Kurt Caselli was the ring leader who brought American passion back to the ISDE. In 2003 he was a member of the Junior World Team and took his KTM to the Top American spot. He was competitive with the eventual winner Stefan Everts and Stefan Merriman and became the catalyst to Team USA’s rise to power in the ISDE world. Of note the GNCC series sponsored the Trophy Team which included Rodney Smith, Barry Hawk, Mike Lafferty, Ty Davis, Jason Raines and Mike Kiedrowski.
Save the environment and look good doing it with the new earth friendly bike and door mats from Moose. They can absorb fuel, fluids and other nasty things from saturating the soil. Bike mat is $78.95, the door mat is $39.95
TECH TIP
Every once in a while one of our test machines will spring a leak at the fork seals. The majority of the time we can fix this using the Motion Pro Seal Mate. It’s a film strip thin flexible plastic device that slips under the seal and with a generous spray of Contact Cleaner you can flush out the small particles that invaded the seal and caused the leak. We never leave home with out one!
TESTING-TESTING
Ryan Koch praised TM 300FI power, not overly aggressive but smooth and hardly affected by the high altitude.
Testing off-road machines in So. Cal. during the month of August doesn’t rate that high on the hoot meter. Hot, ugly and very little traction are the highlights! We’ve been heading up to the Piute Mountains most of the summer where the temps are reasonable at the high elevations (starts at 5,000 feet and goes up to just about 8,000). Incredible terrain, painted with obstacles and enough nasty stuff to make even the gnarliest of dudes to crack a smile make it worth the long haul to get there. This week we were testing the new TM300 FI machine, more mods for our KTM 300TPI and some products for the machines and our bods.
Tip Webb switched off between his personal KTM 300 TPI and the TM 300 FI during the day. His take? Good wagon, feels light, strong brakes and power that is smooth and fairly vibration free.Good old fashion obstacle driven trail let us test the machines ability to make traction. The TM 300 under the guidance of RK performed admirably.Two old coots after the ride, Tip and Tom talking about the fact that they were hammered after a 40-mile loop!
WOLF: BACK IN THE DAY
I remember this machine quite well, and the race. It was the Fools Gold Enduro (pretty certain 1982) and I was race testing a Maico 490. The bike was a beast, both in size, weight and power. I was doing fairly well in the enduro until I clipped a tree right at the end of the event, ate my lunch hard and rode in not remembering where I was! I pretty much tore off the left side of the bike and honestly didn’t know what state I was in and needed directions to drive home.