Kye Anderson: Meeting my 300EXC TPI

When I first got my hands on the new 2018 KTM 300EXC TPI all I could think was wow this bike just looks impressive! Although it is covered with a tonne of KTM PowerParts it does not look completely standard but these parts are essential to survive legit extreme races over here in Europe. Which one might say this bike is almost designed for this torture.
The bike itself appears to be very similar in shape to its predecessor, that is apart from a few noticeable things:

No breather hoses dangling underneath the bike wreaking or stained of fuel an oil.
A strange oil filling cap near the steering head for the two stroke oil reservoir
But most of all the carburettor had been replaced with a throttle body, and the addition of the new transfer point injection which finds its way to both sides of the cylinder.

All of this looks super neat and tidy with clearly many hours of design and development going into this specialised unit.
Before I ride this pre-production machine I must claim it under my ownership and install my Willmax Graphics sticker kit with KA64 and Transmoto logos and mount the all-important 360fly camera.

Hooking an Aussie up

On arrival to the ErzbergRodeo, I head straight into the pit lane towards the what appears to be an army of orange personnel, trucks, bikes, factory bikes, shops and almost everything KTM you could think of. It is truly impressive the extent the KTM team puts into this iconic event.
KTM’s Marketing Manager, Jennifer Dick has given me a few contacts to help unite me with the new 300EXC TPI. This is the first time I had really dealt with KTM staff before and straight away they are super welcoming. They are willing to do anything to help both me and Lesley out. This was really humbling considering we are just a small privateer effort from down under.
KTM personnel, Carola Kressl and Mathias Kumpf sort me out right away with my 300EXC TPI and give me a run down on the new machine, as pretty much no one around has been ridden these pre-production bikes yet, let alone raced them in a hard enduro race.
I’m fortunate enough to meet Rupert Walkner, the head of Research and development at KTM. Rupert is very interested in my experience on the bike over the coming months, he asks me to give him direct feedback about the bike for future reference and the giant database of information KTM uses. This came as a huge surprise! I’m just a small-time privateer from Oz, so the opportunity to give my feedback to potentially influence a motorcycle for production for the masses is amazing.