riding, getting your foot to it puts your leg back in that heat-flow. But these are fairly small niggles. Overall, the bike has good brakes and suspension and is comfortable for longer runs. In my view it’ s an excellent bike, accomplished, polished, and capable.
THE SKINNY Yes, it’ s very good, but is it great? It very well could be. The second day of my test found me blazing around gravel roads, and here the 800MT-X simply excels. From the dash I could select offroad, on the fly, haul in the clutch and we are away. Throttle response is smoothed out, and at first I thought they’ d gone too far, but lots of hideous corrugations later, plus some gnarly rocky gravel corners, and I’ m convinced. With good unflappable motive power to the 18-inch rear wheel, the bike keeps form and stability to rival anything out there. In fast braking, on the same surfaces, excellent feedback into both front lever and gear pedal saw the ABS also performing excellently. These lead to confidence in the rider, and a day on gravel would have you pretty enamoured, in my opinion. I had little time to spend off-road proper, but cruised over humps and knolls, pulled tight turns standing on the pegs, and I came away impressed. So overall, I’ d say 8.1 out of ten on road, and 9.2 out of ten offroad. Praise. The questions on everyone’ s lips are, will it hold value, and will it withstand NZ’ s tough conditions
and hold up without issues like those that KTM is dealing with? Time will tell. In the meantime, its exceptional value for money, highly capable, and attractive. Win, win, win.
KIWI RIDER 39