January 20, 2005

KTM 125SX vs KTM 525EXC - Hollister trails.

On Friday of last week I took the day off to guy riding with Eli. He used to run the service department of Cal BMW when I started as a customer there. He left to go back to school to be lawyer. We decided to do some riding together at the last Cal BMW shop ride.

This is an account of our ride... and a comparison of the 125 and the 525.

I started off the day loading the 125SX into the truck. I didn't bother to bring the YZ250F as the jetting is still hopelessly off. I rushed to Hollister to meet Eli at 9am in the parking lot by the vintage track. We each unloaded and geared up. I borrowed a pair of goggles with rolloffs rather then going through a ton of tare offs on my Oakley goggles that I use for MX.

Once dressed and ready we set off looking for adventure. The plan was to head off into the hills. We headed to the western portion of the lower ranch. This area differs in soil from the eastern portion of the lowerranch. The western area has a sandy soil made of decomposed granite, while the eastern portion is adobe clay. All in all it isn't that different from the US where the east coast tends to have clay soil and the west more sandy soil. We headed up though some muck into the much drier upper trail area.

We flew around up there for about half an hour or so then headed back to the trucks for a put stop to hydrate and relax. After hydrating we headed out for a much longer ride. We started out on , we messed around on some single track for a little while then headed up back into the sand. We switched bikes for a while. We rode a nice mix of trails on each others bikes. Eli liked the 125SX for its ability to corner at insane speed and the fact that it had no weight but tons of power. I like the 525 for the tons of tractable power and that I was never in a gear other then 2nd and 3rd. It was like riding my 250F but with a LOT more power. After about a hour of riding on the way back in, the 125SX ran out of gas while Eli was riding down. I had a tow strap and we towed the 125 with the 525. I was just glad that we didn't have to tow the 525 with the 125.

We took a break and I ate a bit. We went out again and played. We rode some more single track and some hills. Then we hit Jay's Way. It wasn't too bad. I was definitely starting to get tired. The next challenge was a long up hill. It was great until I hit a false finish and backed off only to be presented with the steepest part of the hill. Try as I might without the run in I was unable to get the bike up the hill. Eli wound up being a buddy and getting it to the top by shredding the clutch.

At this I was done. We did a bit of trail riding and had some fun but I was beat. We put in a good 5 hours of ridding.

Leason's Learned:

  • Get rooloffs - Gotten (I got a rolloff system for Scott 8X goggles)
  • Get a glide plate for 125SX - Done... I now have a Moose glide plate
  • The KTM 525EXC is way tractable and has enough power for anyone
  • Momentum is the key to hill climbs
Posted by pqbon at January 20, 2005 12:53 AM | TrackBack