My favourite ride
RIDE reader Paul Jackson takes us for a ride through Marlborough country
Loop of Marlborough country
SWINDON-BASED KTM 790 Adventure owner Paul must have a thing for steep learning curves, let alone tarmac curves. He’s 46, been riding for only three years and has crammed in 10,000 miles on three bikes: his first, a Yamaha XT660R, then a Tiger 800 and, for the last six weeks, he’s been the proud owner of a KTM 790 Adventure. “The Tiger was very forgiving; the KTM is less forgiving but I’d much rather have this sort of visceral experience,” he says.
A software architect by profession, Paul’s a thorough and precise kind of rider. “I like to think of riding in terms of science and maths — the physics of it,” he says. “That really helped me when I learned to ride; I spent time learning how the bike behaves and why it does what it does.”
And we’re about to find out how Paul’s methodical brain and slightly mad KTM 790 Adventure cope with his favourite B-road loop around Swindon.
The ride
We’re literally 60 seconds into the ride on Paul’s favoured Swindon loop — one of about a dozen or so he keeps in his pocket for sunny weekends and spare time, choosing them or mixing them up as he feels like — when we hit the first significant corner. It’s a super-sharp, first or second