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Short test of the KTM 620 LC4 rally

A ship will arrive

47 liters of fuel, three liters of water, plus lots of navigation instruments on board, and then at full throttle through the desert. They’re crazy, the rally drivers.

It is a murderous feat. As high as a mountain range, with its tanks at every nook and cranny, as fat as a pregnant oyster and weighing almost 200 kilograms in rally trim. If the idea of an off-road ride with this monster is already sending cold shivers down your spine, you should just turn the page. Because rally drivers see the world with different eyes. In the circle of the desert enthusiasts, the KTM rally is considered small, light and particularly handy for a rally machine. No wonder, the Peterhansels of this world fight their way through the Sahara with machines that weigh at least one hundredweight more.
The fact that at the last edition of the Dakar the starting field was almost closed in orange is also due to the fact that KTM has recognized the moment and is the only manufacturer to offer its customers a really ready-to-use and unrivaled affordable racing machine. And an extremely reliable one on top of that. Because victories in the marathon standings – this is the class in which no engines and only small things on the chassis can be swapped – have KTM firmly subscribed to at all rallies over the past two years.
Certainly because this desert animal has an ingeniously simple structure and the components have been tried and tested thousands of times. Because the engine and chassis simply come from the spare parts shelf of the in-house enduro or competition models. What ultimately turns the KTM Enduro into a rally is simply screwed on, such as the rear frame made of square steel tubing with additional struts for the rear tanks or the frame-mounted cladding.
With the first revolutions of the crankshaft you can hear that the rally is a real racing machine. Equipped only with the silencer of the Moto Cross models, the box makes a terrifying racket. This fact, however, has nothing to do with the fact that rally drivers like to attract attention or are perhaps deaf after all, but simply a technical background. In order not to grill the heat-plagued shock absorber with the waste heat from the pre-silencer, this was simply omitted. And so that the White Power damper doesn’t fail towards the end of a long day of rallying, the decision was made for a version whose expansion tank was decoupled from the damper by a steel-flex high-pressure hose and relegated to the rear frame.
Since high speeds are almost always the order of the day in the desolate annealing plant on the slopes of North Africa, up to 13 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers in deep sand have to be taken into account. If the tanks are all full and the box is also packed with tools and other junk, the single cylinder has quite a lot to do. Because to pull more than five hundred pounds through partially deep sand, including the driver, 55 hp is certainly not too much. Quite the opposite: with 42:16 teeth, in order not to lose too much time on the bolt-straight sections of the piste at the Dakar on the significantly more powerful two-cylinder, the KTM demands true speed orgies in the deep sand so that it can also be in fourth after shifting or fifth gear moves forward quickly.
It goes without saying that the pace should not be too brisk when the tanks are full, whereby the high and far back mounted rear tanks influence the driving behavior much more than the deeply drawn 30-liter fuel keg at the bow. Straight ahead no problem, the rally with full rear tanks reacts sensitively to bumps in curves and tends to make pronounced side jumps. Once the Mikuni vacuum pump has emptied the additional tanks, the world is all right again – even with 30 liters at the front – and the rally drives like one is used to from other KTMs: safe in a straight line, not exactly overhanded, however Stable in curves. If you burn 47 liters of fuel in a few hours, you have to make compromises when it comes to setting up the springs and dampers. So the rally is almost a little too soft with a full tank, then when it is empty it is tight to hard.
W.If you really want to get involved in the desert rally adventure, KTM is making the tried and tested, fully equipped rally an offer that you really cannot refuse. There really is only one thing left: sit on it and drive off.

KTM supports privateers at the Dakar – a heart for rally drivers

Anyone seriously considering taking part in the rally of rallies can expect open arms from KTM. If the entry for the Dakar is presented when purchasing a KTM rally – only to order and exclusively for racing – the purchase price is reduced dramatically. Last year there was a discount of 8,000 marks. In addition, the supply of spare parts and support from KTM trucks is also ensured for other rallies. The price for these services has not yet been determined. Information from KTM-Stocklmeier on phone 09628/92110

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