KTM’s GPS Rally held in Québec for the first time
Canada, South Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, China. What do these countries have in common? Well, each of them has the privilege of hosting one leg of the 2022 KTM Adventure Rally. In Canada, motorcyclists from all over the country gathered last June at the Lac Taureau Inn, in Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Québec, for a unique and memorable adventure weekend.
We were more than a hundred in the luxurious Inn’s dining room for the Thursday evening opening speech and presentation of the challenge awaiting us. I am listening carefully to the safety rules, guidelines and limits to be respected in order to make this first Québec edition a success for the riders as well as for the organizers. A few minutes after Chris Burch’s speech, KTM Canada general manager Adrien De Alexandris set the tone and launched the event with these words: “Have fun and create stories!”
Great organization work
KTM Canada chose Rando Raid to support the organization and coordination of the event, more specifically in terms of route planning, obtaining permissions from stakeholders to use the different land sections, and support for the GPS and checkpoints.
For such an event to be successful, you need a well-trained team with watertight coordination. But what made all the difference, more than the generous door prizes, exceptional mechanical support, crowded Happy Hours and abundant food, was the circuit itself. The organizers had a rule: if a section is difficult, it has to be short, and that applied to both the more experienced R1 teams, and the R2 riders, who are typically more interested in the scenery. “When organizing our own events, explains Dominique Lefebvre, cofounder of Rando Raid Canada, we usually work with smaller size enduro bikes. So we had to carefully control the level of difficulty to make sure that the challenging sections would not become too difficult. The objective was that pilots stay in love with their motorcycle at the end of the rally, and KTM Canada’s Mark Brunet has been instrumental in reaching this goal. He spent quite a few days testing the itinerary and giving us feedback.”
The goal was to create circuits that would be as diversified and as dynamic as possible for lighter agile bikes such as KTM’s Enduro 690, as well as for heavier powerful machines like the Adventure 1290. In this, the organizers were helped by the impressive network of roads and trails of the great Saint-Michel-des-Saints region. There were sections for all tastes: sand and mud, very technical forest trails with roots and rocks, gravel roads, etc. “The R2 circuit for larger displacement bikes had to be wider, more scenic-oriented and less technical, while the R1 had to have its fair share of technical challenges such as rocky uphills and singletrack trails,” adds Dominique. The final result was breathtaking landscapes and intense adrenaline for two long and fine riding days deserving a perfect score.
Weather concerns
Though the weather was fair enough throughout the event itself, it had been challenging for the organizers in the previous weeks. “A late spring may mean changing trail conditions, but our partner Rando Raid Canada is active in this region, and they spent hundreds of hours mapping the circuits and maintaining the trails in order to offer the best itineraries considering the actual weather conditions”, explained Allison Thompson, Marketing Director for KTM Canada.
Dominique Lefebvre remembers: “We have not been able to start cleaning up the trails before mid-May, for an event that was to take place in mid-June. Before that, there was still more than a metre of snow left in the trails. Then, we had steady rain in June, which transformed normally dry sections into mud pits. The beavers also seemed to have fun building dams in hopes of securing more water…” That’s why some sections of both circuits had to be cut off at the very last minute; they were still unrideable the day before the launch of the event. That also explains why trail expert and Rando Raid founder, Erwan Durand, spent so many sleepless nights. He wanted to make sure that the participants could push their own limits, without ever ending up in a risky situation, by checking and double-checking everything on the ground before the D-Day.
Precision first and foremost
The GPS Rally is not a time trial. The rewards go to the participants who manage to complete the circuit with as much precision as possible. That’s why the organizers registered the odometer reading of every participant at the start and finish line, and odometer calibration was verified on the first day. “A GPS Rally is safer for participants as well as for the local population and vacationers, who also use these trails. With a race based on speed, no local partner would give us the access or passage rights that we need,” explains Rando Raid Canada.
All through the weekend, safety was an absolute priority, both for KTM Canada and Rando Raid Canada. Each team was given a GPS beacon allowing the coordination team to track in real time the movement of each team on a topographic map. Guardian Angel Dominique Lefebvre was securing the connection between the trail teams and the KTM teams on the ground. “When organizing an event such as this one, she explains, a lot of work has to be done beforehand to guarantee the safety of all participants. The region’s first responders (firefighters, paramedics and the Sureté du Québec police force) had all been informed and were ready to act and coordinate their actions in case of a problem. At the end, we had no sad incident to declare, and that’s exactly what we wanted.”
What about 2023?
All in all, the outcome was more than positive (34 teams for a total of 101 participants crossing the finish line), so one can’t help but think about next year. After three times in British Columbia and that first time in Québec, can we hope that next year’s Canadian leg of the Rally could be held in La Belle Province again? Allison Thompson won’t let the cat out of the bag…: “The KTM Adventure Rally is part of the brand’s worldwide events, and events will be held each year. People will have to attend their local Motorcycle Show and drop by our KTM booth to know where the next KTM Adventure Rally will take place!…”
