Jon's 2008 long term KTM SuperDuke 990R

Jon Pearson

A race bike for the road? Well yes, actually. My long termer this year will be exactly that, a KTM 990 R SuperDuke to keep the journey to Croydon interesting by the week day and helping me support the British Superbike championship at the weekends.

Updated 9th April 2008

A weekend poking and prodding about in my shed, getting acquainted with the R, taking things off for no real reason and putting them back on again left me itching to get out there and ride.

A very early start to get myself to a KTM UK dealer day at Silverstone didn't stop the itching either, if I mention the words "British weather" you'll get the idea. Dealers were still out getting a spin on the new RC8 and in between sessions some of the Focused Events KTM Super Duke R Battle (as it is officially coined now) were teetering round but I couldn't see the point myself so packed-up and drove home again all miserable.

A couple of days later and without actually having ridden the bike anywhere other than up and down the ramp into the van, SuperBike's chief tech (Dave) and I were sipping Mallory Park diner's finest tea on a Wednesday afternoon ACU test day.

Shake-down tests (rider and bike)
Winter can seem like a long time when you try and put your race head back on. Although I ride on tracks all the time, suddenly needing to be in race-mode came as a shock. A cold Wednesday afternoon at Mallory can be a bit grim at the best of times. Deciding to go out on the stock road Pirellis without tyre warmers made for some very widely-opened eyes very suddenly.

The extraordinary thing about Mallory's Wednesday test days is that you can be out on track with anyone. There are two solo groups so novices and classics are split up but the 'fast' group can be Joe Blogs racing a five year old CBR600 or, as in this day, former MotoGP racer Chris Burns doing a final shake-own test of his own on his BSB MV Agusta, not to mention the quick out the blocks Supersport racer Craig Fitzpatrick on his low-flying R6.

Tip-toeing out onto Gerrards on stone-cold road tyres with those two (at least) howling around the short, tight Leicestershire track quickly becomes a lesson in looking over your shoulder and blind-faith. Such is racing life.

Fortunately I wasn't baulking either of these quicker riders through the Bus Stop chicane four laps into the second session when the tilt-sensor in the nose fairing fell off its mounting, cutting the engine dead and leaving me sitting on the fence inside Devil's Elbow for 20 mins.

Suspension set-up
Dave being the professional he is he makes us keep suspension sheets to record what we did, when and why. SuperBike's first trackday of the year took us from Mallory straight up the Fosse to Cadwell Park where we spent much of the day sorting out what felt good and what didn't.

The biggest problem 'we' found was making 'me' feel happy, safe and still fast enough. Moving the bars forward (they have four possible positions on the top yoke) helps a lot in terms of feeling but it needs more to get the weight off the back end of the bike so much and onto the front.

The final settings sheet from the two days testing at Mallory and Cadwell make interesting reading…

Front suspension
preload = fully off, compression = 7 clicks off, rebound = full-on, spring = std

Rear suspension
Preload = wound on to reduce sag to 3mm, low-speed compression = 9 off, high-speed comp = half turn, rebound = 3 clicks off, spring = std

The solution to these problems doesn't need too much thought – get your self to a suspension specialist. Where better to call up than what many people consider the top of the tree in the UK, K-Tech.

The outcome of all of this is the R currently sits in the SB workshop looking pretty naked while the suspension wings its way to Coalville and K-Tech. Meanwhile Dave has been busy with his drill and lock-wire pliers making sure the bike makes it through scrutineering at the fast-approaching first round Thruxton.


March 2008
For better or for worse I'm fully signed up for a season of SuperDuke Battling. Somewhere along the line my plan to ditch this racing malarkey and get myself a trials bike again has gone out the window (roughly at the point when KTM UK phoned and said “yes, you can have a SuperDuke R long termer but we want you to race it in the championship”).

So here it is fresh out the box and 23 miles old. Among the bits already bolted on are some GB Racing crash bungs and engine covers. We've had some in the office before and I've raced with them on the Triumph Triple Challenge bikes and they're a good quality product.

The collection of bits littered around our studio floor are the kit parts for the race bikes. Spare Marchesini wheels, discs and sprockets and some Akrapovic cans to bolt on. There's map for the 990-specific cans which has yet to be released from the KTM factory but it's needed to sort the fuelling once the standard cans are off. Other than that the 990R is bog standard, just as the Battle rules dictate.

New Staff Bike blogs will be appearing somewhere on this cronky, old website soon but in the meantime I'll be updating on the main news pages.

The first round of the SuperDuke Battle is at Thruxton over the weekend of the 18,19 20th of April.