KTM Tracker by Roland Sands

I’m surprised we don’t see more KTMs on the custom scene. Maybe it’s because the Austrian bikes offer great performance straight out of the box, and a love-it-or-hate-it style that’s hard to tweak.
Roland Sands is a fan of the brand, and also one of the few customizers brave enough to tear down a KTM. In this case, it’s an Enduro 690 given a dash of tracker style. This is Sands’ second tilt at the 690; regular readers will remember his café’d version from a few months ago.

What’s so special about the 690? “It’s a great street-able single,” says Sands. “There’s enough torque to put a smile on your face, but it’s tame enough to inspire confidence when pushing towards the edge.”
The RSD tracker is lithe and angular, with an almost insect-like grace. It’s a pretty heavy-duty build, with a new subframe and swingarm custom-fabricated in airfoil-shaped tubing that matches the existing frame of the bike.

The bodywork is also hand-formed, this time in aluminum, with sublime paint from Airtrix. The exhaust system, with ten sections of pipe neatly bent and welded together, terminates in a stubby, low-slung muffler.

The bike rolls on RSD’s own Del Mar wheels in ‘Contrast Ops’ finish—a classic dirt track-inspired design. (It’s also the lightest wheel in the RSD catalog.) The Goodyear/Dunlop flat track rubber is equally eye-catching, and a Performance Machine brake system hauls the whole shebang to a stop.

With warm grey-brown powder on the frame and anodizing from show bike specialists Sport Chrome, the KTM tracker looks a million dollars. Hit the RSD website for more shots—and a video showing the making (and attempted breaking) of the bike.

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