Any enduro riders out there? KTM EXC seem fishy in Switzerland.

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1
I've been meaning to get a new enduro bike but Switzerland being a tad unwelcoming of such hobbies, I have to ride across the border to get off-road.

Meaning, I only consider street-legal enduro bikes.

I noticed it seems like all the KTM EXC bikes are crippled? According to https://typenscheine.ch/en/Search ... it seems like even the 500cc is limited to 15.5 kw. That's less than my current dinky 250cc! Same deal on the equivalent Husqvarnas.

Are they really all restricted like that for some reason?

2
I seem to remember that KTM stands for „kick ten minutes“

3
Welcome to Switzerland Yeah we are not in Italy. If you looking for a place to ride, i like Motocross MX Academy, not far from Zurich. You pay a small amount ‘renting’ fees and can come ride the tracks almost anytime. Its not super big, but suitable for every level.

P.S.: I don't think there any specific off road bikes restrictions, but in case a bike has one you can always remove it

4
I have a friend who is well into KTM bikes and follows races, etc, all over the place, especially in Italy. Could ask him.

5
I'm in Geneva, so I go to France for off-road, which works fine - as long as my bike is street legal so I can get there! But MX academy sounds cool, I'd like to try that out and my nearby MX tracks aren't so newbie-friendly.

I'm pretty convinced after asking and googling that all the KTM EXCs are strongly restricted - and so are any similar hard enduro bikes (because of noise or emissions? I don't know, but it's funny because I see noisier and more polluting vehicles every day on every street...).

As far as I understand removing the restriction is not that simple. ECU remap or replacement, air and exhaust changes, all which I'd have to revert before each MFK, and always with the risk of getting caught and receiving fat fines.

6
I think you might be right, I haven’t even thought of noise/emissions, that could very well be. Agree, there much noisier machines out there.

7
I think it is because youngsters cannot drive powerful machines and buying restricted motorcycles.

I find Switzerland not enduro friendly as mentioned by everybody here. It is very populated too, so each forest road would lead to some house Anyway, your best bet is France and MX tracks (Sézegnin, Bullet) in Switzerland.

8
I can confirm that you have to get out of CH to do any kind of trail riding

Germany and Austria are not much better

France has some but not really very adventurous

Italy on the other hand has a lot of trails in the mountains.

But if you want to really get dirty, a trip to the Balkans is well worth it.

Romania, Montenegro, Albania.

I have ridden there before and its great.

btw, I am more into offroad touring (multi week trips with camping gear)

Some pics of my last trip east

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ue8ZCXJ6cdHnDqty8

9
Cool trip! Thank you for sharing the photos.

In fact in balkans there are lots of guided tours to choose from, but it usually require to form a group of riders. Of course you can explore on your own too.

10
The bikes are limited due to the restrictions on bikes for new riders for their first years. If you are limited in power do many look for the lightest bikes possible... so enduros are in Switzerland a bit of a beginners motorcycle and not the sport equipment they are elsewhere.

Getting that limiter taken out is typically really easy. And it means that the bike was not raced as it would have been in other countries...

11
The restriction is max 35 kW and max 0.2 kW/kg.

The only bike I am aware which has an issue with the latter was early KTM 390 Duke model which were restricted to 32 kW to be A2 compliant.

As you can see KTM only restrict the bike exactly as much as they have. The KTM EXC restriction comes from the noise and emission regulations.