RUST Magazine: RUST #50

2021 KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE R
superb balance the centrestand has, so
optimally has KTM placed the fulcrum
the big 1290 just floats onto the stand,
and it sits super-secure. When cleaning
there’s a sense of space around the
various cycle parts and motor, so mud
can’t pack and hold on as stubbornly
as it might. And the enclosure of the
fairing around the front of the bike
limits what dirt will find its way beneath
the tank and engine. KTM do consider
the end user.
I pondered the 1290. As said, it is
a life-size Tonka toy of a machine.
Handguards excepted it’s built strong,
I appreciate the whopping great forks,
the heavily braced swingarm, the
chunky cross-laced wheels. It is what
it is meant to be, a super-sized dirtbike,
that’s probably just a little too big, too
powerful, too much. But that’s its USP.
And actually we like those kind of
equations.
It lives in an ADV world that’s become
increasingly tribal. BMW riders pan
KTMs as unreliable, KTM riders slay
BMWs for being too soft, too middle
aged (and they break, too). Yet brand
loyalties aside, whether you’re talking
1250 GS or 1290 Super Adventure
you are talking brilliantly engineered
machines which, considering their
size, can do remarkable things, on road
and track. If you chose either you’d
be making the right choice. But if you
like your ADV demonstrably, visually
uncompromising and downright
hardcore then the 1290 delivers.
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