KTM made its major, but no-so-secret, announcement at the EICMA show in Milan, Italy today that they have developed a 350cc four-stroke motocrosser and it will be released to the public in the summer of 2010. No longer a project bike, there exists a KTM 350SX-F.Several KTM champions were on hand to help with the bike's first official public appearance, including ten time World Motocross champion Stefan Everts. Everts was not there just to offer star power, he has been the driving force behind the bike's development since the idea first came.The biggest news with the 350 is obviously the displacement. KTM has always been willing to design a bike where they saw a need, and a mid-sized motocross four-stroke could possibly be that machine that manages to steal the best traits from a 450 and a 250F and wrap them into that mythical 'perfect bike.'But the unique engine size is not the only fresh ground the bike breaks for KTM. The 350 SX-F sports fuel injection, a linkage rear suspension system (yes, a KTM with a link), and a new frame. And for those of you still needing more, the bike had the magic button - electric starting. The model on display did not have a kick starter on it, but the cases look ready to accept one.It's been a long road developing the all-new bike, and Stefan Everts deserved a rest, but before we allowed that we grabbed a few minutes of his time to get him to tell us about developing and riding the 350SX-F.Pete Peterson: Where did you come up with the size of 350cc?Stefan Everts: Our thought was 250 is sometimes too weak and 450's too powerful, so why not go in the middle, cut it in two - have the handling of the 250 and have this bit of extra performance that you miss in the 250, so that's why.PP: Did you ever test other sizes, like a 300 or a 400?SE: No, we just went for the 350. When they started to make the drawings for the engine the main goal was to make a really small engine, as close to the 250 . If you look at it, it's just a bit bigger than a 250, so we already saved a lot of weight in that.PP: You kind of have to choose if you want a torquey motor or if you want a high revving motor. When you're right in the middle there, which were you aiming for?SE: Actually, with a 450 you can more choose if you want torque or top. With a 350, you're a bit limited with cc's, we've tried to look for all ranges. Good bottom power, which the fuel injection helps a lot with. The power is very direct, it's very fast, and it's always there, even after a jump where you go a bit low revs, it still attacks. It still pulls. This is something which impresses me a lot on this bike. I think in general the performance you can take out of the 350 is quite good. So the question you ask me about revs and torque and all this, we've tried to have a bit of everything in there, not just one thing. Because when I was helping develop it, I tried to look at everybody - to go and race it, but also that hobby rider can go and have a good time on it.PP: Can you tell me how many hours you've put on the bike?SE: I don't know how much in hours, but I've been traveling around Europe a few times, up and down to Austria to the factory. I've been up to the designing office to look at the shape, a clay bike, the first drawings on paper. We went through many chassis. Engine-wise it was designed and we continued with the same design, and we got new parts, new parts, it got better, faster, better, faster.PP: Were you riding it at each stage?SE: I've been riding it step by step. When we went out testing, it didn't mean we went out the next week testing. Sometimes it was a period of two, three, four weeks before I could go out again with the next step ready. Everything took a long time. We started off in 2007, we did a comparison test, and we tried to have a lot of information, and my main goal was to have a good handling bike. This is something really important, that you can really have fun with it. And I guarantee you if you can't have fun with this bike, than you can't have it with any other bike.Continue to page 2 and you will find Stefan Everts telling us about his new KTM 350 SX-F via video...
PP: You say in 2007 you had a comparison. Did you have a 350 prototype in 2007?SE: No, no.PP: How long have you had a prototype that you've been able to ride?SE: Actually, we started developing a new chassis quite early, like at the end of 2007, but the 350 engine was not ready by that time. I saw the first cases by the end of 2007, then a few months later it was put together, and then the baby was born on the dyno test. I remember the day they said, 'it's alive now, the engine is alive.' They did first a lot of dyno tests before I went out and rode it on a track.PP: Did you ever experiment with a carbureted bike or was it always fuel injected?SE: No, we started off with the fuel injection quite early, but then at one stage we had to go back to the carburetor because some of the prototype parts were on standby. So we went back to the carburetor and immediately we felt that we lost some good things. Then later on the new electric cabling and stuff came and then, yeah, it was right on, it was good to be back on the fuel injection.PP: Did you try a bike with linkage and without, or did you always go with linkage?SE: We had the go for the linkage from the beginning, so we had quite early some linkage in the frames. But the chassis went through many development stages. What we started with was not what we finished with.PP: Was there ever any time riding this bike during testing where it really impressed you?SE: Yeah, I remember one day taking it out to Lommel and I had to try out some new things and I went flying around the track there like my good days and I was like, 'Yes!' And I went home with a really great feeling, 'this was a great ride today.' My mechanic was with me, and he said, '$#&! you went quite fast around these turns here!'We'll do our best here at Dirt Rider to keep you posted on this bike, but it looks like it's going to be a very interesting summer in 2010.
