2008 KTM Dealer Meeting

This year's KTM dealer meeting was held in Providence, RI, at the Convention Center in the downtown area. We left sunny Highland Park and KTM World, along with the weeks of record setting 100+ temps in Georgia, to find Providence overcast and almost cold, with highs barely touching 70 degrees in mid afternoon. The average daily temps were 30 degrees less than what we have been used to over the last 3 weeks, and we were wishing we had packed a sweatshirt or two. We stayed at the designated show hotel, the Westin, and it is connected directly to the downtown convention center by skywalks. The Westin was a "dee-lux" hotel, and I swear they spend more on fake plants than the GNP of a small third world country. They were some of the most realistic plastic plants ever, but I would prefer real plants that were not as perfect looking. I was very glad KTM reserved a giant block of rooms at a special rate for us, since the information sheet on the inside of the door to my room listed the room rate at $599 per night! $699 if you had 3 people in the room. Yeow!

In typical KTM fashion, there was plenty of grub and grog, and at the end of show party, they even brought in kegs of genuine Stiegel beer from Austria. Pretty cool, and darn good beer too. The dealer show started with a meet and greet dinner at tables surrounding a walkway for a fashion show. We were then treated to the fashion show, which consisted of lots of extremely long legged girls with crazy hair-do's, modeling all the new gear found in the 2008 Hard Parts Catalog. It was entertaining and much better than watching some guy hold up each of the new apparel pieces on the stage. For sure.

I have been to other dealer meetings for other brands over the years, and KTM definitely has the best. After all the meetings and partying are done, you get to go ride all the new bikes! They roll out about 50 new 2008 bikes and the dealers get to rip it up in them. Very brave of KTM, since as you can imagine, some of the folks from some of the KTM dealerships across the country don't ride as well as most of the crowd, and those brand new KTM's didn't stay on their tires the whole day. Ouch.

At the business meeting, Jon-Erik Burleson (KTM North America president) and the Big Guys from Austria went over some things that were of interest and had me pop up an eyebrow from time to time. KTM had another record year for sales, and they have more models than ever, and even more planned. There is a big push going on for KTM to become a full blown powersports company, not just a motorcycle company. They want to be recognized as the powersports brand that is "ready to race" whatever the product. Watercraft were not part of the discussion, but at the rate KTM is attacking the different markets, can a KTM PWC be too far off?

KTM Austria apologized for the parts back order situation we have all experienced in the last few months. This really struck home for me, since KTM World ships out as many as 70 boxes of KTM parts to customers every day and back orders are the most difficult thing we deal with in the parts dept. It was nice to hear them admit there was a problem, but nicer to hear they already have a solution implemented to correct it.

New models were a hot topic, and there was plenty of talk about the RC8 Superbike bantered around, and it was made clear that KTM would be solidly in the performance street bike market.

How about the 125 and 250 road racing machines? KTM is learning all about what it takes to win world level road racing championships, and don't doubt for a minute that they will be aiming at the AMA US Superbike Championship as well as the World Superbike Championship with the new RC8. Maybe a MotoGP Championship down the road. There was a 125 on display, bristling with cool technology and one-off bits. Having road raced for a long time, I drooled over the 125 GP bike, but I was by myself taking pictures - no one else was much interested in the slick world championship road racer present at the show.

The ultra cool KTM X-bow sports car was discussed, and they say it is coming to America as fast as they can figure out how to get it homologated and DOT legal. There was a lot of discussion about the new 450/525 ATV, and KTM head honchos said that if any of the competition thought these were the only two models they would come out with, they "were mistaken". So expect to see a more complete line up of racing and/or sport ATV´s for 2009.

Also at the show was the KTM 690 Baja. Based around the motor found in the new 690 Super Moto, the 690 Baja is all off road oriented, and KTM took second overall at the Baja 500 this year with the new 690 in its first Baja outing. Impressive. The 690 Baja is not available yet, but I suspect it will be in the Spring.

Lots of KTM sponsored racers were in attendance, including Chris Carr and David Knight. Anyone seen Knight's girlfriend? Ummm – "Ready to race". Blake Wharton was at the KTM dealer show. Don´t recognize that name? You will soon enough. Blake is the young American KTM rider that won no less than 5 titles in Vegas at the World Mini Grand Prix, then went on to Bulgaria and swept both 125cc motos to win the 125 cc Junior World Championship title for KTM. There is no doubt he will be in all the magazines shortly. KTM also scored a second podium position in the 85cc class World Junior Championship with French rider Jordi Tixier. Pretty good showing in Bulgaria!

All in all, the show was great. Informative, fun, free Austria beer, and you get to ride too. When I got back to Highland Park and KTM World, I was pleased to see we had received another truck load of 08´s while I was gone, and it was nice to get out of the urban jungle of the Northeast and back into the forests of North Georgia again. Going to a place of almost cold weather, tall buildings, concrete, alabaster, and plastic plants was a welcome break, but I prefer the tall trees, mountains, fresh air, and real plants we have here – even if it was 104 degrees when I got here in the afternoon!