- Articles
- A Little Slice of Orange
A Little Slice of Orange - KTM500 Debut Ride
For the majority of the adventure riding I have done in New Zealand, I've ridden a Suzuki DRZ400E. While the DRZ400 has proven itself to be a very capable adventure bike and I have had an enormous amount of fun riding it, my growing thirst for challenging technical terrain saw a lightweight enduro bike join the fleet.
After lengthy deliberation, as any rider does when considering a new bike, the result was a KTM500 EXC-F Six day. The photos below are from the debut overnight trip up the High Country. There was one little spanner thrown in the works relating to the suspension. Due to the fact I'm not the tallest of lads, one of the things that drew me to the KTM500 was the availability of WP internal lowering kits allowing you to drop the seat height while retaining the WP suspension performance.
With a 50mm and 20mm lowering option available, I assumed that 50mm would be the right one for me. I was wrong. The bike sits very low with the 50mm loweing kit, while it meant the bike could be manhandled like a rag doll in the technical stuff, steep hill climbs etc and was a hoot to ride on this trip, I later changed to the 20mm WP lowering kit which offers a better compromise of a nice ride height and a good amount of suspension travel.
This debut trip was up a private High Country valley with some adventure riding buddies. Early Saturday morning we were off...
The debut ride on the KTM500 was nothing short of spectacular. What a beautiful machine! The upcoming ride reports will have more information on the 20mm lowering kit and a couple of other upgrades.