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KTM 990 Adventure S

Since 2003 KTM has had a big Adventure Enduro on offer. This year KTM has treated Adventure fans with the latest 999cc engine from 990 Superduke. We attended the world launch at the far away Island of Fuerteventura on the west coast of North Africa. If you look the Canary Islands up on a map you will see that the Islands are parallel with the greatest desert in the world, Sahara. KTM had a great adventure awaiting the lucky journalists that had made the journey from all over the world.
KTM’s 950 Adventure has not been as big a sales success as BMW’s R1200 GS. KTM has gone from being a small niche producing manufacturer that produced 8.000 units in 1992 to last years 80.000 units. This makes KTM Europe’s second largest manufacturer of big motorcycles after BMW. To try and change the situation KTM launched both 990 Adventure with ABS and 990 Adventure S Dakar on a perfect location both for on and off-road riding. On the programme were twisty mountain passes, motorway, miles of gravelled roads and a beach challenge. Could the new 990 Adventure ABS handle it?

The riding started with some fast and twisty motorway miles. The local police was looking closely so I waited until I was off the main roads before exploring the new engine fully.

The new ABS system from Bosch/Brembo can be switched on and off and I choose to start without ABS to be able to compare.
I cruised on the motorway first to get a feel with the new engine. After all, it is the engine and ABS brakes that are the most important news on this model. From standstill the new fuel injected engine accelerates smoothly into the max torque area between 5.000 rpm to 7.000 rpm. Max torque is 95Nm at 6.500 rpm. The midrange is beefy, as a matter of fact beefier than 990 Superduke up to 7.000 rpm.

The max power figure remains the same as the old 950, but the torque is increased over the whole range for more usable power. This is exactly what you need on a model like the 990 Adventure. In the mountain passes I put the engine through its paces and the fuel injected engine responds beautifully from 4.000 rpm followed by the flexible midrange that allows you to float on and off the throttle in a higher gear rather than shifting down and braking hard before each bend. When slow speed control is necessary I found the throttle to be too light. Small bumps in the road upset the right hand enough to slide off and on the throttle with a jerky injection response as the result.
When really going for it I started exploring the double 300mm front discs with 2-pot Brembo’s.


For full effect they need to be applied with some force. Turn on the ABS and there is one element less to think of and depending on your skills they can make you go faster by allowing some more confident deceleration. The 990 Adventure weighs in at a couple of kilos more than the 990 Adventure S Dakar due to the ABS system. However, they both weigh more than 200 kg fully tanked up so ABS is not such a bad idea.
I actually preferred to keep the ABS on most of the time. Change your riding style a bit and have fun with ABS off-road too. The Bosch/Brembo system is not linked so there is still some rider input.


Funnily enough, suddenly the gravelled roads could be handled in the same way as the hard tarmac - Hard on the gas out of the bends and brake at the last possible moment into the turns. If you are old fashioned you can just stop, push the ABS button until it starts blinking and ABS is deactivated - go slide it into the turns.
For such a big bike I was surprised how well it tackled the off-road riding. Particularly with the road biased tyres in mind. The foot pegs features rubber damping for comfortable riding with road boots. I rode with my offroad boots and virtually no vibration came through.


Both 990’s are very comfortable standing up riding off-road and it is evident KTM develops bikes between Paris-Dakar.

Many other travel enduros are quite heavy and softly sprung that makes them handle like wobbly whales next to a sports tourer. Not the 990 Adventure. Suspension is neither too soft nor too hard and the seat height is a bearable 860mm. You are still sitting high enough for good overview in traffic whilst you can easily put a foot down at the traffic lights. Whether you can put both feet down depends on how tall you are.
On the twisty roads on this Spanish island the tarmac was perfect and very grippy. With my offroad helmet the tall awkward looking Dakar style fairing protected well against the wind. I just had to point my helmet slightly forward to avoid turbulence. With a full face helmet the situation should be even better.
When talking wind and speed it is worth mentioning that the new 98 hp engine stays at the same output as before, but it now conforms to Euro 3. Those daft Germans are mainly responsible for the engine staying below 100 hp. KTM could easily have put 110 or 120 hp in this bike.


If they had done so, the 990 Adventure could have been a serious alternative to more sports orientated tourers. Seriously, because it can already do more than 120 mph and handles really well on-road due to top spec WP suspension and sturdy tubular space frame. It might put you off for its peculiar rally bike design, but that never stopped BMW owners. The seat is comfortable, pillion seat is spacious and KTM’s hard luggage option allows the missus to bring more than one pair of shoes when touring. 22 litre divided petrol tank (for stable cornering) and good wind protection also allows you to tour in comfort.

To cash in on KTM’s huge Dakar effort the 990 Adventure S Dakar features the glorious Dakar Bedouin logo on the sides.

Blue and orange means sport in the Adventure language. Differences from the standard 990 Adventure is higher seat, better ground clearance, 35mm more wheel travel on both wheels, one extra overdrive gear and no ABS. All for the sake of a more serious high speed gravel racer. That sixth gear might help on really long journeys too. The lofty 895mm seat height is almost at serious enduro level. The wheel travel is an enduro’ish 245mm and someone mentioned they thought the 990 S was just as good as BMW’s HP2 Enduro.

I disagree and I rode the HP2 only one week ago. The 990 Adventure S Dakar is a big bike that allows some serious speed on gravelled roads, but not quite at HP2 level. We will have to wait for the 950 Super enduro for KTM’s answer to the HP2.

KTM turned me into a beach bum whilst waiting for my turn on the 990 Adventure S Dakar at a Fuerteventura beach. This beach is no ordinary beach. It is the resting place for an old glorious ship. The 1940 built American Star grounded here after breaking in two after a grade 11 storm in 1994.


She was among other things used as troop carrier during Second World War. What better backdrop for KTM’s launch of another adventurer. This 990 S Dakar was fitted with knobbly tyres from Continental so that no one would have to drown in the heavy currents.

I had been riding back and forth in front of the American Star several times now and went deep. Shit!- I could feel the currents dragging the bike out towards the sea and pointed the front wheel towards land and made use of all 98 ponies to drag me out of the current. I was soaked in salt water and stopped in deep sand to clear my goggles.

Then I got stuck in the blackened sand and had to wriggle the rear wheel out and lift the rear out of the ditch. How much more fun can you have? Riding 80 mph on a Canary Island beach is pretty much as fun as it gets on an Adventure bike. Back on the mountain roads the S handles like something much faster. The only problem is that when you lean this bike all the way over on narrow roads you are covering the whole road due to the height and if you meet something else, like another 990 Adventure, as I did several times, both riders has to straighten the bikes to avoid head butting the other mid-turn. Now that would have been something for the photographers…

Conclusion

In the 990 Adventure you get the option to use ABS which can only be a benefit on a big heavy tourer. If preferred the ABS can be turned off, but each time you start the engine ABS automatically activates.

It has to be deactivated each time if you prefer to ride without. KTM has done a great job on these two bikes both in the engine and handling department. The new Keihin fuel injection works smoothly, but the throttle wheel is too light causing disturbances to the gas control. Choose the 990 Adventure with ABS for many safe miles with pillion and luggage. The 990 Adventure S Dakar suits the rider that is more serious about off-road riding and globetrotting to very remote places.

Source Top Speed