Two-time Dakar off-road racing champion, Toby Price gives us a walk around preview of his 2023 KTM 450 Rally racing motorcycle.
Video: Adam Waheed
See more from us: http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/
Video: Adam Waheed
See more from us: http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/
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00:00 Alright folks, here we are with two-time Dakar off-road racing champ Toby Price.
00:08 Toby, thanks for joining us today at the Alpine Stars Adventure Tour.
00:12 Mate, great to be here. We've had a good morning already this morning and we got
00:17 up through the mountains and first time here in Big Bear and here at the
00:21 outpost and it's been a great trip so far. So yeah, we brought the Dakar
00:26 Rally bike along and we've had a great day. Yeah, you're really showing us
00:30 off with this trick piece of equipment. What is this thing, man? Yeah, so this is
00:36 the 2023 version Dakar Rally bike. So we just finished at Sonora Rally. So yeah,
00:43 this is my race bike basically. So after this event's done, it'll go back to KTM,
00:48 go on a crate, get air freighted back to Austria and then start to get rebuilt
00:53 for the next race which is down in Argentina. I think it's late August.
00:58 So yeah, we've got a little bit of a break now which is nice. So it's nice to come
01:01 here, slow down a little bit, relax and enjoy it, hang out with good people.
01:05 Everyone here at Alpine Stars testing out all the new adventure riding gear
01:10 and everything. So at the moment the jacket is over there but yeah, this is
01:14 underneath and yeah, it's unreal. The ventilation and stuff is really good and
01:18 we're enjoying it. Sick. Can you walk us through your bike here? Yeah, so as I
01:23 say, this is a 2023 KTM 450 Rally bike that we have for Dakar Rally. So we're
01:30 gonna have a little bit of comfort. That's like we're traveling almost 10,000
01:35 kilometers which I think that translates to about 7,000 miles, something like that.
01:40 6,600, yep. Yep, 6,600. So yeah, how it all kind of works is so in the mornings we
01:47 will get like a big paper road book that's rolled up and then goes into this
01:52 part of the tower. So we can pull this plastic piece off, you feed the roll into
01:57 here, tape it on, roll the paper in all the way and then basically from
02:03 there, tape the top side into there and then put your cover straight back on and
02:07 then that's locked away. So the road book is basically controlled off the
02:12 toggle switch down in the side here. So when I start the morning and then I want
02:17 to get to my next note, I basically push that forward, rolls the road book through,
02:21 then takes me through my notes. So it's basically split up into three columns
02:25 and then kilometers is on the left side. So I run my kilometers on this ERTF up
02:31 here. It's all like in kilometers per hour, everything. And then in the center
02:37 section, it will give us a picture description type thing. So it could be a
02:41 T-junction at one kilometer and then in the other side it will give us a bit of
02:47 a vague, like bit of a brief of what it is. So it could be cap 220. So cap
02:53 headings is on the right side here. We'll have 1.0 kilometers, we'll be at a
02:59 T-junction, turn right, cap 220 and if that says 220, then we're heading the
03:05 right direction. So it's, yeah a lot of things going on. Then when you're trying
03:09 to do 140, 50, 60 kilometers an hour, it's a lot to manage. So if we do have a
03:14 mistake, go the wrong way, then basically all these rest of these buttons come into
03:18 play. Then this is my controls for, say that T-junction I turn left and went a
03:23 hundred meters down the track, turn around, came back a hundred meters. That
03:26 then puts my kilometers and distance out by 200 meters. So I've got to press the
03:32 bottom button here twice, which each time is a hundred meters. It will take off on
03:36 the total distance and then that puts me back on the road book again in the right
03:41 kilometers. So that's what sometimes what you find, you'll see us have some
03:45 accidents is because we made a bit of a mistake, the road book's not quite right,
03:48 a danger two, danger three pops up and it arrives early because you get to the
03:55 point of the kilometer and go, "Geez, there's nothing here, I don't know what they're talking
03:58 about." Next thing, full gas again and then danger three and you're crashing on
04:01 your head. So pretty crazy. But so that's mainly all the control side of
04:06 things. Then we've got two fuel tanks at the front here. Both sides are around,
04:12 we're about probably eight liters per side, so it's about 16-17 liters of fuel
04:17 in the front. On the back here also is another fuel tank, so we're about 17
04:23 liters here as well. So we're like 34 liters of fuel in total capacity, which
04:29 will take us about 380 kilometers cruising on the road in a stage roughly
04:35 220, maybe 190 in sand dune conditions. So it just varies on what surface and
04:42 everything you're on. But other than that, we've basically got these virtually
04:47 like Steg Pegg Europeans version of it, so they bolt into the side of the tank. I
04:52 can just kind of lean my calf, the back of my Alpine style boot into the back of
04:56 there. Kind of just gives me a little bit more relaxation in the shoulders at
05:01 high speeds. Once you stand up and you're catching all that wind at high speed,
05:05 it's a lot of load on the shoulders and everything like that. So yeah, other than
05:10 that, we've got like a little toolbox over here on this side. I don't think
05:15 there would be any tools in at the moment, but just very, very basics of what
05:21 we need. So there's a gear change lever, like a spanner for the rear axle nut.
05:26 It's the same as the front as well. So yeah, it's like a 10 mil socket in there,
05:31 8 mil socket. So it's, yeah, everything's pretty basic, pretty simple that side of
05:37 the mechanics wise. Is there a quick shifter on this thing? No, so at the
05:41 moment we've, yeah, we're testing that at the moment. This version, no, not at the
05:45 moment. So we're just, yeah, still running the normal gearbox. It's a
05:50 six-speed 450. That's our maximum capacity limit is a 450cc. So it's, yeah,
05:59 it's definitely a beast of a bike. As you can see, the front rotor is quite big.
06:04 When you've got a full tank of fuel and everything, all the weight on it, it's
06:08 quite a big Motomaster front disc. It's thick too. Quite thick, because yeah, you need to
06:13 get, there's going to be a lot of heat transfer and that, so you need a little
06:16 bit more thickness in that disc. But yeah, all carbon fibre front
06:21 tower and everything like this, carbon fibre bash plate. So yeah, on the market,
06:27 one of these in a stock trim, someone went in to buy one from the shop. I think
06:31 they're around $50,000 I think. This, we've got different forks, different shock,
06:36 triple clamps and the engine configuration is factory. So yeah, a few
06:43 parts on here that you can't get. But yeah, they're not a cheap bike, but a very fun
06:48 bike to ride. So where do you carry the water? So now our restrictions, the rules,
06:55 we don't have to carry three litres on the bike no more. So we've dropped three
06:59 kilos of weight there. KTM shaved a lot more weight off the bike. I think in
07:03 total we're about six kilos lighter than our previous bike. But it's compulsory, we
07:08 still take the three litres of water in our Camelbak with us. So yeah, it's kind
07:14 of crazy they took that away, but at the end of the day, like I've always said,
07:17 it's the, where we had the bladder and where pretty much everyone has the
07:21 water bladder. It's right under the engine, it's quite hot, so I don't, bags
07:26 drinking that straight in the sand dunes if the bike's broken and stopped in the
07:31 in the dunes. But maybe take a few tea bags out there and dunk in there and
07:35 you'll be good to go. But yeah, that's pretty much the rundown of the bike. We
07:39 yeah, run a Michelin Desert rear tyre, so because with all the big long distance
07:44 riding, this tyre, yeah, holds into the conditions quite well. So tubeless? Yeah,
07:50 so the rear is, yeah, they're tubeless and also the front. So we've got
07:55 different compound mousse, more or less, to what is on the market because such
08:00 high temperatures, it does, it does build up quite a bit of heat. So they do
08:07 decide to disintegrate sometimes, but we get through no problem now and have a
08:12 lot of fun and that's about it pretty much. The foot pegs are a bit wider, as
08:18 you can kind of see, they're like, I think they're now like these 3D printed, like,
08:23 titanium foot pegs. So I was a little bit skeptical on that. I know they're 3D
08:29 printed, I don't know the material, but I didn't really want to trust that too much.
08:34 But I'm a big guy, they hold me, I haven't had a foot peg break yet, so they do
08:39 quite well. What's up with this length in swingarm? Look at this thing, it's welded,
08:43 it's extra long. A little bit longer. Yeah, I like, for me, my theory is, I hate
08:51 crashing, but I would rather crash in a corner where I'm doing 30, 40, 50
08:56 kilometres an hour, than crash at 120, 30, 40, 50 kilometres an hour. So that for me just
09:02 adds a little bit more stability at high speed, but I'm always, like I say, I'm a
09:07 big guy, so I can kind of sit up on the front of the tank, make the bike turn and
09:11 so it does make it a little bit stiffer and harder to turn for us, but my weight,
09:15 it actually comes into play and helps us a fair bit. So from there, it's, yeah,
09:21 that's about the only other bit of the factory mod that I've kind of got, is the
09:25 longer swingarm and just the linkages and that's about it really. So they're
09:29 all a custom-made linkage length and what I like, and sometimes you feel like
09:35 you've got a lot of options and you're going in circles, but yeah, you can, you
09:41 have many options of what you want to try and do to make the bike work for you.
09:44 What are these green buttons for, Equec? Yep, so the green buttons basically serve
09:48 the same purpose as you can see here in the centre one, centre ICO, so if I hit
09:54 the green, that's like a menu, so that tells me the time, that's my speedo, like
09:59 kilometres per hour at the moment, they must have changed the front wheel and
10:03 it's not calibrated, so not quite working, and then, yeah, basically, so that's a menu
10:09 there and then I can, yeah, change, so virtually the same thing, so, so no, sorry,
10:16 this is the odometer and the other one was a speedo, so, so this morning, yeah,
10:21 we've done like a 16.4 kilometre ride, so like, that's like I say, a hundred metre
10:26 difference, I'd hit that once, twice, then it takes it all off. And what goes here?
10:32 So then here is basically a GPS that doesn't give us, doesn't give us any
10:37 navigation direction to tell us where to go, it actually just kind of like locates
10:42 where we are at all times, so if we do have an accident or crash, they can kind
10:46 of catch us quite quickly and render assistance if we need it, so it also then,
10:53 a GPS code gets logged into that and then that basically gives us our track
11:00 for the day, with all these invisible waypoints that you need to find along
11:05 the whole way, so it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack and can get
11:09 quite difficult, so it's very easy to get lost in this sport, I've done it numerous
11:13 times, but, and I'm sure I haven't, haven't had my last day of getting lost, but it
11:18 is what it is, it's a, it's a fun bike, it's really nice and WPC does all the
11:23 suspension, so it's 52 mil forks in the front, a factory rear shock, it's all
11:28 tucked in up underneath there in the tank, so it's kind of hard to get to, but
11:31 yeah, other than that, that's pretty much the rundown of a factory 450 KTM rally
11:38 bike. Top speed on this? Top speed, say, kilometers now, we've got a speed limit
11:44 of 160 kilometers an hour, so the bike will go faster, but it basically, we have
11:50 a speed limiter on the bike that it will get to about 158 and that's where we're
11:55 at, so yeah, the front button over here also, I'll show you this one, I forgot
12:01 about here, this is basically a speed limiter as well, so if I hit this, turn
12:07 that on, then first gear, the bike won't go over 30 kilometers an hour, second gear
12:12 won't go over 40 kilometers an hour, third gear is 50, fourth gear is 90, fifth gear is open,
12:25 and then sixth gear is 120, but then other than that, 160 is its maximum, we'll do
12:33 because it's all programmed into the ignition to basically retard it,
12:40 to stop it from going over 160 kilometers an hour, but before, previously, we were
12:44 doing like 180 to 183 kilometers an hour was our top speed, so quite crazy, but
12:50 between 160 and 180, it's still gonna hurt, so it ain't gonna be much difference.
12:54 Toby, thank you for giving us a rundown of this 2023 Red Bull KTM Factory 450
13:02 race bike, for everyone at home, this is not the 450 race replica that you can
13:07 buy, this is actually the race bike, thank you Toby. No worries guys, enjoy,
13:11 thank you for having us.
13:14 [Music]