Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
TWIN PEAKS AND A DASH OF COLOUR
Most bikes are great these days. They’re just great in different ways.
I’d just been riding a compact, sporty Triumph Speed Triple, and the riding position of this KTM 790 Adventure couldn’t have been more different, with that typical big trailie upright appearance.
After I’d finished feeling like a king of the road, since I was still in the car park at the dealer, I did a bit of admiring of the splendid mirrors and the TFT dash.
Sadly, the latter had obviously been designed by someone who was colour blind, with the orange tacho display clashing disturbingly with the yellow low fuel warning light.
As I’ve said before, possibly ad nauseam, it’s always a good sign for a bike when you’re going faster than you think you are, and at one stage I thought I was proceeding at a gentlemanly pace, only to look down and see to my horror that I was doing 88mph.
Thankfully, Belfast city centre’s usually pretty quiet at that time of day.
Sadly, at this stage a large bug proceeding the other way decided to end it all on my visor, leaving a bilious green blob which, combined with the orange and yellow on the dash made me feel like the national flag of Bolivia.
I didn’t know whether to wave myself, have a revolution or give asylum to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but in the end I decided to fill up with fuel and clean my visor while I was at it.
Which brings me to the subject of the fuel tank, rather cleverly draped either side of the engine like a pair of panniers to lower the mass, which combined with the light overall weight of the bike at 209kg, makes it fabulously frisky. It needed only the lightest of touches on those wide bars to fling it into corners like a greyhound chasing a rabbit.
So far, so KTM, and combine that light weight with the most powerful parallel twin on the planet – a snarling, gnarly, raucous beast with a 285-degree firing interval to mimic a V-twin – and the result is a hoot of unfettered acceleration, muscular but progressive braking, and plush suspension.
It’s not as good looking as the Honda Africa
Twin or as smooth as the Triumph Tiger 800 but, for visceral, engaging fun, it’s hard to beat KTMS in general, and this one in particular.
KTM 790 Adventure
Price: £11,099
Engine: 799cc parallel twin
Power: 94bhp@8,000rpm
Torque: 66lb ft@6,600rpm
Colours: Orange/white, black/orange