KTM’s Adventure goes mainstream and joins the luxury travel brigade, with more displacement, power and features.
Tenerife, Canary Islands—KTM has a problem: It’s called the 1190 Adventure. As the Austrian company forges ahead to become a complete player with a comprehensive model range, it continues diving into the streetbike pool with Adventures, Dukes, SM-Ts and RC8s. And now, with its brand-new 2014 (in the U.S.) 1190 Adventure, KTM is making a huge, cannonball-style splash in the pool of high-performance streetbikes. Never before has the company had a bike so mainstream, so capable of going head-to-head with all of the players in the adventure-touring market. But since it’s not competing strictly for the hardcore off-road buyer, the 1190 Adventure represents a bit of a problem in that, as KTM continues to grow, some of its motocross- and off-road oriented dealers will have to step it up and come to grips with the company’s increasingly complex (albeit more balanced) model range. Continue reading “First Ride: KTM 1190 Adventure Superbike at Heart”