Jonny Walker: Ready for the great outdoors
By TMX Archives on 24th May 17
Its outdoor season finally! It feels like an eternity since I last turned a wheel in anger but thankfully, as you read this, Ill be putting my race face on for the Extreme XL Lagares hard enduro in Portugal.
When I finished off the SuperEnduro World Championship at the end of March I knew there'd be a bit of a lull between the indoors winding down and the extreme stuff getting going.
On paper it's only about six weeks or so, but man it feels like it's dragged by.
I guess because I was zoned in on racing superenduro I just wanted that to carry on through.
I hope in hindsight this break as such will have done me good.
From now on it's full gas for the rest of the year, so maybe in a couple of months time I'll be groaning for a few of days downtime!
I always love getting back on the two-stroke and I've been pretty much riding it every day.
Trying to mix things up, we've been riding extreme stuff, regular enduro stuff and then throwing some motocross into the mix too.
There's been plenty of variety and as they say, that's the spice of life.
I mentioned the last time that I'm currently based out of Girona in Spain.
It's near Barcelona and I'm just round the corner from Taddy Blazusiak too.
It's been cool having him so close and we've been riding together a lot.
I think since he's stopped racing he's keen to ride every day.
He's loving it and I guess that's been a massive help to have a guy of his talent and experience to go riding with all the time.
KTM just had the launch of their new two-stroke fuel injected enduro bikes and I got to spend the week out at Erzberg in Austria for the official launch.
I'd never really done one of those gigs before so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.
But we got a whole bunch of riding done, which was cool.
Normally when I arrive to the Iron Giant it's serious race mode business whereas this time it was much more relaxed with a lot of laughs.
I guess you want to know what the new bike is like? Well, it's incredible.
That was my first time on it and I was massively impressed.
The thing just rips. And it still feels and handles like a two-stroke should, which for me is the most important thing.
Just messing about on the hills at Erzberg and I can already see and feel improvements in the bike over the old model.
You don't have to clear the engine out with a big rev when you need to tackle something, which is a trait of a carbed two-stroke. Just hit the throttle and the engine instantly reacts.
Of course there's all the other eco, greener, tree-hugging friendly stuff it does too, but that's kinda boring!
Unfortunately I wasn't able to sneak one out of the launch for this weekend's race so I'll have to sit tight before I get my hands on one, but fingers crossed come Erzberg I'll be racing one for real.
Until then it's carb-city and Extreme Lagares will be my last shot to get a win on her before I park her up for good.
Jonny.
