Dirt and Trail MAY 2021

KTM Adventure Launch
It wasn’t even tea time yet – so we all told them we wanted to ride
some more. So, as they do KTM made a plan. GPS’s were pored
over and they found us some more playground. And as expected it
was all very cool. And the bikes had an awful lot to do with that.
They have the same compact, familiar, comfortable seating and feel
that the 790 gives you. Suspension and handling is just the way
we like it – easy to ride, light and nimble. But the new bike has a
far more grunty engine. Sure it’s only 10HP up on the 790, but the
whole thing is about how it makes that power. The bikes just make
more useable torque from the bottom all the way up to the top and
from the 6000RPM mark they get quite frisky all the way up to the
top.
In the gravel and even on the tougher stuff, this bike makes stuff
easy and she won’t stall on you. We spent about 60 kilometres just
playing, with the more dirt oriented mob playing silly buggers on
step-ups and the like - and we all agreed that this new bike is quite
something. The additional power just makes it that much more
responsive and torquey than the 790.
We look forward to riding it again soon.
The afternoon was spent in the saddle of the 890 Adventure.
What a cool route they selected. We headed out along some really
badly rutted gravel roads – 60 odd kilometres again – all the way
out to the Spionkop War memorial and back via a few lekker tar
twisties.
You’ll read a lot of conflicting reports on this bike – and one of the
questions asked will be – with the 890R being so damn good – why
did KTM feel the need to bother with an Adventure.
Well it’s quite simple – and before we go further this oake needs to
tell you that he really enjoyed this one.
It’s really good in the dirt – and would easily have handled the trickier
route that we rode that morning. This route gave us the
opportunity to test out the new engine on more open roads and
enjoy some flowing saddle time.
Although it’s a 900, it feels like a smaller bike, nippy and compact
and the shorter suspension means that your feet are closer to the
ground. Many riders will appreciate that. When you are in a hurry,
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