GETTING A BUZZ FROM KTM’S BABY BLASTER
Funny old thing, horsepower. If you’re a horse, one is enough. If you’re pottering through the Himalayas on an eponymous Royal Enfield, 22 is entirely adequate, and if you’re a MotoGP rider, nothing short of 200 will suffice. But on a bike weighing 159kg, or about the same as one of Kim Kardashian’s buttocks, 43bhp is just the ticket.
Which by an astonishing coincidence is exactly the weight and power of the single-cylinder KTM 390 Duke, which can be ridden on an A2 licence but is a bargain blaster for a day of high-revving fun.
It looks like a 1290 Super Duke R that’s shrunk in the wash, but climb on board, and the high seat and wide bars make for a surprisingly uncramped space.
Even more surprisingly for a smallish-budget bike, the mirrors are useful, and it’s got a very brightly optimistic and informative colour TFT screen which gives you speed, revs, gear, fuel, temperature and even the date.
Progress is smooth but languid until the engine hits 4,000rpm, after which keeping the revs up makes acceleration pleasantly perky until the red line at 10,000rpm, at which you really should stop thrashing the little darling to death and make more use of its dinky six-speed gearbox.
All this is accompanied by a purr trying its hardest to be a snarl and almost succeeding, until you finally hit the giddy heights of 70mph, at which point the engine is buzzing away busily at 7,000rpm.
But motorway speeds, of course, aren’t what this bike’s about. It’s about shifting your weight around, keeping your corner speed up and blasting around corners with a manic grin.
Handling, thanks to a winning combo of brilliant suspension, light weight, 17in alloy wheels, short wheelbase and steep fork rake, is instantaneous – and I proved the value of the ABS when I came around a corner and had to brake sharply for a banana skin.
Good thing too, since coming to grief on a cliché would have been a funny but tragic way to bring my fabulous motorcycling career to a close.
So all in all, I wouldn’t want to ride one of these around the world with a pillion, but for commuting while avoiding public transport or weekend A and B-road blasts at a bargain price, it’s a hoot. ■ Bike supplied by Phillip McCallen Motorcycles, phillipmccallen.com