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Trailboss wrote:
Quote:Also there is talk of an old bull / Tekinks weekend further up the coast so stay tuned Mr BlueTB
Ok well I might hold off getting the new valving done in the shock then, might even get them to give the forks a service by then too.
Trev wrote:
Quote:The snake didn’t like riding on a KTM. It grabbed him a few times before he got back to camp.
Crazy bastards hey…You just know I gotta say this…
Damn smart snake that one
:laugh:
Ta Hatto, by any chance you wouldn’t be able to get a couple of photos would you?, I’d love to do this on the young blokes bikes (and maybe his old mans as well
) I would be very chuffed if it could be done, just need to see an existing setup to go on
I had thought of something like this but was unsure of which bits to buy>BC
Ok that explains it, jumping fair onto them does get them a bit upset, and the little ones were probably it’s offspring, and from what I’ve seen they do tend to hang around together for a bit.
Latched on too, crikey woulda been just pumping the poison in from the sound of it.
You’re a lucky lad to still be here after that, especially given the level of knowledge that wasn’t in every hospital back in those days.Daily telegraph eh?
“Boy from bush slays T-Rex then gets bitten by giant snake in epic battle”Crikey he makes the brp look like an XR80, what is he 6’6″?
This sounds like the best thing since linkages( put that in just for you pds lads) to me, what a great idea as the regional areas have basically no experts in suspensio, being the black art it is.
WTG Moose, TB, Mick all the other OBT attendees and of course the crew from Tekniks.
Michael, you’re one of the very few people I’ve heard of that’s actually been invenomated by a black, bloody unlucky, I’ve had a “strike” on the leg by a large black snake in my old shed, which was right on a creek bank. But he was only really trying to push me out of the way as he was laying behinf my lathe and I turned it on, so he sorted headbutted me and scampered out the door behind me.
Dogs will get bitten by Black snakes often, basically because they won’t leave them alone, and we had a cat (think Horse’s attitude from footrot flats)that used to catch brown snakes and kill them.
But to be envenomated by a black blake is up there with lotto wins, actually it’s less common, and I’ll betchya it made you crook, back in those days the doctors hadn’t got good antivenine, cause the dinosaurs wouldn’t let them….I knew i’d drag you out of the hole Dennis, how ya be my friend, back coming along well?
No i genuinely don’t like PDS, I rode a 4t after yours this year and considered yours to be vastly better, love everything else KTM the engines the ergos, I’m not KTM bashing I’m trying to get a feel on why not go linear rising rate?
the top level boys have access to the WP factory stuff, no way would they be racing on what’s under yours or anyone elses PDS, this is part of my argument, not to mention they usually have the ability to ride through a “dead area” of a bikes handling, and they all have them no matter the bike or brand.
I watched a loretta round from america, and the cobras rear ends (thoug still some form of fixed linkless system, was head and shoulders over the other juniors on KTMs, and some of the endos make you wince and wish you hadn’t seen a little bloke or blokette do that.Maybe it is opinion, but i have looked at it, and tried to keep an open mind, and like i told you at Yabbra, they have come a long way, but the tuneability is still limited and maybe some like Terry haye and Dave can get it right, I couldn’t even with terries advice and work.
I rode a CRF with showa “factory” springers, not OEM, and it opened my eyes right up as to what is out there and the limitless tuneability of minor link rates and fulcrums in line with valving and spring rates, would love to ride a GHR one, reckon it would blow any of our minds.
Why I get so cranky at KTM the company is exactly your argument, everything else is so bloody good, head and shoulder above the competition, why destroy it with PDS, when the 96 model was so good and they were on the right track, I honeslt y believe they are stubborn and no less than hinda with the 4T.
Went close to trying to buy the one remaining GG nambotin recently, despite my online name here, which is more to do with a movie than my bias (i actually loved my zooks more), it’s like when I joined DBW as “HiVIs, even though I had three hondas & a zooki at the time, Hivis is my job, not my colour.
I WANT to get on a KTM300 in 2012 and think, “I am buying one as long as it will not spit me off unless I deserve it from my own stupidity”.
Again KTM riders are abit like harley riders, they will point to BOTT and speedway championships and go WELL?
Too defensive got about as much to do with it as WEC and NT at professional level has.
Linkage is not the be all and end all, in some regards they are a dog too, the be all, well that is yet to be, I’d like to think that KTM or Husky or GG do it first as they deserve to for the continued R&D they do with the 2T powerplant.
Ok here it is
It is impossible for any single rate or even a offset fixed end suspension system to get a true linear rising rate, now if you understand what rising rate means to a suspesnion system and how it keeps the bike “floating’ over the trash in our path, you will acknowldege that just like the second generation Mono-x with all the crap Yamaha told us and threw at it the fixed linkless systems are far harder to dail in, and get anywhere near as versatile for a range of speeds and conditions.
This is basic engineering, if it is simplicity without performance compromise, I will laud it as the way to go, see a desmo-dronic valve train for that, or a mechanical/spring resistance powvalve system, especially when it is simple to tune with dismantling the bike (ala KTM) but when it is a simplistic approach that doesn’t work as well, and sometimes is downright dangerous, well I may be myopic at times but not so I wouldn’t dump that dog and run (which I did), and while they (PDS equipped bikes) have got better since around ’08, they are especially in the 2T unpredictable. It’s about balance too, to make the PDS work better KTM has had to soften the power delivery in the lightweight 2T and to move the weight bias sublety forward to get the forks to take more of the handling duties, relagating the rear to a “follow me” design. have you ever tried to turn a KTM 2T with the front pawing in the air under real hard acceleration… well don’t they are a right handful in this regard, which is something I can hop onto almost any rear biased linked dirtbike and not even think about doing without wrestling with the bugger.
Maybe it’s my riding style steeped in 2 decades of competitive MX, but I still watch the fmx outcasts who dare ride KTMs struggle with landings or just controlling the bike just as they leave the ramps.
Another cry I hear is but “watts And the giant Pommie won the wec on PDS” true and not unexpectedly because the WP factory setups where dialed in and setup for one speed only, theirs, not ours.
No KTM PDS has ever worked in MX or SX at a higher level where riders abilities are very close and it usually comes down to bikes set-up, now you may say what has MX or SX got to do with trailriding, well heaps because they stop start, have stutter, and whoops, soemtimes sand and kickers, which are hit at various speeds, just like us. I rode an SX250 a few years back it is the only engine I preferred to my YZ, but the chassis was like a 750 hp VK commodore, not fun at all, so my dislike of PDS, is not a dislike of KTM, gees the 540 is still one of my “if I had a musuem” bikes, and the 96-97 300 still makes me smile at’s pure ground speed and ability to “float” over whatever I handed to it.PDS is a flawed system in comparison to what ktm has had and what is now on their rivals and yet to be by them, just like the full floater a brilliant theory which works in certain situations but not everywhere. maybe what it is, is a no compromise suspension that takes no prisoners, I owned one loved it briefly have ridden heaps more, the best was Menaces, but still kicked when it shouldn’t and he is around my weight so similar reactions.
The best system in theory without active control is a negative to positive system with the shock independant of the chassis essentially “floating” on two fulcrums,(TB & I discussed this at length a little while back too) unfortunately for 4 years or so Suzuki and to a lesser degree Kawasaki had them, but the pressures on the shock were immense and Kayaba, Showa and Ohlins couldn’t build anything that would retain the oil & nitrogen under sustained pressures. If i had a reason to hate a suspension system it would be that one as it deprived me of a future in competitive MX (not that I was ever going to be a world beater, but by christ I loved racing) and gave me serious head injuries that have plagued me for 26 yrs now, but i don’t because when it worked and you kept shocks up to it there was nothing better, and it was cutting edge.
I dislike PDS because the evidence is out therein the broken necks of juniors in loretta lynns, in the multitude of riders who have said just as I, and still KTM have a package that would be the absolute best f they just listened and learnt.I know Dave will disagree with me, but I have watched and learnt and ridden, even my own son on his sevral MA-50s, then two sx-50s was fast but had unexplained get-offs that destroyed his confidence and speed, put him on a linkage bike set it up and tune it for his style and size and voila he is faster, safer and happier and he is unaware of the basic deifferences the bikes have, just tells me “it’s better” handling, but he reckons the KTMS brakes were better (which the are) and the engines were more fun (which also they were). but out of the mouths of babes.
There had my say, if you’re happy with it no probs, never take this as a personal insult we all love different things in a bike, I am still suspicious of yamahas gearboxes and cranks, but that’s not as likely to cause me a visit to rehab again, more avisit to the bank and a few months sourcing bits & rebuilding, however maybe next time you’re lying on the ground wondering WTF happened, think about what did actually go wrong.
Rule #1 let someone else buy the re-engineered new release models
Rule #2 Bikes are emotional, if you just gotta have it, you will get one by hook or by crook (just ask my long suffering wife0
Rule #3 If your old bike is P1ssing you off see rule #1 & 2
Rule #4 Some design faults can be riiden around, some others can be fixed, a few are just too big.00-05 KTMs had a very similar front geo to the XR250, but put that with a MONO-X ripoff design and a high-po engine, well do a search on many forums and see why blokes who are serious and others (like me) who delude themselves they are have vowed never again until KTM fixes that inbalance.
WRs are boring with questionable front-end suspension
CRFs, are a chassis looking for KTMs engines
Kawasaki are middle of the road, reliable, but uninspiring in many ways
Suzuki are far too conservative and are playing a “wait & see” with little R&D relying on past glories
The euros (generalising here)ARE the only ones moving forward with confidence and results that are more positive than negative, sometime two steps forward and one back, but if we wait for the companies whose hearts are in bottom line and not passion in the boardroom, this is way it’s gunna be.
And if a magazine calls it the way their test riders see it, I’ll subscribe, even if it does annoy a section of us, I remember my beloved “D” model RMs got third in most ADB shootouts that year, yet at clubman meets they were always in the top three, sometimes all top three, but that was when power was rated over handling and easy forgiving nature.That Chris is a Joe Blake singles hangout……
by invitation only, imagine a brown snake turning up to the party???
To be fair have a look on other forums talk to ex-KTM riders who now ride linkage bikes, now for me it was a disapointment to discover that there was an inherent design flaw somewhere in the PDS system on the customer bikes, cause I actually loved my EXC, and I spent an absolute fortune on the suspension with arguably one of the best PDS men in the world. Only to dail it in and discover that at near full pace it was unpredictable. I still love the build quality & engines, the ergos and ease of maintenance.
Now with the ADB, most of their test riders are fairly experienced competent riders, yet still a WR for yrs wins or comes second in shootouts, despite the fact that there are much better bikes that I have ridden in the same class, the KTMs for yearsno matter which class almost invariably wins the shootout, funny thing is the main man for KTM is our former world contender Jeff Liesk, who used to write for ADB. Now I have had the luxury though my life of riding almost every mainstream bike or a model of that’s been here for the last 30 odd yrs. I grew up on a diet of twin shock and Monocross that I’m sorry reacted just like PDS, except 25 years earlier, the innovation that came along with rear ends in the 80s & 90s made unpredictable rear ends a distant nightmare, even the white and first of the orange KTMs where like a magic carpet ride, then I bought a PDS 300…..On this basis I call a dog a dog or vice versa.
KTM & Husaberg even more so make beautifully turned out bikes but in the last decade they have done too many unproven dumb things, the 520s topend in the first model, the oil chewing habits of many of the new ones, the ring issues in the 250Fs.
I am not bashing them as I said they are beaut quality, unfortunately with some dumb decisions on a few areas.
And believe it or not I am waiting for them to get their crap togather so I can buy another one, was hoping for it to be the husaberg…..So I was disappointed with the execution of the rear end, because i wear a 6″ scar on my right forearm from the last unexpected high-speed PDS inspired moment I was treated to:
So if ADB said something I agree with, and it feels like the truth to me, I am sorry it offends the KTM owners out there, but like Harley davidson owners they can be a very defensive group.
Mal has a good point there Eags, some tigers do resemble Black fellas, and it is highly unusual for a red-belly to flatten his head, this is more tiger or taipan aggression style.
reminds me of the line Peter Garret sang
“yellow belly black snake sleeping on a red rock, waiting for the stranger to go”
Yep that’s a good thought Aaron, so reckon a full rego YZ250 2T is a bit out of the ordinary?
I actually loved the Maicos’ unfortunately they couldn’t manage their finances and before i could get the money together to buy a new Alpha II they went swimming with lead wetsuit on.
If we put our money into a magazine, I wanna know what the bike is REALLY like, advertising brochures I can get at the dealers, along with the bullshut from the salespeople
I found the PDS was Ok (after I spent a fortune with Terry Haye) at 95-100%, but under that it would unload unexpectedly and spit me into the scrub, and as far as a bike to jump or launch off anything worst bike ever, however it did excell at dropoffs at slower speeds, always landed well, was the rebound that was the killer.
I’m not elite, although maybe once or twice in my youth I rode with some pretty elite blokes.
Nickj wrote:
Quote:It does sound like we are covering the same ground Mr. Blue. We should catch up on the trails one weekend!!
Nick
Sounds like the beginnings of a plan Nick, we will talk in the near future (like weekend after this maybe?)
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