ON THE ROAD
A
fter Jock got his rocks off fanging
around Woodhill playing at being
Toby Price, I gave the 790R a Sunday
ride test on a mix of gravel, twisty tar seal
and motorway to get a feel for its every day
ability. I’ll preface what I’m going to say with
what KTM says about the 790 R – which is
that it’s a seriously dirt capable, extreme
adventure machine. If you want a bike for
some gravel adventures and light off-roading
then the non-R 790 Adventure is the bike for
you.
So, I rode from Auckland down to Raglan
for a spot of breakfast and back. My first
impression riding away in the rain was that
the throttle is pretty instant in terms of
power delivery in Rally mode. The second
was that the standard tyres are quite prone
to spinning up when the instant power is
applied. The TC cuts in quite late, which
means there’s actually quite a lot of latitude
to play around with grip and throttle levels.
Taking it out of Rally mode into Road mode
made a big difference and made far more
rideable in the wet. There’s that much
change. Sometimes changing modes on
bikes doesn’t really make a lot of discernable
change, but on the KTM each mode is very
different to the other.
Although Jock said earlier that the tyres are
road-oriented, they’re not really. They’re
108 KIWI RIDER
heavily adventure-oriented, but certainly not
full-on dirt tyres, and as such don’t make a
great road tyre where they drone loudly at
highway speeds because of the big tread
blocks.
Anyway, this bike really isn’t about big
kilometres on the road. Where it starts to
shine is in the really twisty bits, the sort of
thing that a supermoto excels at. And that’s
kinda what this bike feels like – you’re sat up
high with a commanding view of the road
behind a pair of wide bars. It’s an attack-
mode riding position. Blat between corners,
haul it up, blat out of it to the next corner.
Ride it like that and it’s a hoot. Try to ride it
more like a road bike and there’s a distinct
weight to the bars when flicking from side
to side at speed because of the 21-inch
front hoop.
This is a bike which can ‘do’ road but
that’s not what it’s for. If you’re after an all-
adventure machine that can get as extreme
as you can, then this is what to look at. Kiwi
international Chris Birch has just taken an
Adventure R to fourth overall in Hellas Rally
Raid in Greece, which just goes to show how
capable this bike is in the right hands. We’ll
be testing the less extreme 790 Adventure
soon if you’re after something which is
more of an all-rounder. BEN WILKINS