KTM affair...

Meet the KTM LC4 Enduro.

I have had a Love hate relationship with this machine.
It is the most fun you can have legally. It handles like a sport bike, accelerates with authority and just plain goes where you point it.
Brakes that make a Sprint car proud, and a suspension straight from a race bike, and a frame that feels like its chiseled from granite. It is a rock solid feeling bike.
I know with all that said where does the hate come from?



It comes from the engine, it is a cross between an out of balance washing machine, and a paint shaker. Set it on the center stand on a concrete floor and blip the throttle and you better be holding the bike, it will walk across the floor like nothing you ever seen. Do not lug it down as it shakes again, but if you keep it in its sweet spot it will carry you where you want to go and make you SMILE doing it.

I have replaced many many parts on the old girl. Chain and Sprockets, clutch, tires, battery, and water pump. Granted most of that is consumables and can be expected with any used bike. Now its started burning oil worse than a two stroke so its time to do a piston and rings in the next week or so.
The electrics are weak, and the wiring is nearly adequate when new then you add in 11 year of age and you can start to get the picture.

Granted some of the issue with oil is most likely my fault after being goaded into a mud hole by a friend.
This was not your normal forest mud hole, it was two tracks that was worn down 3 foot deep and the width of a single tire. So down I go and water nearly comes to the headlight and I drop the bike.

See where I'm sitting in the last picture the water wasn't six inches deep. But the hole the bike is in was another story. So we work on it for 2 hours in the summer heat and get it dried out and running again.
Well sorta running, its got sandy crap in the carb still and doesn't idle or run very well. But it got me hole.
All that leads up to today's posting and the reason I get to freshen up the LC4 mill. I have no idea how many miles are on it, typical KTM quality, the odometer quit at 9999.9 miles but the speedometer still works.

So thats the essence of life with a high strung bike, I would have to assume someone with a trophy wife could relate to that, in that she is fun to play with and gorgeous to look at but man does it get expensive when it comes time to pay the piper. haha.