In what was one of the shocking announcements ever made, Stefan Pierer, CEO of KTM said that there will be no more superbikes for KTM, that they are too dangerous for public roads. Though this was a disappointing press conference, it soon turned out to be something more interesting as Mr Stefan further confirmed that the company will continue making a superbike, but only for closed course usage, i.e., a track focussed bike that is not street legal and also the existing RC8 production will be stopped.
Now the latest news about the RC16 is that the bike has recently been caught testing at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. Looks like KTM is teaming up with Red Bull, given their success in Moto3, it does looks like we can expect similar in MotoGP as well.Alexander Hofmann, a retired Grand Prix motorcycle racer, who now works on German television coverage of the sport was given the opportunity to test the RC16 on the tracks.
The pictures of the RC16 was posted on Heinz Kinigadner's Facebook page, who is the KTM Sporting Director and former Motocross World Champion, giving us a clear view of how the RC16 looks like and also how well it sounds.
With KTM set to enter MotoGP in 2017, there is still a long way to go for the development of this product to make it even better. It was also said that a (probably) detuned version of the RC16 will be made accessible for public with an estimated price tag of around €140000.Tell us what you think about the RC16 and stay tuned to BikesIndia as we will bring in more details about the KTM RC16.
By: Rakesh Gowda