How Marla Got Her Groove Back

It's all beat up. Now five years old, practically geriatric. Tarped alongside the bike shed with a flat tire and bent bars. My KTM 520 SX is just a big droopy mess, and if I lived in a red state I’d write a country/western song about it.

Never thought our relationship would end up in a heap like that.

In the beginning I was so taken with its slick graphics, smitten by its power band. We even trailer’ed it all the way from California back to Baltimore to meet my family.

Typically, they weren’t very impressed, but I interpreted that as a back handed endorsement. Mom and Dad were simply blind to its most appealing virtues: cleaner than the others four stroke, red stickered for those whimsical urban assaults, custom suspension, and its biblical power to weight ratio. My brother, Chris, sniffed that it would be ‘way’ cooler if it burned soy diesel.

I didn’t care. It was love.

True, we didn’t motocross as much as I had hoped, but hey, that’s life. I was happy.

However, there were little things. Didn’t even notice ‘em at first, but they were there nonetheless like a fly in the soup. The soup began to turn cold after a time, and since I discerned the fly, I searched around for larvae.

Don’t even know when I began to resent the way its long wheelbase didn’t quite sit on my trailer.



Marla's Moto


My KTM’s body mass index (BMI) was always a little on the high side, but I really began to loathe lifting its dead weight off the ground after we broke up.

Brake levers might grow on trees in Austria but they sure don’t in California. Before too long I was twisting ‘em up with baling wire. Later, I just squeeze the broken nubs.

It wouldn’t get busy without a hundred good kicks to get it started. Made me not want to go for a ride at all.

In this world a girl has to take care o’ hersef. Oh, me and the KTM still went on some “dates” now and then, but let’s just say we really weren’t hooking up like we used to. Forget about throwing down for new graphics; duct tape on that saddle was all it deserved. This momma was getting busy with the classifieds in the back of Racer X.

I’m not ready to make a new commitment just yet, but I am willing to ride some strange.

Just the other day I enjoyed some real quality time with a younger, fresher, tight little unit: a hungry KTM 250 F.

Next week I have a date with a ‘lectric starting, fold-away lever YZ250 F. That might be my new love.

I reckon that ole KTM is about ready to be shipped off to Texas with the rest of my Exes.