Sports are now pushing the annual Camo Edition for both the Prospect and the Fury. The Prospect is the top of the range motocross product for the company with the wide field of vision, Lens Lock System, NoSweat foam and the articulated outriggers. The Fury still has the lens lock components and a 3-layer foam but the slightly smaller frame means greater universality with all and every off-road helmet on the market (the coverage provided by the Prospect means checking the eyewear with your current lid). Applying Scott’s reactive light sensitive lens is a must for either goggle; fantastic technology. When it comes to the livery then the Prospect carries the darker design with the black frame and the silver chrome WORKS lens whereas the Fury is lighter with more green, grey and red. The goggles are available from 24th February so get your order in now through the Scott Sports website.

www.scott-sports.com

BUILT TO CONQUER

4.5 Boots

Crush the tracks in robust comfort with the 4.5 Boot with SlideLock system for an air-tight seal and flat grippy inside for epic connection and bike feel. From the DualZone hardness of the sole, to the reinforced steel shank and robust low-profile toe-box for easy gear shifting, it’s clear that this certified pair of protective equipment is the armor your lower limbs deserve to take your performance to the next step.

THE SCIENCE OF THRILL

LEATT.COM

PRODUCTS

HUSQVARNA Husqvarna had been a tad reluctant to boost their on-road motorcycle collection outside of the 401 and 701 Vitpilen and Svartpilen models but the Vitpilen (the more sporty of the two with the single seat) has already spawned a 250cc version while the Svartpilen (a more comfy riding position among other smaller mods) now has 125, 200 and 250 offerings to expand the range to five bikes. The 125, shown here, will spit out 15hp and the motor is held through a steel trellis frame that not only makes it a nimble and stylish throwaround but undoubtedly adds to a ‘look’ that is unlike any other production bike on the street.

www.husqvarna-motorcycles.com Brembo ByBre brakes, twin channel ABS, a distinctive dash and LED light set-up are other technical specs. For city dwellers, trendy learners or those that just enjoy light and manageable motorcycling then there are few more ‘individual’ or standout 125cc options. We hope to have a ride/review on one soon.

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FEATURE

THE THREE DECEPTIONS OF THE '21 KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S

By Adam Wheeler, Photos by KTM/Sebas Romero, Marco Campelli

FEATURE

K

TM’s (admittedly unforeseen) plan to introduce the 2021 KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S involved relentless rain, strong winds and a stretch of treacherous sandy trail with road tyres on the island of Fuerteventura. In truth it was still a fine stage to uncover some of the ‘hidden’ elements of the company’s new flagship and a motorcycle that is hustling along with (or ahead) of the likes of BMW, Honda and Ducati…

Adventure bikes: the bumper, tech-laden, wallet-breaking machinery that breaks boundaries. This section of the bike market has apparently boomed over the last fifteen years and now shifts around 100,000 units annually. The conquering BMW GS series is still seen as the definition of the segment while Honda boast typical all-round effectiveness with their Africa Twin, Yamaha hold prestige with the Super Tenere, Ducati took vast strides both in performance and technology with their Multistrada V4 upper-spec models and KTM have the predominant offroad excellence with a burgeoning street profile. Those are just some examples of the choice that riders face when contemplating a vehicle for all trips and ranges.

It’s almost like KTM have enjoyed deceiving road riders in

the last five years. After creating extreme and loopy street-based naked and supermoto bikes, the Austrians became much more serious with the SUPER DUKE and their Rally/Dakar-derived ADVENTURE models from the first edition in 2002. By 2013 KTM were offering a SUPER ADVENTURE with Cornering ABS and Motorcycle Stability Control after intensifying their collaboration with electronic specialists Bosch.

By 2015 WP had helped with Semi-Active Suspension. Ready to race? Still yes, but also ready to compete with any other rival on the showroom floor.

The 1290 SUPER DUKE R came with the tagline of ‘The Beast’ and for all the thrill of the LC8 torque it could also be as meek and manageable as a kitten.

The 790 DUKE had enough agility and rasp to be labelled ‘The Scalpel’ but a year later KTM had sharpened a much more lethal ‘blade’ in the 890 DUKE R, which was then blunted slightly to the 890 DUKE earlier this year. The 790 had been quickly sheathed.

So, what to make of the 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S then?

From a wet and wild day exploring in the Canary Islands here are three misnomers that riders pondering a change of brand for their Adventure bike or those considering an investment in the big-bike experience might want to know…

1 TOO BIG, TOO MUCH Entering the foyer of the expansive and pleasant Sheraton hotel in Fuerteventura the new SUPER ADVENTURE is mounted next to a KTM screen and looks imposing. First impressions of the bike are the sheer bulk at the front; the load accommodates a three-cell 23 litre fuel tank, the intricate construction of which we come to understand is almost a work of art in itself, and elements such as the double radiator system on the LC8 twin that helps towards a new cooling system and much better dispersion out and away from the rider. Sadly there would not be much of a chance to check or feel this modification on the test day.

Underneath the windshield – which can be lowered or raised by 55mm thanks to two lateral wheels – is the new TFT dash, the size of a mini iPad, and the rest of the controls, switches and paddles. The view and aspect of the SUPER ADVENTURE shows off KTM’s rally roots and backs-up their insistence that germs of the Dakar and rally prototypes feed directly into the ergonomics of the ADVENTURE machines.

3 DECEPTIONS OF THE KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S

“KTM WENT TO GREAT LENGTHS TO EXPLAIN THEIR CHASSIS CONCEPT: TO GET THE RIDER ‘CLOSER TO THE MOTORCYCLE’. AND THIS IS ONE OF THE TRIUMPHS OF THE BIKE. WITHIN MINUTES, THE KTM FELT LIGHT, RESPONSIVE, NIMBLE. THE COLOSSUS THAT GREETED MY ARRIVAL THE DAY BEFORE HAD SHRANK BOTH IN MEMORY AND PHYSICALITY...”

FEATURE The rear of the bike is much narrower and dwarfed by the two-tiered seat and what looks like a very roomy and comfy perch for the pillion.

KTM claim that 90% of the bike is new, save for the wheels, potent Brembo brakes and some bolts that have survived from the previous SUPER ADVENTURE incarnation.

During the presentation that evening Marketing Manager Riaan Neveling and Head of Street Product Management Adriaan Sinke use phrases such as “we are a riders’ company”, “this is the ultimate high-performance bike” and “the motorcycle is

perfectly balanced”. They go to great lengths to explain that the chassis concept (smaller, shorter, lower centre of gravity) was to get the rider “closer to the motorcycle”. And this is one of the triumphs of the bike. Within minutes of leaving the hotel forecourt the next morning and shortly before the weather would turn grim the KTM felt light, responsive, nimble. The colossus that greeted my arrival the previous day had shrank both in memory and physicality.

Motoring along narrow roads with inconsistent grades of asphalt, turning through the many small roundabouts and then dealing with the strong gusts, sideways rain and low

visibility the bike was stable and assuring and the whole riding stance supported a sportier approach, or, was just as comfy standing on the pegs.

While the ergo seemed to be spot-on there were other impressions. The engine was a delight: typically torquey but also so useable. I could live in that fifth gear. Electronics such as the Motorcycle Traction Control and SemiActive Suspension (in Auto mode) were barely noticeable even when I kept the bike in Sport mode through some of the wetter parts of the ride.

Props also for the Mitas tyres.

The Czech brand’s presence on the SUPER ADVENTURE

3 DECEPTIONS OF THE KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S

raised a few eyebrows but KTM state that the Terra Force product topped their test sheets from all the other companies, and on first initial contact – especially in the rain - they were not wrong.

quantity of kilometres, time and distance, and you also miss other small details, like how difficult it is to pick-up a prone 250kg machine! KTM want to give a SUPER ADVENTURE that will take the rider anywhere, anyhow, and The SUPER ADVENTURE even though the might look like a handful but motorcycle will appear the basic ingredient of being daunting and maybe even submerged into the bike and excessive (although the feeling like you can make it do Austrians say every anything is resounding. component and centimetre Start to add on all the posof plastic has been examined sible options to sync it further and combed for thickness, to your style or your mood or rigidity and weight-saving) the the conditions around you and equilibrium and sheer ease the versatility shines through. makes the bike so appealing.

Upon parking the 1290 at the Obviously, there is only so end of the day it feels like a much of an adventure bike you wrench to leave it in the hands can test in one day. A certain of the KTM mechanics. Travel

and fun? These are not two concepts that always go handin-hand as the actual ‘travelling’ part of any trip can be a chore. The KTM is up there with any of their peers by inverting that notion, and I’ll wager the thrill factor is a little more intense.

2

TOO MUCH GIMMICKY TECH Along with touring bikes, adventure models are among the vanguards for the latest tech and ideas. See the Ducati Multistrada V4s’ front and rear radar and Blind Spot

FEATURE

Detection as a 2021 example. KTM are no different in wanting to equip the SUPER ADVENTURE with their latest developments, courtesy of the working relationship with Bosch; the same firm that is helping BMW and Ducati with hardware and algorithms.

Ride modes, Cornering ABS, Offroad ABS, Motorcycle Stability Control and Motorcycle Traction Control are all funnelled through the information provided by the 6-axis sensor that was debuted on the KTM 1290 SUPER DUKE R and transitions to the SUPER ADVENTURE. “The 6D sensor is the highest level of technology for an inertia measurement unit we have today,” said Bosch’s Davide Olerni. The exact positioning and behaviour of the bike and the reactions of the rider allow the tech to respond in a fraction of a second.

The software is also key to the upgraded WP Semi-Active Suspension that can be set-up with the minimum of fuss and effort through handy diagrams on the re-designed TFT menu system. It’s suspension setup for dummies, while also offering in-depth options for riders with acute feeling. The

Suspension Pro add-on pack takes the possibilities even further and with extra off-road emphasis. KTM stressed that the SAS is smoother and more integrated than ever before.

I enjoyed being able to hike the preload and create slightly sportier stance and it was all possible with several pushes of the four-way button next to my left thumb.

The reason for all this wizardry is pretty obvious. It’s about making the SUPER ADVENTURE exactly the bike you want it to be. As Sinke says: “We want to give choices to the rider”. Instead of thinking of the restrictions of the electronics it’s better to think of the possibilities. The facility that best encapsulates this is the Adaptive Cruise Control.

The ACC comes as standard on KTM and the SUPER ADVENTURE has stolen a march here. BMW have yet to transfer the engineering from their RT tourer to the GS’ and Ducati’s Multistrada offers ACC as a costly upgrade.

I was dubious about the fanfare that KTM were giving ACC. Is it really that essential?

“We’re very happy we can offer it,” Sinke stressed. “We like to lead with technology

and we like advanced tech on our bikes. The best thing about it is that it’s not a gimmick. It actually makes the bike better. It’s a more fun travel motorcycle. You can skip the boring parts.”

Again, I was surprised. The 40km trip back from the final photo point to the hotel was fairly mundane but the ACC was revelatory. It works through a sensor installed in the front of the new (wider beam) LED headlight and can be set to either speed or distance parameters, even boasting a handy ‘overtake assist’.

At first it was unnerving to set the system and put my faith in the bike to slow and accelerate by itself and through ABS manipulation. After a while of only having to use the Quickshifter+ (frustratingly still an optional extra on the KTMs) I was struck by how well it worked and how easy life was!

I only had to brake three times for most of the journey and spent time tweaking the setting for the car and trucks that were holding up the single lane carriageway.

Having a CPU take control of the throttle seems like the antithesis of the underpinned joy of riding,

3 DECEPTIONS OF THE KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S

FEATURE

but the ACC merely extends the usefulness of the SUPER ADVENTURE. “Unlike in our advertising, in the real world I have to actually get to the mountain!” Sinke smiles. “I wish the whole world existed around super-tight twisty mountain passes but it’s not true. I come from the Netherlands which is totally flat and the nearest mountain is 1000km away! To be able to set adaptive cruise control and let the computer and the bike take over some of the dull part of the ride, well, this is the huge advantage. It makes getting there much easier and then when you arrive to those twisty parts you switch it off and enjoy that amazing Adventure bike.”

“It’s very complicated technology,” he adds. “It was very difficult to achieve. In a car it is relatively easy because it’s stable and doesn’t lean. When the wheels turn you know in which direction the car is travelling. Lean angle doesn’t necessarily indicate this. It’s more complex. Motorcyclists ride differently, you are not always directly following the rider in front of you. You can be staggered. If a car system brakes aggressively then it is still going in the same direction whereas a bike has more at play and it’s easier to crash so factors like how much you

can accelerate and decelerate and how aggressively you can react means it’s difficult to achieve. A lot of working has gone into the settings to make it where it is today. It is a big project.”

There are other small benefits to the advanced electronics of the SUPER ADVENTURE such as the useful anti-dive function, and practical advantages such as being able to switch between modes while on the go with a quick closure of the throttle. Somewhere, deep inside the SUPER ADVENTURE, is a whirring computer of impressive power. And, as KTM admit, if you don’t like it then there is always the ‘disengage’. The expanded spec sheet of the SUPER ADVENTURE shouldn’t be a repellent.

“There is a quote out there somewhere that significantly advanced technology is virtually indistinguishable from magic,” Sinke smiles. “It doesn’t necessarily matter how it works behind the scenes – even though I love knowing that stuff and I think a lot of people like to know about it – but the great benefit is that the riding experience is now better.”

Undisputable.

3

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3 DECEPTIONS OF THE KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S

UNWIELDY AND UNWANTED? The rain made the off-road section of the SUPER ADVENTURE S launch a damp squib.

Despite the gloom it was exciting to activate ‘Offroad’ and ‘Offroad ABS’ and get onto a beach path, stand up and feel another aspect of the bike as it soaked up rocks and invited small wheelies over bumps. The sandy stretches ended up being far too muddy for the Mitas rubber and while the gravelly turns were edgy and fun, the mud had me wishing for some of the SUPER ADVENTURE R’s knobbly tyres. The bike was far more capable than the rider and I’d already tasted enough of the Canary Islands rainfall without wanting to sample the terrain as well.

The episode accentuated the SUPER ADVENTURE S’ road orientation without deflating its off-road potential.

Thus far, the bike had – firstly - proved to be manageable and comfortable. Secondly, would defy any electronics ‘doubters’ with its flexibility and advanced options and

FEATURE

3 DECEPTIONS OF THE KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S

then, thirdly, further dispelled the idea that its fit for just one purpose by being inviting on adverse surfaces and providing even more customisation.

Stationary moments allowed time to look around and realise that the seat can be fixed between 849mm and 869 with a simple button click and by refitting the unit. It was a ten second job and the higher stance fit my 5ft 11 frame (180cm) even better. Levers, pegs, handlebar positions and the TFT angle could all be moved and tweaked and the USB storage unit at the front of the tank was handy for fitting a smallish smartphone as well as the cool-looking Anti-Relay Attack mode remote key. The MY KTM app was even concise with the GPS directions.

The rack at the end of the pillion position and the new aluminium subframe begged for some accessories and luggage. KTM say there are eleven different seat options in their PowerParts catalogue alone.

Crash bars, coloured components, protective additions and a host of other tempting ways to personalise the SUPER ADVENTURE S endear the bike further. It sounds like ‘cheese’ but an expensive outlay like this (14,999 pounds in the UK, which is actually pretty good value when contrasted across the market) is a lifestyle choice. Riders new to the idea of adventure motorcycling might be deterred by the sheer scope of what’s on offer but the number of hours that will be spent with the SUPER ADVENTURE S means any rider will connect with the machine in more ways than one.

WEAR IT Having experienced the quality of Scott Sports’ clothing for wintersports and mountain/outdoors I was curious to try their Voyager Dryo gear, one of three fit-for-purpose jacket/pant combos in their Adventure motorsport range (with two of those models also available in women’s sizes). First impressions were of easy-fitting and quite loose garments, with a very robust Polyamide, Polyurethane and polyester construction that wasn’t too heavy and felt soft. The knees, hips, elbows and shoulders contained removable D30 protection (with a lattice type build for extra ventilation) that slotted into segments closed by Velcro. I removed the thermal layers in both the pants and the jacket: material that is fastened by small buttons and handy bright green loops.

Practicality is a big feature of the outfit and it felt like there were pockets and vents everywhere, the closure of which were simple with gloves thanks to the chunky zips and the poppers. The jacket has slightly pre-curved sleeves for an apt motorcycle fit and the zips to close around the gloves were small but sufficient. The real test came in Fuerteventura. The Voyager Dryo kept me warm enough wearing just a t-shirt underneath and in temperatures hovering around fifteen degrees. The pockets were accessible for me to regular dip in and out for a phone and GoPro. When we arrived at the first stop for lunch and having passed heavy showers and strong winds I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Dryo had lived up to its name and all of the island weather had stayed out.

Arriving back to the hotel later that afternoon, the Scott set had been completely drenched and covered in sand, so much so that the shade of the clothing had changed but I was still dry and comfortable. I was able to walk back into reception and do a small video piece without that ‘get me out of this

gear’ sensation. Many brands put time, expense and tech into Adventure clothing because it has to be versatile: protective, resistant to both hot and cold, rain and sun, and thoughtful for riders on big bikes making big trips. For this reason it can all get quite expensive and is not the type of kit that gets quickly recycled. We were impressed by what Scott had to offer, even if it wasn’t a total surprise having ventured onto ski slopes with that distinctive ‘S’ logo on jacket and pants. UK customers can expect to pay 700 pounds but, based on some ‘extreme’ experience with the KTM, it’s not a choice you’ll regret.

3 DECEPTIONS OF THE KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S

FEATURE

FEEL IT Fly Racing’s Formula helmet had gathered a lot of good reviews since its launch two years ago so it was fascinating to see what the fuss was all about. Out of the box the Formula Carbon Axon (690 dollars) was light, wellbuilt and well-designed. The profile of the helmet was also agreeable, not too narrow or weirdly formed around the chin bar. The positive impression continued when trying the lid: the medium was comfortable and roomy.

I didn’t have a sense of pressure around the top of the head but the helmet wasn’t loose enough to cause qualms. The visible sight of the Rheon cells gave reassurance and combined with the Conehead EPS construction the safety specs of the Formula meant a box was firmly ticked. Other details were noticeable, such as the lightweight screws for the visor (which did a decent job in the Fuerteventura wind and for the two occasions when gusts caught the peak and swept my head back), the rubber trim and the high standard of the liner and inner padding.

On the road the Formula’s ventilation system was tangible. The climate was not too friendly but there wasn’t a single point of the day where I felt the need to remove the Formula (compared to some colleagues using bulkier and heavier touring models). I know that Fly put years of development into the lid and it’s unusual for a firm not normally associated with advanced helmet tech to have created a product of such all-round excellence. Naturally we didn’t test the crash capacity of the Formula (!) but it has all the aspects you’d expect of a leading off-road model and for the fight against concussion and other brain injury. It’s simply not enough to buy a ‘featureless’ helmet in this day-and-age considering the gains that are being made in protective technology. After wearing Arai, Fox V3, and the excellent 6D ATR (with the Leatt 9.5 carbon still to vet), the Formula is clearly the king of the block. It’s also worth noting that it comes in a quality carrycase with a goggle soft pocket and a spare visor.

SEE IT

3 DECEPTIONS OF THE KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE S

Scott Sports were kind enough to send me a pair of Fury Light Sensitive goggles to try with the Formula. At first, I was little underwhelmed. I knew the KTM launch would take me off-road and having worn an older Prospect I wanted to try the latest version of the premium goggle. The Fury is the slightly smaller and lower spec eyewear with a narrower strap. I also thought the all-black design was not the most attractive of some very cool aesthetics that Scott have in the range. I was curious to experience the light sensitive lens technology for the first time though. I had often wondered if it is was something of a novelty. Scott explained that the Fury carries even greater compatibility with every-and-all helmets on the market thanks to the dimensions and it easily slotted into the Formula. The three-layer face foam and general fit meant the goggles were immediately comfortable.

The thin roof of foam on the top of the frame helped the Formula’s ventilation but the goggle stayed dry inside, even if it did feel like I was drinking half of the Atlantic being dumped upon us by the clouds overhead.

I was happy for the pre-curved lens that meant raindrops rarely stayed in place for long and the anti-fog treatment worked a treat. The light sensitivity? Really good. The weather alternated between degrees of showers and very brief cloud breaks and the view cleverly adapted to the conditions. Walking back to the bikes after the lunch stop, one member of the KTM staff asked me if I had changed goggles as the lens had reverted back to fully clear ‘state’. A big thumbs-up.

If Scott can equip their ‘lower’ range product (at 65 pounds) with these kinds of specs and this kind of performance then the premium gear can be left to the Pros or the hardcore.

PRODUCTS

KTM POWERPARTS KTM’s PowerParts catalogue should come with a wallet health warning. There is some seriously seductive kit in the brochure and we laid out some examples from the 2020 collection here. From bike protection & performance (crash bars, tanks pads, first aid kits, Akrapovic slip-ons) to aesthetics (wheel rim stickers, orange clutch levers, factory triple clamps) and practical solutions like luggage and bike ramps: there are many more options. KTM have a handy ‘customiser’ so you can find the exact product to fit your bike. Then it’s just a question of noting the reference number of the part and putting in the order.

Depending on the model and the requirements of a new bike then it’s almost always tempting to save a little budget to splash out on some extras or talk the dealer into throwing in a few additional options.

Naturally KTM’s accessories are fully compatible and, like their PowerWear, the quality cannot be disputed.

www.ktm.com

MotoGP BLOG

WHEN IS AN UNDERDOG NOT AN UND When I suggested to the editor of this publication in an episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast that Yamaha might just be a dark horse for the MotoGP title in 2021, Adam asked acerbically whether calling the manufacturer which won seven of the 2020 MotoGP season’s fourteen races a “dark horse” was a strictly accurate use of the term.

He has a point: a factory winning 50% of the races in the previous season does not generally qualify as an underdog.

And yet, ask MotoGP fans and media which manufacturer they think will be strongest in 2021,

and Yamaha barely gets a mention. The Suzuki pairing of Alex Rins and defending champ Joan Mir is very high on the list. Marc Márquez, if he returns to racing quickly and in good shape, is the obvious favourite.

Jack Miller and Miguel Oliveira having ascended to factory teams, with Ducati and KTM respectively. Pecco Bagnaia maybe. Pol Espargaro on the Repsol Honda perhaps. But nobody mentions the Yamaha.

Which is odd. The explanation for that, perhaps, is just who did all the winning last year. Maverick Viñales finished second in the first two races, and won at Misano 2, while his factory Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi’s sole podium came in the second race of the season. The factory Monster Energy Yamaha team finished sixth in the standings, behind the Suzuki, KTM, and Ducati factory teams, as well as two satellite teams.

Fabio Quartararo had more success on the third factory-spec Yamaha M1, racking up three wins and a couple of poles, but

by the end of the season, his media debriefs had become a painful affair, the Frenchman trying to hide his exasperation with the situation.

Meanwhile, Petronas teammate Franco Morbidelli was reaping all the plaudits. The Italian won three races, including two of the last four, and he did so on what was essentially a 2019-spec M1.

What’s more, he did it with just two engines to last 13 races, an incredible feat of endurance. It felt more like Morbidelli won races despite Yamaha, not because of them.

But Yamaha’s troubled 2020 is precisely why they are the factory to be feared in 2021. The long, hard year taught Yamaha some extremely valuable lessons, the kind which can only be learned when a factory is forced to work around a potentially catastrophic problem.

“In the process of managing the problem, we learned many may things as well about how to manage the engine settings, performance settings, how to maintain the reliability,” Yamaha

DERDOG? boss Lin Jarvis said during the factory team launch.

The initial response had been to reduce the amount of revs needed, but Yamaha soon figured out how to save the engine while still using maximum revs. The key, Morbidelli’s crew chief Ramon Forcada explained, was in managing the ‘soft’ rev limit, the point at which top end power tapers off, rather than the ‘hard’ limit, the brutal cut which formed the soundtrack of any MotoGP campsite, pre Covid, at least.

Yamaha also quickly figured out that the 2020 M1 had a fatal handling flaw. “Last year since the moment that both factory riders chose this specification, they always complained about the difficulties from the moment that they braked and released the brake, the bike didn’t want to turn,” team boss Maio Meregalli explained. “Last year Yamaha engineers could understand the weak point of the factory bike and the strong point of Frankie’s bike.”

Armed with this knowledge, the 2021 Yamaha M1 will be more like the 2019 bike than the 2020.

And the fact that the engine design is frozen for 2021 helps Yamaha as well, Jarvis said. If development is frozen for everyone, you know for certain that you won’t lose any horsepower to your rivals. “So it’s fairly predictable how our performance will be. We won 7 races without having the same horsepower as our competitors, so I think we can do the same again.”

Who is to spearhead the Yamaha charge? Maverick Viñales is lead rider, but his weakness is that he never has a plan B when things don’t go as he imagined. When the stars align, he can win, but otherwise he is nowhere. Valentino Rossi looks like a spent force, still fast enough to deserve a seat in MotoGP, not quick enough to be a threat.

Fabio Quartararo learned some hard lessons about MotoGP in 2020, but still won three races.

With a better bike and a year of experience, he should be more like El Diablo of 2019, and less

like 2020. But if an underdog is to succeed, it will most likely be the man who nearly caused an upset last season. Franco Morbidelli enters 2021 with more confidence from his success, a better M1, and the resentment of still not having full factory equipment which drove him to such great heights in the last campaign. This underdog might just have a very nasty bite.

CREATED THANKS TO Moto3’S NEWEST RACING TEAM

BY DAVID EMMETT

DUCATI LENOVO TEAM #43 JACK MILLER #63 PECCO BAGNAIA

MotoGP Photos by respective brands/teams

#12 MAVERICK VIÑALES #20 FABIO QUARTARARO

MotoGP

MONSTER ENERGY YAMAHA MotoGP

LCR HONDA

#30 TAKAAKI NAKAGAMI #73 ALEX MARQUEZ

MotoGP

MotoGP

RED BULL KTM FACTORY RACING

#33 BRAD BINDER #88 MIGUEL OLIVEIRA

#10 LUCA MARINI #23 ENEA BASTIANINI

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ESPONSORAMA RACING

REPSOL HONDA TEAM

#44 POL ESPARGARO #93 MARC MARQUEZ

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FEATURE

THE WINTE

By Neil Morrison Photos by Polarity Photo/CormacGP

JUST HOW WILL SUZUKI’S DECISION NOT TO REPLACE THE INFLUENTIAL DAVIDE BRIVIO IMPACT ITS MotoGP TITLE DEFENCE IN 2021?

E

verything was in place.

Two young, talented riders locked-in to longterm contracts. An excellent bike that only needs fine-tuning over the winter months.

A team, carefully compiled through seven years, feeding off recent success and as closely knit as they come. Over December bosses at Suzuki HQ had every right to feel the amazing feats of its MotoGP operation could be repeated in 2021.

But team boss Davide Brivio’s decision during the Christmas break to step away from the MotoGP paddock for a fresh challenge in Formula1 left the Hamamatsu factory in a jam. Its decision to not replace the charismatic Italian, opting instead for a management committee, is one laden with risk. The first preseason test of the year is still weeks from starting and Suzuki has already faced the first major ‘test’ of its MotoGP title defence.

The decision caught everyone off guard. “It was shocking news,” admitted Project Leader Shinichi Sahara of learning of the Italian’s decision in early January.

With good reason. The Italian had steered the Suzuki ship since its decision to re-enter MotoGP in 2015. In that time the factory has gone from hapless returnees at Valencia in 2014 to world champions, signed, nurtured and won races with Maverick Viñales, Alex Rins and Joan Mir and,

ER GAMBLE

FEATURE announcement. Instead, a seven-man ‘Management Committee’, headed by Project Leader Shinichi Sahara, has been established to lead the factory through this year’s 20-race MotoGP season. The structure is certainly unique to MotoGP, where all other teams and factories have a clear figurehead. In fact, going through recent history, it’s hard to recall a similar precedent.

with the exception of 2017, steadily built on the GSX-RR’s strengths to make it the grid’s most rounded package.

In a little over six seasons he oversaw five race wins, twenty-seven podiums and a first world championship for the Hamamatsu factory since 2000 – not bad considering Suzuki’s record in MotoGP’s four-stroke era prior to departing at the close of 2011 (one win, two pole positions, five podiums). Their loss is undoubtedly Renault’s much changed Formula1 outfit’s gain.

Suzuki’s response has been unconventional to say the least. A host of names were slated as possible replacements in the days that followed the official

SUZUKI: THE WINTER GAMBLE

The energy, charisma and organisational skills that Brivio brought to the role will be sorely missed. Ducati’s Jack Miller agreed, stating reigning champion Joan Mir starts the year as favourite, but with an added caveat: “Nobody expected him last year but he did it. I don’t think we can discount him or Suzuki. The biggest question mark for

them will be Brivio leaving.

How they will overcome this hurdle, which came late.”

Could this cost Suzuki a shot at retaining its premier class crown?

A MISSING LINK So, what exactly is Suzuki going to miss?

IT’S A RISK. BUT WITH SAHARA ESSENTIALLY THE HEAD OF THE GROUP, THE BUCK WILL STOP AT HIM. THERE’S NO QUESTION THAT CHALLENGES WILL ARISE. As Miller stated, it’s quite the barrier to jump. In Brivio, Suzuki had a communicator and link between the garage and factory engineers. The Italian was an energetic, upbeat presence, who injected a sense of fun and camaraderie into affairs right from the top. Having once held the unfortunate role of motorcycle journalist, his dealings with the media were always warm, thorough and honest – not always commonplace in this environment.

No team celebrated success as much. Brivio was often the ringleader in the videos seen in Barcelona, Aragon and Valencia last year, when both Mir and Rins made the podium. He is known to treat his staff fairly and was there to hear his riders’ concerns and take their comments

to the relevant engineers in Japan. “For sure we will miss him because we were talking a lot. We were doing like jokes in the team with him also. He was saying to me, like advice,” Rins said earlier this month.

According to Sahara, whether the matter came from the marketing side or technical division, “Davide gathered the information and data and forwarded to me and other persons, so sometimes there was a filter or amplified.”

Having been around during the Yamaha heyday of the mid 2000s, his contacts in the paddock were extensive. It will be interesting to read how Suzuki progresses its plans to run a satellite team in 2022 without Brivio’s stewardship.

Little wonder the Japanese engineer stressed how he was “a bit tired already” when he spoke with the media in early February, having undertaken added responsibility.

FEATURE

PONCHARAL: “WHEN I HEARD DAVIDE WAS LEAVING, I THOUGHT, ‘BAD NEWS FOR SUZUKI,’. WHEN YOU KNOW HOW SUZUKI IS WORKING AND HOW THEIR MotoGP TEAM IS ORGANISED, THE EUROPEAN CREW PLUS THE JAPANESE ORGANISATION… THIS IS A KEY POSITION...”

From Suzuki’s re-emergence in the premier class, Brivio had a blueprint for attracting riders.

They had to meet two crucial criteria: riders on their list had to be young with a great deal still to prove; and they had to view riding in the factory’s famous sky blue as an honour.

“One of our strategies has always been to get the rider that really wanted to be at Suzuki; not the rider that must go to Suzuki, because there

was no other choice,” he said back in 2018. “It’s very important that he considers being in Suzuki an achievement.”

This approach led to repeated successes in recruitment.

Aside from Andrea Iannone, each of Suzuki’s five signings since 2015 has been an unmitigated success (even the Italian scored all of his four podiums in his second year in

blue). And Brivio’s philosophy led to the signing of Mir over Jorge Lorenzo in 2018 as one Majorcan was clearly on the rise while the other was sadly heading in the opposite direction. “It looks risky. But that’s the way we like to go,” he said.

And while he was usually polite and smiling in front of the cameras and reporters, he could be ruthless when

SUZUKI: THE WINTER GAMBLE

the occasion demanded it.

No figure was as outspoken when criticising the repeated attempts of Ducati’s Gigi Dall’Igna to push the technical rules to the absolute limits at the start of 2019. And he didn’t hesitate to ‘out’ Iannone a year earlier, even when the Italian was in the midst of, in terms of podiums at least, his most successful premier class campaign.

THE REPLACEMENT PLAN A host of names, including Livio Suppo, declared their interest in the role. Even factory legend Kevin Schwantz offered to step in. But Suzuki opted against splashing the cash on a last-minute replacement, instead deciding on grouping together the expertise already at its disposal.

The Management Committee will consist of seven figures.

Crew chiefs Frankie Carchedi (Mir) and José Manuel Cazeaux (Rins), Technical Manager Ken Kawuchi and Sahara represent the technical side. Meanwhile Marketing and Communication Manager Alberto Gomez, and Team Coordinators Roberto Brivio (Davide’s brother) and Mitia Dotta will no doubt bring forth their views on the

FEATURE organisational aspect of managing a team at this level.

Between them, any issues should be resolved within.

It’s a risk. But with Sahara essentially the head of the group, the buck will stop at him. There’s no question that challenges will arise through the year but Carchedi has already noted how he now has a more direct line to Sahara, the brains of the operation, than before. “From a crew chief’s point of view we always have a strong relationship with Japan, where we’re backwards and forwards,” he said.

“Rather than go sometimes to Davide and then (from him) to Sahara-san, at the moment we’re going directly (to Sahara). It hasn’t changed too much. We’ll have to see when the season starts if anything arises. But I would say at the moment everything is good and working well.”

No team coasts successfully through a season without wayward steps. Just how well the Committee deals with a run of bad results, a rider clash, or a misstep in development remains to be seen. It’s then a figure with the personal skills and quick thinking of Brivio will be most missed. Also question marks remain as to whether a satellite team can be organised by committee in time for 2022 – one of the big challenges that

lie ahead for a group that will already be stretched.

But considering the circumstances, Suzuki’s resistance to a hasty signing appears to be a plan wedded in reason. Both Rins and Mir are already signed up to the end of 2022. The bike only needs fine-tuning at this point

in time, and the rest of the squad is settled and has experience of their roles.

Bringing in a new manager would firstly be expensive.

There weren’t many names available that ticked the requisite boxes. Suzuki may have had to buy someone out of a contract at this late stage.

And a new figure always

SUZUKI: THE WINTER GAMBLE

wants to impose his or her working methods on their new surroundings. Coming off its most successful season in two decades, Suzuki doesn’t necessarily need that. As the old adage goes, if it ain’t broke…

That was certainly the opinion of reigning champion Mir. “I was in shock when I first heard the news,” he said earlier this month. “But I think inside Suzuki we have very competitive people that are able to manage the situation [without a new appointment] in the best way. That’s why I’m calm. I think that Saharasan, and inside of Suzuki, they will do what is best for Suzuki.

And that’s the best for me also. So, I’m not worried.”

Another point: who is to say whether this won’t be permanent feature beyond this year?

Although as Sahara acknowledged, the ‘Management Committee’ is a stop-gap for the time being.

“The committee, I can say, must be flexible for that point, you can say it’s temporary, but for the moment I’m happy to have such seven persons involved. In the future I don’t know, we will see what happens. We’ve never had a single race yet with this committee system. So we will see and if necessary we will think to choose one guy from outside, but I cannot imagine now who that person would be or if it’s necessary or not.”

tion… This is a key position.

When I saw a few names being thrown in the air (as replacements), I thought, ‘you should think twice.’ It’s only my opinion but I think Sahara-san did great and took the right decision. With Roberto Brivio, he’s really in charge of the logistics, plus the Japanese side which is very close to Europe – for me this is the factory team with the closest atmosphere to an independent team.

They are very close to what I like as a team. It’s a family team.

In other words, 2021 will be a test bed. It could even be seen as a stop gap in the years to come with a structure in place to decide on a replacement if necessary.

“At the moment the riders are under contract. The sponsors are done. The organisation is ready.

The bikes have been developed in Japan. There is no need to take a decision too quickly under pressure that you would regret. I think they can start the season with that organisation and during the first few months they are going to talk, meet people and decide. I think this is very wise.”

Hervé Poncharal is a name that has been involved in the team management game for 30 years, the last of those as a major figure in MotoGP. While the idea of a Committee is alien to his own working methods, he is convinced Suzuki has made the right move in light of current circumstances.

“When I heard Davide was leaving, I thought, ‘Bad news for Suzuki,’” Poncharal recently opined. “He was the vital part of the return of Suzuki.

I have to say when you know how Suzuki is working and how their MotoGP team is organised, the European crew plus the Japanese organisa-

In the circumstances, Suzuki has approached this particular headache with the caution and reason that has carried them to recent success. But the return of Marc Marquez, added competition and the return of a more conventional calendar in another COVID-afflicted season means 2021 is likely to throw up more challenges than can currently be envisioned. The working methods of its Management Committee is likely to be one on the year’s big question marks going forward.

MotoGP BLOG

DOES THE COMEBACK START HERE? For many reasons this has been one of the strangest winters in memory. Travel restrictions, closed bars, endless hours at home and excessive talk of tiers have put many to the test in a time normally reserved for rest and relaxation.

Another, more trivial, oddity came when partaking in the normal practice of predicting the upcoming season. Should I include Marc Marquez among the favourites? I mean, his track record is beyond question. He last finished off the podium 24 months ago. And who can forget the dominance on show in his last racing appearance when he treated us to another performance for the ages? But that injury. That layoff. And those complications. A rider with no definitive return date must surely be treated

As someone who has only worked in the paddock during Marquez’s period of dominance, it was surprising – unsettling, even – to hear certain riders outline their expected challengers this year. Jack Miller didn’t name the eight-time champion when pressed on the subject this month. And with no news coming out of Marquez’s camp, it was natural to think: do they know something we don’t?

Yet Monday’s Repsol Honda launch finally provided an insight into the 28-year old’s well-being.

Yes, he looked a little thinner.

And yes, that right shoulder was slight, his right arm, slumped forward, thin and wiry compared to his left. But figure presented to us in team attire wasn’t lacking hunger or motivation. He said all the right things in what was our first chance to ask him questions since the Saturday of the Andalusian Grand Prix last July.

During the presentation he expressed caution. “I can imagine the best comeback is to start riding the bike again and be the

same, but it will be difficult to be like this,” he said. “We will see if it takes one race, two races, half the season to be the same Marc.” But after chatting with us for a little over half an hour in four languages, he was bullish enough to suggest it would be foolish to count him out of this year’s fight just yet.

First, he must clear an appointment in mid-March, when doctors will assess the consolidation of the right humerus, the bone broken last July. An infection of the fracture delayed healing and required a third operation on 3rd December, a ten-day hospital stay and a course of antibiotics.

Recent weeks have seen enough progress for the rider to sound optimistic. “Since (the third operation) I start to feel some steps with the arm and the feeling … This week I feel better than last week,” he said. If that goes well, and doctors are satisfied, he’ll throw himself into rehabilitation to regain muscle around his arm and shoulder.

Now overcoming that strength deficit will be no walk in the park.

On Monday he revealed he has been able to lift nothing heavier than 3kg with the right arm. He currently doesn’t possess the physique of a MotoGP racer, whose job includes throwing 160 kilos from side to side at excessive speeds. A host of painful gym sessions lie ahead.

But knowing the bone has consolidated will surely be of great comfort. And Marc has been here before, having to acquire muscle after a lengthy lay-off (see the winters of 2019 and 2020 when recovering from surgery on his left then right shoulder). Intense, dedicated sessions with Carlos Garcia, a physiotherapist working for the Clinica Mobile, will no doubt accelerate the process. And if Monday is anything to go by, he’ll be pushing the limits of recovery once again as he looks within for motivation.

For all the talk of being ring-rusty when he gets back on a bike, Marquez took very little time in showing true speed when

returning from “serious” and “aggressive” surgery on his left shoulder in 2019. He was fastest on day one after posting 29 laps.

Yes, he lacked the strength to piece a number of laps together.

But he was still quick. By the final test three weeks later he exclaimed his shoulder was “ready to fight!” after crashing on it. He would go on to finish either first or second in 18 or the year’s 19 races.

Now, there are a few differences here. Marquez has been out of action for seven months, not two.

Rehabilitation will no doubt take longer. He’ll be getting to grips with his bike during a race weekend, whether that’s in Qatar, Portugal or Andalusia. He will also have to get a feel for a motorcycle which has changed and been developed without him testing in a ludicrously short time.

Also, this injury led to many tough days and nights. “It was especially really hard around September and October,” he recalled. “In that period every day, all month the feeling of my

CREATED THANKS TO Moto3’S NEWEST RACING TEAM

BY NEIL MORRISON

MotoGP BLOG

arm was exactly the same. No improvement. I felt something inside was moving.

This was my feeling. I had many different checks to try to find that infection. But all analysis, and tests I did was negative always.”

Yet even during those tough times, “I tried to be always be optimistic and I never thought I would not race again. I always thought about when is the next race, when is the next test to try and arrive.”

With good reason. One thing in his favour: can anyone else on the grid put together an early sequence of results that means they’ll be out of sight by the time Marc regains some kind of fighting fitness? It’s still too early to say, but at this point I can’t.

Even if it takes Marc five or six or seven races to get his feeling back, this extensive calendar should offer him a chance to make up ground. It’s a huge ask. But Monday’s assured performance in front of the watching media showed he’s as hungry as ever to return whenever possible.

It should be one hell of a show watching him attempt to become “the same Marc.”

If history is anything to go by, it’s worth waging he’ll do it sooner than you think.

Photo by Repsol Honda

MAKE YOUR DREAM COME TRUE RANGE 2020

WorldSBK BLOG

GRAINS OF TRUTH...

On a recent Paddock Pass Podcast we discussed who has the most to prove in 2021. When the topic turned from MotoGP to WorldSBK, Adam Wheeler joked that “Kawasaki really need to pull their socks up this year.” With every joke is a grain of truth because even though Jonathan Rea and Kawasaki have won six titles in a row, they now have plenty of work to do to keep the run going.

Their title winning run will eventually come to an end.

The nature of sports dictates when that happens fingers will be pointed. It’ll be difficult to put a lot of blame at the rider’s door; a minimum of six titles and every conceivable record will place Rea above reproach. Instead, responsibility will undoubtedly fall at the doorstep of Kawasaki. After so much success it was taken for granted by so many for so long that the ZX10-RR was the best bike on the grid.

As ever with perceptions, it takes a long time to change them. Stereotypes stick in all walks of life and in racing people become entrenched in their beliefs.

The green machines were the best bike on the grid for a long time. Rea is still winning races. Therefore the Kawasaki is still the best bike on the grid. Until Rea is beaten, people will underestimate the challenge he faces.

The introduction of the Ducati V4R in 2019 showed that the Italians had put their money where their mouth is.

In a production-based series is it really a surprise that a bike that costs almost double the price is a better base for a race machine?

With their previous model Ducati had a weapon in the form of the twin-cylinder Panigale, but it was a fickle

machine. The Kawasaki was much more balanced and from round to round that made the difference for Rea With the V4R, Ducati has successfully rounded those edges with and it is now the most complete bike in the pitlane. It’s only a matter of time until they get out of their own way and win again.

The resources that Ducati pump into their programme dwarfs Kawasaki. As evidenced rarlier this winter when Ducati appeared with Michele Pirro spinning laps at the first test of the year.

With new regulations limiting teams to eight days of testing per season, this gave the Ducati factory squad an advantage because they

BY ADAM WHEELER

BY STEVE ENGLISH could save the test days allocated to their factory riders while still getting valuable data. Kawasaki on the other hand were burning days for their race riders with Rea looking to confirm his engine specification for 2021.

In racing marginal gains help but this is a big advantage for Ducati.

For a long time Provec Racing [KRT] were held up as the gold standard of WorldSBK teams. Again, this was the case a few years ago but with Kawasaki losing a step to their rivals on track, we’ve seen fractures in the garage too. The rivalry between crew chiefs Pere Riba and Marcel Duinker has been well known for a long time and it’s had a big impact on the competitive balance within the team.

Leon Haslam and Alex Lowes have both experienced this as teammates to Rea. When Haslam left the team he did

so while clearly disappointed that the bike wasn’t moving in a direction that he wanted. He complained that he couldn’t use his riding style to get the most from the bike. Haslam wanted to carry corner speed, the same style that Lowes had utilised with Yamaha, but instead found that he was constantly having to adapt to ride like Rea. For Lowes, corner entry was the biggest issue in 2020 and that’s been his focus with the winter tests having seen his electronic setting move closer to Rea’s to maximise braking.

Lowes is the most accurate barometer of where Kawasaki are at the moment.

Rea has the experience to maximise the bike and mask its shortcomings. During his first season with the team Lowes didn’t have this and it made for some startling realisations. During his three years paired with Michael van der Mark at Yamaha, the pair were rarely separated on track

and had a host of bar to bar battles. At the 2020 Catalan round of WorldSBK, Lowes lagged behind by 12 seconds.

For two riders that had shown themselves to be a real match for one another, questions were immediately asked about the bike...

Adam might have been joking about the team with the most to prove, but Kawasaki are the team with the most to lose in 2021.

TEST

THE HONDA TOUC DOES THE NEW AFRICA TWIN TAKE YOU FAR?

By Roland Brown Photos by Honda

CH

TEST

H

onda has regained its off-road adventure mojo of late. Back-to-back Dakar Rally wins have finally ended KTM’s decades of dominance, and meanwhile the reborn Africa Twin has been recapturing both the style and showroom success of its legendary Eighties namesake.

The Africa Twin’s revival has been plotted in typically singleminded Honda fashion, inspired by the forebear that began in 1988 as the XRV650.

Rather than attempting to compete head-on with the familiar adventure-class giants from Austria and Germany,

Honda debuted the newgeneration Africa Twin in 2016 as the CFR1000L, its 998cc capacity hinting at a less powerful but slimmer, simpler and more manageable alternative.

Strong sales justified that approach but standing still was not an option in an open-class adventure market in which size, power and sophistication remain prized. Having already added a bigger-tanked, betterequipped Adventure Sports variant, last year Honda gave the Africa Twin a larger and more powerful engine, plus a thorough chassis and

electronics overhaul that brought the bike that’s now named CRF1100L closer to its main rivals. (The only real change for 2021 is that the TFT display is now works with Android Auto as well as Apple CarPlay.)

As before, the Adventure Sports looks sharp in its traditional Africa Twin combination of white-red-blue paintwork and gold wheels.

(There’s also a black alternative.) Both this model and the standard Twin give the option of Honda’s Dual Clutch Transmission system. The test bike had a conventional

The 1084cc, eight-valve engine makes a maximum of 100bhp, a gain of 7bhp, along with more torque throughout the range. That’s still modest by open-class standards – well down on the 134bhp of BMW’s R1250GS, let alone the 158bhp of KTM’s 1290 Super Adventure – and might seem lacking when two-up and heavily loaded. But for normal, solo use the Honda was both impressively flexible and enjoyably lively, particularly as it was happy to rev and stayed pretty smooth to the 8000rpm redline.

It also benefited from crisp throttle response, whichever of the four power modes I’d selected via the large and neatly laid-out display, which is a touchscreen when the bike’s not moving. You can choose from Tour, Urban, Gravel and Off-Road, and the display changes each time along with parameters including power delivery, engine braking and traction control, plus suspension adjustment in the case of the

ES. The system allows plenty of fine-tuning, and although the left handlebar’s switchgear seems worryingly complex I found the basic settings easy to use. (Shame the switches aren’t backlit though.)

Performance was similarly accessible. At speed the Twin was happy to canter along main roads at the legal limit or well above, its rider fairly well protected by the Adventure Sport’s screen, which is taller than the standard model’s. On its lowest position this allowed lanky me to look over it, but average height riders have to look through it, which is particularly annoying in wet weather. The lack of more and simpler adjustment is an unnecessary flaw.

At least the Adventure Sports scores with its comfortably roomy riding position. This model’s adjustable seat has been lowered to bring it to the same height as the standard Twin’s, which helps make the bike more manageable. At 238kg wet the bike is hardly light, especially when the big 24.8-litre tank is full, but it’s impressively wieldy. And that tank gives a realistic range of about 300 miles, so many riders will feel the compromise worthwhile.

HONDA AFRICA TWIN

six-speed box but was the Adventure Sports ES, signifying the other option of Showa semi-active suspension. All models have the same, revised steel frame and new aluminium rear subframe, plus lightened and stiffened aluminium swing-arm.

TEST

HONDA AFRICA TWIN

“OVERALL THIS USEFULLY UPGRADED AFRICA TWIN ADVENTURE SPORTS IS NOTABLY BETTER EQUIPPED TO DEFEND ITS HARD-WON MARKET POSITION BETWEEN THE ADVENTURE-CLASS HEAVYWEIGHTS AND THE GROWING RANKS OF MIDDLEWEIGHT CHALLENGERS...”

TEST Handling is excellent too, possibly boosted slightly by a frame that Honda says was made less stiff in some areas to improve feedback. The chassis certainly remains stiff enough to allow enjoyably brisk cornering, at least with the test bike’s road-biased Metzeler Karoo Street tyres fitted.

It’s helped by the semi-active suspension’s ability to be firm and well-controlled when required, despite its generous travel, yet compliant and comfort-enhancing the rest of the time.

This Adventure Sports also joins the standard Twin in benefitting from an electronics upgrade whose IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) allows cornering headlights and ABS, plus more sophisticated traction control.

Equally importantly the Honda also ticks the more traditional adventure-bike boxes by incorporating features including cruise control, heated grips, USB socket, useful mirrors, and a neat blend of pillion grab-handles and rear carrier.

Overall this usefully upgraded Africa Twin Adventure Sports is notably better equipped to defend its hard-won market position between the adventure-class heavyweights and the growing ranks of middleweight challengers. Perhaps inevitably it is more expensive (at £16,049 in the UK for the ES, or £14,649 with conventional suspension) but it gains valuable performance and sophistication while retaining the Africa Twin’s distinctive style and character. On this evidence, Honda’s off-road adventure mojo remains firmly in place.

HONDA AFRICA TWIN

BACK PAGE

By Align Media

ON TRACK OFF ROAD

‘On-track Off-road’ is a free, monthly publication for the screen focussed on bringing the latest perspectives on events, blogs and some of the very finest photography from the three worlds of MXGP, the AMA Motocross and Supercross series’, MotoGP, WorldSBK as well as the latest bike tests.

‘On-track Off-road’ will be published online at www.ontrackoffroad.com on the last Wednesday of the month. To receive an email notification that a new issue available with a brief description of each edition’s contents simply enter an address in the box provided on the homepage. All email addresses will be kept strictly confidential and only used for purposes connected with OTOR. Adam Wheeler Editor and MXGP/MotoGP correspondent Ray Archer Photographer Steve Matthes AMA MX and SX correspondent Mike Antonovich AMA SX Blogger Cormac Ryan-Meenan MotoGP Photographer www.cormacgp.com Rob Gray MotoGP Photographer David Emmett MotoGP Blogger Neil Morrison MotoGP Blogger & Feature writer Steve English WSB Blogger & Feature writer Lewis Phillips MXGP Blogger Roland Brown Tester/Columnist Núria Garcia Cover Design Gabi Álvarez Web developer Hosting FireThumb7 - www.firethumb7.co.uk Thanks to www.mototribu.com for the share PHOTO CREDITS Ray Archer, CormacGP, Polarity Photo, Mike Emery/Align Media, Honda, KTM, Romero/Campelli, Sherco, James Lissimore/Lissimore Photo Cover shot: Red Bull KTM Factory Racing #88 by Sebas Romero/KTM This publication took a lot of time and effort to put together so please respect it! Nothing in this publication can be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the editorial team. For more information please visit www.ontrackoffroad.com and click ‘Contact us’.