Still, despite the nagging worries the KTM saw me up the hill in 38 seconds, respectable enough for a mid-pack result. Next up was Daryll on the Buell STT. With such a short course he had his work cut out
simply because of the time needed to change gear on the Harley-engined contraption. There's no getting away from the fact this motor belongs in a cruiser, and a lazy one at that. All the mods in the world can't hide the tractor gearbox, heavy clutch and throttle response.
You leap onto the bike expecting sporty thanks to the chassis and styling, but as soon as you try
playing sporty with the motor it all goes haywire as fast gearchanges are met with painful false neutrals, and heavy on/off throttle use heading off the line rewards you with stuttering and banging. Smooth out your habits, however, and you'll find the Buell can still boogie surprisingly well. Although only a supermoto in styling terms (beneath it all the STT is virtually identical to all other Buells) those wide bars did at least give Daryll a fighting chance of hustling the bike through the tight sections of the course.
Which he did admirably, crossing the line in 41 seconds. He'd had to work for it though and came back into the pits looking like he'd just run a marathon before collapsing in a sweaty heap as Urry took the start aboard the Ducati. He hightailed it off the line like a scalded cat and bailed into turn one using all the confidence of the Hypermotard's well-sorted chassis before disappearing out of sight around the nasty tight section of the course. It looked good although the end result was a sluggish 50 seconds as it turned out the idiot had tripped the timing beam on the start line as he sat there without realising, merrily racking up a good ten seconds before he set off. How we laughed.
Taking advantage of the break for lunch we stuffed our faces with the finest jacket potatoes the on-site cafe could muster before heading into the surrounding countryside for a good old-fashioned thrash. "Maybe if we time it right we'll roll back just in time for our runs with warm tyres", said an overly-optimistic Daryll who'd obviously forgotten the half-hour we'd spent queuing before our last outings.
Taking the opportunity for a spin on the Hypermotard I was expecting big things. After all, on paper, this bike looks the bomb and Ducati rarely mess anything up when it comes to delivering real performance. But the first thing I noticed as we dawdled through a couple of sleepy villages at 30mph so as not to upset the locals was how awful the bike was at low speed. Below 3,000rpm the on/off throttle response is far too sharp and the clutch too grabby to make smooth progress the easy affair it is on the KTM. Then came the ludicrous bar-mounted fold-out mirrors. Fair cop, they do work, but they also give the bike a wingspan akin to a small aircraft and from the back it looks like you've strapped a canoe paddle across your bars. Not cool in the slightest and useless in town traffic.
Winding the Duke up it all made a lot more sense as, once above the 3,000rpm mark, the motor began to pull like a train. You definitely know it's a twin, but at the same time there's a delicious free-flowing revvy-ness to the air-cooled 1,100cc lump that makes it a joy to thrash down the road.
90mph turns up in no time on the red peril, and at this point you'll be very glad of the trademark trellis frame which holds the whole plot well in shape no matter how hard you happen to catch any unexpected potholes. The eeriest thing about riding the Hypermotard is the disappearing act it pulls. Ride one down an open road, look naturally ahead, and I guarantee you'll see no trace of the bike left in your peripheral vision at all. It's so skinny you don't know you're riding it. Less eerie is the handling. It's not as sweet-steering from the off as I expected looking at it, but, much like the legendary 916 family, does instead need a good shove to send it diving for the apex of your choice.
Back to the track and it was climbing time again. Over the next two runs each we chipped away at the track picking up the pace as we went. So, which went fastest? Third place went to the Buell with a sterling 38 seconds from Daryll who, digging deep in his 'racers book of excuses', claimed a stray pheasant legging it across the track had cost him at least a second. 'Chinny reckon' we thought, until snapper Martin showed us pictures of a large bird strutting across the racing line.
Second went to the Ducati with Urry hauling it to a rapid 37 seconds, which means the 950SM won with a time of 36 seconds and made me look a lot better than I am. Nice one Austrian KTM madmen.
Conveniently this is exactly the way the bikes stack up in this test too. The Buell's too darned odd, and too useless too much of the time to be a winner no matter how good it is on its day, the Hypermotard's a whole heap of fun and moderately usable but is let down by awkward low speed manners and limited comfort which blot an otherwise very clean copybook All of which means the KTM 950SM romps home for the win. It's utterly, rampantly, barking, it's easy to get on with from the start, and it'll handle motorways and traffic better than anything here. If you're modern enough to set off in this wonderfully rabid new direction of motorcycling, KTM are still leading the way.
