KTM 1290
SUPERDUKE GT
WORDSTHE BEARPHOTOSGIL SCHILLING/FACTORYI
T’S A REASONABLEenough
question, although of course it
is nobody else’s business.
“Why do you need 127 kilowatts
on a motorcycle?”
I didn’t really know the answer until
I was halfway down the Putty Road,
and then it dawned on me: you don’t.
You don’t need 127 kW or, as in my
case, 20% or so less. That discrepancy
is between Sport and Rain mode;
Stuart had set the bike to rain mode
when he handed it over to me and
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“Leave it in rain mode,” he said.
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it over backwards and many bad
things will befall you.”
“Not literally, surely?” I asked. He
did that cross-eyed look of his and
smiled. Literally, I gathered.
“So what if it rains?” I asked, a
little apprehensive by now.
“Then you’re stuffed,” he
said. “Stuffed.”
It didn’t rain, and out on the Putty,
even using the restricted power that rain
mode offers, I realised that you need
that much horsepower simply because
it is an almost insane amount of fun.
Of course it helps if it is delivered
by a motorcycle that has the pin-
sharp handling and staggering
braking of the Superduke, including
cornering ABS. I reckon you could
do tonsillectomies with this bike.
Just have the rider hit the Brembos
hard, and chop off the tonsils as
they emerge from his mouth.
“What about appendectomies?”
asked my mate Bad Bob who is,
believe it or not, a surgeon.
“No,” I said. “You’d need full
power for that.”ONTHEROAD
The reason some of us need bikes
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Because they’re there, and that insane
bodywork and exhaust note say:
“Reckon you can reach Warp Speed?
Give it a go.”
Speaking for me, myself, personally
I don’t need this kind of bike except
occasionally when I’m stuck in the
little thoughts and little concerns of
my little life – and I want to go big
for a, well, a little while. I put about
a thousand kilometres on the KTM
in a couple of days and I admit that I
took it to speeds which reinterpreted
the speed limits a little. I also swooped
around some cars, vans and trucks
like a crazed orange and silver magpie,
although I did not
peck any of them.
I even encountered
an iridescent blue
Highway Patrol car.
I was going this way,
behind a delivery van,
and I got tired of it.
So I passed him, almost
instantly acquiringa ground speed just a bit short of
escape velocity in the process. I tucked
back in and braked gently, and the
patrol car came that way. I suspect the
van was bigger in his radar than the
Superduke, because at the speed I was
still doing it would still have been well
worth his while to chuck a handbrakey
and ask me about the reasons for my
behaviour. As they do, which really
annoys me, by the way.
“Is there any reason why you were
doing (insert absurdly low excess over
speed limit) sir?”
“Yes. Because motorcycles fall over
if you go too slowly.” I only wish I
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So my conclusion about this
motorcycle is that you should go and
ride one, if you’re competent
enough. And even if you
are, leave it in rain
mode for a little
while whether it’s
raining
or not.D