On Track Off Road No. 185

TEST
Plenty of adventure bikes would make more
relaxing roadsters, but few would be more
fun.
A brief desert blast suggested off-road performance
would also be very good but the
launch left most of the rough stuff to the
Adventure R, shod for the event in suitably
knobbly tyres, plus a few accessories including
gearbox quick-shifter and Akrapovic
silencer. Following Dakar ace Jordi on the
sandy tracks where the KTM team train was
mindblowing, especially on a bike so superbly
suited to the job.
The flexible engine played its part, aided by
the sweet quick-shifter and a Rally riding
mode (included with the R, an accessory on
the standard 790) that allows traction control
adjustment while riding. The sophisticated,
IMU-governed system encourages controllable
slides on dirt but needs backing off on
really loose surfaces. That helped make the
Adventure R improbably cooperative for my
first dune-riding experience, though occasionally
I was glad of its relatively light weight
when picking it up…
On firmer sections it was the KTM’s outstanding
suspension quality that shone, allowing it
to be blasted down rutted tracks and across
open desert scrubland at speed, soaking up
even big bumps yet with the damping control
to remain amazingly composed. It’s clear that
for off-road riding the R, in particular, has a
significant edge over most rivals.
Perhaps both Adventures’ only slight drawback
is that, with the standard model costing
roughly 25 per cent more than the Duke (at
£11,099 in the UK) and the R ten per cent
more again (£11,999), they’re close on price
to some well established larger-capacity
machines. But as the KTMs’ lightness, agility,
sophistication and versatility mean that for
some trips and situations they’ll be the pick
of the bunch regardless of capacity, that’s
arguably really not a drawback at all.