The sports tourer is dead. Long live the sports tourer
KTM’S 1290 Super Duke GT is not your conventional sports tourer – as we learned by caning one from the factory all the way back to Britain
THE SPORTS TOURER used to be a simple animal: an old sportsbike with its engine retuned and higher bars. Then came the hyperbikes, like the Honda Blackbird and the Suzuki Hayabusa, where a hugely powerful inline four was fitted into a long, low, streamlined chassis for extremely fast touring.
KTM’S sports tourer is different. The 1290 Super Duke GT is the bike they called The Beast – the naked 1290 Super Duke – plus a screen and a bigger rear subframe, to take pillions and panniers. No change to the 170bhp, 1301cc V-twin – this is a muscle bike built for touring. But does it work?
I’m in Austria to pick one up from the factory, crossing the shop floor past the line where serious-looking men in KTM overalls are building this model. My bike’s already finished and run in, waiting in the press workshop. While I fill out the forms for borrowing it, an apple-eating technician fits the luggage – 30-litre rigid pannier in one hand, apple in the other. One click and it’s on. Very slick.
I settle into the saddle that’ll be home for the next day and a half. My knees are bent and my body leans gently forward to relatively high and wide bars. The controls are light and the bike feels beautifully balanced at low speed as I trickle round to the factory gates and head off in search of the scenic route home.
AUSTRIAN HILLS
There’s a slightly surreal quality to the picture-perfect Austrian countryside, like being on a film set – some idealised vision of Alpine freshness. Except this is the reality: lush green fields and dark green pine forests on steep hillsides dotted with half-timbered houses and elaborate wood piles, blue lakes sparkling in the valley bottoms below. Tying them all together are broad sweeps of immaculate, inviting tarmac.
The Super Duke GT makes light work of these flowing roads. I have the engine in Street mode, which offers the 170bhp with a smooth response. There’s plenty of grunt for instant overtakes, but rolling off delivers enough engine braking to return to a brisk but sensible cruising speed. Then I turn off the valleybottom road to be presented with a long, empty road curving very gently up a steep hill. I select Sport mode, close the ride-by-wire throttle to engage it, lean over the front a bit more and open the throttle. Hard. If the front lifts, it’s only for a second before the traction control lowers it unobtrusively to the tarmac. The glimpse of an orange light isn’t unsettling, but the change in the way the bike accelerates is dramatic. This is fast.
I realise Austria’s going to feel like a very small country at this pace, but that’s no bad thing: I do have a long way to go. The GT snarls up the mountainside like a wolf pursuing its prey, chasing the vanishing point round a long, sweeping corner. I’m staying wide until I spot some gravel at the edge of the road. My line changes as quickly as I can think of it – the GT’S 1482mm wheelbase is stable, but it’s still super-agile. The bike has lean-angle sensitive traction control (and ABS) so perhaps I didn’t need to avoid the gravel… but better safe than sorry.
Hurtling over the hills and mountains, the GT impresses at literally every turn. The brakes are powerful yet sensitive, letting me trail them a long way into each
corner. The bike is effortlessly nimble, needing minimal effort from me as I fine-tune my lines to string corners together at speed. The gearbox is light as I shift down and when that ferocious motor ladles on speed on the exit, there’s a quickshifter for seamless upshifts (though it does take a few goes to get the hang of it). This is sports touring with the emphasis very firmly on the sports.
GERMAN AUTOBAHNS
All too soon, I’m crossing the border into Germany and switching my focus to the touring part of the brief. I jump on an autobahn until my rumbling stomach drowns out the exhaust and I stop at some services, taking a minute to pick a realistic overnight stop to pop into the sat nav.
Rejoining an empty derestricted stretch of motorway, I give the engine its head. Even rolling on at 85mph, the response is instant and primal, forceful acceleration accompanied by a howl from the exhaust. Numbers don’t quite blur on the dash, but the rate at which they change doesn’t seem to slow down until we pass 140mph. By this point I’m very aware of the wind noise and, as the clock edges past 150mph, I spot traffic ahead so roll off.
When things feel slower, I settle back and set the cruise control – it’s on the right bar and slightly awkward to reach. I check the sat nav: distance to turn, 110 miles. I check the speedo. Less than an hour, then… This is a seriously fast way to travel. The ride quality does feel a little harsh on a concrete-block section of road, but a press of a button adjusts the settings of the electronically adjusted semi-active suspension. On this surface, Street is an improvement on the firm Sport setting, but Comfort trumps them both.
Of course, I can’t sustain the ultra-high-speed touring for the entire journey. Some stretches of autobahn have a 130km/h limit and then the traffic snarls up around Stuttgart, but even with the panniers on the GT is narrow enough to filter smoothly through the traffic. Cross Germany in an afternoon? Easy.
FRENCH MOUNTAINS
From Karlsruhe, I head south and the cross the Rhine, entering France and skirting the quaint town of Haguenau. The sun is setting as I head up into the Vosges, chilly shadows stretching across the road. To warm up, I throw myself into the final few miles to my hotel. At first, this seems like a bad idea. I find myself wondering if I’m tired, or there’s something wrong with the roads? The bike that steered so accurately in Austria is a handful in France, as if it wants to run wide – until I remember to change the damping from Comfort back to Sport. Then the GT seems to wake up, turning faster and holding tighter lines again. It’s a fabulous ride to finish the day. Next morning, I’m scraping frost off the saddle before setting off. I put the heated grips on, then set engine and damping into their Street modes and set off cautiously. Well, I intend to go steady but I’m soon throwing the KTM into corners. It’s still a lot of fun but there is a subtle change of character in Street mode, rather than in Sport. The GT’S more relaxed, smoother, easier – usability is probably dialed up, but there’s less wow factor, less of a sense that only this bike could deliver this experience. I soon switch back to Sport mode. At least I remembered to put the screen up before setting off. Wind protection is improved enough to make jumping on the autoroute more pleasant, but there’s still a fair bit of noise. If only I’d remembered to fill up earlier too. Still, there’s a service station… here… and it’s closed. A sign says the next one is in 30km. Easy: the KTM’S dash says I have 50km of fuel left – but this number drops like a stone. I roll into the next services just as the range indicator hits zero. Brimming the 23-litre tank after 213 miles takes only 22.6 litres, so I had a bit in hand…
I carry on to Calais on a mix of N-roads and autoroute – some pleasant riding but mostly mile munching. At first I’m demolishing it in relative comfort, with no aches from knees, shoulders or back. Then the seat goes from firm to hard somewhere around Reims and it’s a relief to get off it when I reach the Souchez services, filling up at 190 miles without the reserve light having come on.
The worst bit of any tour is always the final run from Folkestone and I hit the M25, M11 and A14 in rush hour. It’s hell – especially as the seat is now properly uncomfortable, so it’s even more of a relief than normal to get home. Overall, the 1290 Super Duke GT did the sports touring thing well – even with the firm saddle. Next time I ride it I’ll just keep the emphasis on the sport more than the touring and use less motorway.