KTM freeride 350

I'm keen

Going up to Beerwah state forest tomorrow for my first good ride on it.

I figured it was a bit like that with the emphasis more towards a Trials like riding position. Reminds me of the days when we used to use TY Yamahas or TL Hondas as trail and enduro bikes. Obviously it's a bit more trail oriented than something like the Ossa Explorer



but more Trials oriented than the current crop of MX derived Enduro bikes. It looks like a really nice compromise to me provided you don't want to travel large distances.

It would be interesting to throw a tape measure over these three bike;
(wheelbase, steering head angle, trail, rake, rear swing arm length etc.)

Just eyeballing them, the three of them seem to be similar solutions to the same task really...
(with no scientific evidence to support it... but I kinda feel that if you put a high front fender of the Ossa...
that it would be "similar" in looks/feel to both the Scorpa and the freeride?)

The Freeride is the only one of the three that I have ridden.

The biggest difference, Troy, is that the Ossa weighs around 74kg with road gear. And it is a 2 stroke, so power delivery will be typically awesome.
They are also cheap in aussie dollars, but the importers don't seem to think the Ossa is worth bringing in to the country (I did ask).

If the ring ding ding of a two stroke "trials/trail" crossover is what get's your jinglies tingling...
then Sherco also have a 280cc two stroke version available apparently...
(the 4t version uses much the same chassis/running gear and features Yamaha's WRF 250 donk)



Mind you... I'm most keen to see one of these things from Ossa in the flesh... not so much the Explorer...

got to ride around all day yesterday on a ktm freeride, one of us is definitely buying one, the other one is still thinking about it. great bike for its intended purpose, for what it's worth we made a few comments on the bike in this vid....

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Barry, for around SEQ, where can you ride it where it will be more suitable or easier to ride etc than a 350 EXC or smaller two stroke etc?

Putting it up against your 570, can you see a great amount of use for the Freeride where you couldn't ride the Bergs or smaller bikes 200 exc etc? :huh

Good video too.

big issue for me at six foot four is fitting on the thing, to stand comfortably, ideally i'd need to raise the bars six inches which would probably need a pile of new cables, wiring and front brake line. too much work, so in reality it would probably be high bend bars, two inch raisers, and maybe pivot pegs to get the pegs a tad lower... B2 is just under six foot and he reckons he will just need bar raisers, roll the bars forward a bit and that will do him. and if you wanted to do more than 70km of gnarly stuff you would probably want that acerbis 2.1L handlebar petrol tank to get your range over 100km...

personally, i reckon if you like riding tight twisty trails, steep bits and technical sections it would be awesome fun. it would still be fine on more open trails as long as you weren't trying to ride it hard like a typical dirt bike. otherwse the steering geometry, plush suspension and 23HP will all be very limiting factors. mind you, the rekluse on the FE570 means i can get it most places a freeride would get to. but if you put a rekluse autoclutch on the freeride is would be unstoppable.

no dirt bike feels great on the road, but there's no reason you couldn't kick the trials tyres up to 35psi to limit wear and cruise out to the tracks at 80kmh... it gets very revvy and buzzy faster than that and the seat won't be much chop. would be kinda fun to ride out to a trials competition in the entry level class, kind of like the old TY175 and TY250 days.

everyone wants something different from their bike, i'd suggest anyone who wants one of these should try to get a decent test ride first to make sure you'll like it, unless you know for sure a trials/dirt bike hybrid is what you want.

at $10500 ride away it's pretty cheap. but if you had an extra $3000 and wanted something that could do technical stuff almost as well, but also be a great overal dirt bike, i figure other options could be the ktm 300exc which is only 5kg heavier, or the 350exc four stroke has twice the power and 9kg heavier than the freeride.

Twitchy around 80kph? What pressures were you running?
Throwing knobs?

A set of Pirelli MT43's would help there.

I would love one but will have to put up with a trials tyre shod TT350 in the meantime.

Thanks Barry.

actually it felt fine at 80kmh, just unsteady at around 100kmh but it was revving a lot by then so don't think you'd want to sit on that speed for long anyway.

front tyre was fine, but the rear was missing about one knob in every five after 500km as you can see if you pause the video below at 3:12m. and most of the other knobs were ready to fling off too. mind you, i think most of that 500km was at a ktm test ride day so it probably had every erzberg / romaniacs wannabe bouncing the freeride off its rev limiter.

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I put a deposit on it I was that impressed- bellthorpe here i come "get outa the way mtn goat"- in the 2013 ktm shopping manual it states a recluse for her is "coming soon"

The Rekluse is out mine arrived last week. They all come with an external hydraulic adjuster now so you CAN bump start the bike without too much fuss. Just thought I'd throw that in there before everyone starts on the Rekluse / electric start only argument

link to Rekluse. The part No is RMS 6135. I have not fitted it yet but I did talk to them before ordering and they said it did fit the Freeride

http://rekluse.mybigcommerce.com/ktm-350-exc-f-xcf-w-12-13-exp-clutch/

Thanks mate
The sites i have been on one says it is available but the recluse site doesnt have it listed - freeride with recluse the only problem i can see is finding things to do with the amount of time you will have while waiting on the top of everyhill for the other bikes ;-]

Do they really need a Rekluse though?

Do they use the standard hydraulic activated clutch on KTM's?

Even in gnarly shit I would have thought the bikes basic trials capabilities would make most things doable and for the ones you don't first succeed at then it would allow you that improvement to get over/up in the future. The best part of these types of bikes was always learning how to use a clutch for the conditions you were riding in.

Well I know how to use a clutch and the freeride doesn't come out with a recluse as standard , but when I get mine and install the recluse I will see whats up the top of all those hills in bellthorpe that you will only dream about
p.s I could send you pictures tho if you want

Ridden in there enough over the years on Alpinas and TYs to see the tops and bottoms of the worst hills, and the ones further north, just thought it would be more fun and a challenge to ride a manual bike.

If thats the case and you want a challenge why ride a husaberg 390 why not takle everything on a gs 1200

Even truckies have gone soft and gone to auto gearboxes its part of the modern way