KTM South Africa’s Orange Day makes its annual appearance for the third consecutive run this year. After enjoying the last two gatherings, we’ve made sure to schedule this petroholic day into our yearly calendar. This year saw the orange boys and girls at head office along with many of the Gauteng-based KTM dealers organised their own unique routes to the tight and twisty Formula-K race circuit in Benoni for a full day of tyre screeching and clutch-popping action.
Formula-K welcomed what seemed like 100 odd KTM motorcycles and riders throughout the day. Orange Day kept riders busy from as early as 8:00 a.m. with an enduro loop, on-track riding, demo rides on the 390, 990 and 1390 Dukes as well as the exciting 450 SMR, the little ones were also spoiled with a mini track lined up with demo KTM E-bikes, a wheelie machine, the restaurant kept appetites in check and the MotoGP fed the soul with some awesome shoulder to shoulder racing.
In South Africa, the brand name KTM has an association or stigma of being a hardcore off-road motorcycle and adventure bike-focused brand, but KTM also has a massive road bike client base that longs to be included in road-biased events. So, it was great to see so many Dukes in one place at a road bike-focused event and even more awesome to see them having fun on the track, scrapping footpegs and hanging 12 o’clock wheelies down the main and back straight away. It goes to show that KTM values all of their clients, from the long open road adventurer to the hard enduro, cross country, mx, street and track riders—if you ride with the brand they ride with you.
Orange Day is just KTM’s way of saying family day. Seeing the smiles, and the people huddling around the bikes and hanging on the pitlane wall reminded me of why I bought my first KTM. There’s just something about the Austrian brand and the people that buy into it, we all become one giant unorthodox kind of family. With KTM there are no office doors, you get to ride and chat with the dealer principal, CEO, marketing manager, workshop manager and just about everyone else in the team. The KTM group are an awesome bunch of people we as media, customers and dealers love spending time with.
With a third successful Orange Day completed we would love to see more of these events in the future and possibly an Orange Weekend (please KTM).
