Unicorn spotted in Hemel Hempstead!

Our search for a low and lightweight dirt bike for Grainne had ground to a halt, not least because we had still not managed to sell her Suzuki VanVan. A couple of too low offers and a few timewasters later and it was becoming abundantly clear that November was not a good time to sell a bike and especially not one very obviously designed for learners. After all would you decide to start biking just as winter arrives?

So having put plans on hold for the time being, as you will have read in my last blog post, attention turned to running the Hertfordshire Caper, a Road book training day organised by the Rallymoto Club. The KTM Centre in Hemel Hempstead had agreed to host the event and Grainne volunteered to help out by driving the van and manning (womanning?) the checkpoints. 

As reported, after meeting up with Burt from Rallymoto who had printed the road books and supplied “Give it a go” manual road book holders to eight of the ten participants, we did a pre-ride briefing, spent ages getting road books loaded and eventually sent them off on their way.

I was getting ready to go when Grainne appeared from inside the KTM Centre with a beaming smile and handed me her phone, which had a photo of her sitting astride a KTM Freeride with both feet on the floor. Remember this was the model i thought would be ideal but turned out to be way too tall at the bike show … what was going on?

It turned out they had a second hand example of the two-stroke 250R (they also made a four-stroke 350) fitted with the optional low seat and the suspension set to its softest positions. They also explained that bikes at the show would almost certainly have have had their suspension wound up to the hardest settings to allow for anyone of any size to bounce up and down on them! In addition they could fit a lowering kit to this one to bring it down another 25mm (1”).

It also has a few useful additions and a big factor in its favour was the paltry weight of only 90kg, a whopping 70 kg lighter than Grainne’s BMW; that’s equivalent to chucking a pillion passenger off the back!

By the end of the day we also had an offer for the VanVan in part exchange, not quite as much as we had been asking for but the possible alternative was having to hold onto it all winter before we can sell it, when it would be worth less anyway so quite reasonable in the circumstances.

So next step is to pop down for a test ride and look at the options for financing the purchase, which might also include chucking my 990 Adventure into the mix… it could be the only way to get enough room in the garage!

UPDATE: we eventually made it down to the KTM Centre only to discover they had sold the bike literally minutes before we arrived!!!

Back to the drawing board; 

to be continued....