Dirt and Trail Dec 2019

That’s Richie VDW
without the shirt.
towards the bush side of things, so you
need to ride around them at speed on tar,
but on the sand or on the trails they are a
lekker choice.
For many riders – tyres like these are
overkill, but there are loads of options,
and it comes down to personal choice as
to how much tough stuff you are going to
be doing. You can select rubber with more
road bias if you are going to be commuting
- or only riding easy gravel roads.
A beefy sump guard has been procured
from the Hyde outfit – it’s kinda strange
that KTM does not fit something like this
as standard tackle.
Acerbis manufactures an enormous
selection of long range tanks. This 12 litre
tank increases capacity by 33 percent
over the standard which means that you
can go further. The tanks are beautifully
made and are completely unobtrusive.
RAD has experimented with a side tank
out back, but it starts getting costly. With
their current configuration, the 500 can
do around 240 kilometres on a single tank.
They are waiting for a 15 litre which will
give the bike even greater range – probably
similar mileage to what you can expect
from a big adv machine.
More distance needs more comfort than
what the standard KTM seat offers. This
one’s seat has gone under the knife with
increased padding - it makes the bike a bit
taller – but that’s worthwhile on the ass for
sure. This 500 is about the same height as
KTM’s 690.
Up front, RAD has fitted a very neat
tower that incorporates the standard
digital display, a charging port and a
beefy screen. They have also fitted super
bright halogen headlamps that skrik for
niks… proper. The brackets for the tower
are properly made and fit seamlessly.
Incorporated neatly under the bars is a
KTM Steering damper.
62 DIRT & TRAIL MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2019