A ride on the KTM 990 SMT
Best season of the year to be on a bike, and other people were out enjoying it. My own KL250 had been in the shop for more than six months. Tired of waiting, I went a little out of my way to a KTM demo day.
The bike I wanted to try was the 990 Supermoto T.
KTM 990 SMT
I had never been very interested in this sort of motorcycle. I did not like the look, and after riding a Harley from Hokkaido down to Kyushu I assumed the next long trip would be on a Harley again. The Fat Boy I used to own had the then-new Twin Cam 88B. The balancer kept the vibration down, it was smooth, and it had a reasonable amount of power. For pure excitement, though, the Sportster I had before it was in another league. That 1992 Sportster leaked oil and shook, and I still wanted to go places on it. I had forgotten that feeling. I wanted it back.
A dull bike on a long ride turns the day into transport. You just sit there and suffer. I have done that often enough. If I am going to ride, I want a bike that feels good, and I want a twin.
Then I looked up what was actually for sale, and almost everything was fuel injected. I had assumed a motorcycle still meant a carburetor. That shows how long I had been away. In my head a bike is a machine, so injection never sat right. I owned a Triumph T595 for about two years. The engine had power, 130 hp, and it was missing the flavor I wanted. I can count the times I opened it fully. Full throttle made my head swim. It was fun, and it also demanded that I mean it, which got tiring on the road.
After that I tried a Triumph Bonneville, a Ducati SS1000DS, a Hayabusa, and a Buell. The Bonneville was too polite for me. The Ducati was awkward. First gear was enough on the Hayabusa. I like all of those bikes. The only one that was simply fun was the Buell, so I decided a Harley engine suited me. Then Harley-Davidsons became so common that the urge to own another one faded.
BMW was next. An uncle used to have an R100GS Paris-Dakar. I borrowed it for a loop of Aizu in Fukushima, about 300 km, two-up. I was not tired. People say a BM does not wear you out. I had not expected it to be that easy. I got home with plenty left. At the time "BMW" sounded like a bike for older men, and I kept my distance. I did not expect to get interested.
The Motorrad site had nothing I wanted. Odd bikes, and expensive. Harleys are needlessly expensive. BMWs keep up. And far too much of the maintenance can only be done at a dealer.
Looking at older models, I landed on the R100. A Ritmo Sereno custom of one stopped me. I spent days reading about flat twins, and there are a lot of well-judged customs overseas. The roads I ride now are sometimes rough, so an R100R based on the off-road R100GS became the first choice. The same family as my uncle's bike, as it happens.
Then I remembered that ride on the R100GS. It has its habits, it is comfortable, it is stable in a corner, and it did not excite me. I could not point at a single reason. Maybe I will understand it when I am older. For now, a BMW felt early.
A Ducati Monster S2R1000 was on the list too. I like a dry clutch, and the timing belts come due too often. I was not sure about the engine lasting. I passed.
So I wrote the requirements down again.
- Air-cooled twin, with carburetors
- A reasonable amount of power
- Easy two-up
- Room for some luggage
- Not constantly asking for maintenance
- Tall enough for a rough road
- Exciting to ride
Nothing matched. A Bonneville or a Scrambler might, and both felt short on power. I gave up on carburetors and still found nothing. Then I dropped "air-cooled," a word that had not even been on the list, and KTM appeared.
I knew the name from eleven Paris-Dakar wins, and I thought of them as an off-road brand. The road bikes are more interesting than that. One of them was close to the list: the 990 SMT.
It sits in the dual-purpose line that started with the Yamaha TDM, a type I had ignored, as I said at the top. I do not usually want a fairing or a tall bike. The 990 SMT has a half fairing, and it is tall.
Somehow it started to look right.
The interest grew by the day. A catalog will not tell you what a bike is like, so I looked for a demo. There was a KTM ride day not far away. I went.
I got on the 990 SMT. I had ridden horses a few times the year before, and the feeling was close. It is a horse-like motorcycle.
The seating, the position, even the curves of the bike are a bit horse-like. Not the way a Harley is. This was a twin I had not felt before, and it was comfortable. Open the throttle and it kicks the ground and goes. The demo was in a parking lot, so the turns were tight and I had to be careful with the weight. I was excited anyway. I may have been wrong about new motorcycles.
I also liked that it does not carry extra functions and extra parts. I like simple things, which is why I like air-cooled bikes and bikes without fairings. On this one, those conditions stopped mattering.
The line is Ready to Race, and it still has suspension for the different jobs of a long trip, a strong engine, a light chassis, and durability. A lot of what I wanted, met at a high level. I was not really in control of it on the demo. I still had the feeling this was a bike I could keep.
990 Super Duke R
I also rode the 990 Super Duke R. Much more compact and lighter than the SMT, and easy in the tight turns. It feels like a middleweight when you sit on it. The engine does not. A larger space would have told me more about both.
125 Duke
On a course that small, the 125 Duke was the most fun. It had an Akrapovic, and it sounded like it.
KTM, which I was touching for the first time, is doing good work. New cars and new bikes have not had much to offer. This felt like the first good one in a long while. I want to travel Japan on an SMT. It woke up an interest in motorcycles I had forgotten.
I do not have the money to buy one. I will save.