When KTM debuted its 890cc ADV lineup – with the KTM 890 Adventure R and KTM Adventure R Rally – the Austrian manufacturer left out one key detail about the bikes: their price.
Luckily, our Bothan spies are always hard at work, and they have passed along to us the pricing information for the American market. As such, we have some good news for you.
The upside to no motorcycle shows is that a new motorcycle model can debut at a moment’s notice. Such is the case with the 2021 KTM 890 Adventure R, which just dropped on the internets.
As the name suggests, KTM has taken the very competent 790 Adventure R, and dialed things up a notch by 90cc. As if that wasn’t enough, there is a KTM 890 Adventure R Rally for 700 lucky owners worldwide (200 in the USA).
Ducati is onto its second of four teasers about the upcoming Multistrada V4 model, and today we learn the theorem that “the power is smooth and thrilling on demand.”
That isn’t too much of a reveal, but reports from Italy are saying that the follow-up to that release is that the Ducati Multistrada V4 will make 170hp when it debuts, which is a bit of news.
The first time we saw the Aprilia Tuareg 660, it was in a glass box at EICMA, surrounded and covered by plants that obscured our view.
But, with the dirt-focused adventure bike getting closer to reality, we were bound to get a better glimpse before its debut. That brings us to today.
Caught for the first time on the open road, this photo posted to the Aprilia RS660 Facebook group (and then removed) shows the mid-sized adventure bike in its pre-production form.
If you are looking for a pint-sized adventure-bike, and the BMW G310GS doesn’t slick your hair back, then the KTM 390 Adventure is surely something you have been following.
If that is the case, then you have been following the development of this bike for quite some time, with it taking the Austrian brand just over 6 years to get this bike to market.
But, the KTM 390 Adventure is finally ready for delivery, and in May 2020 it will land at American dealerships, with a price tag of $6,199 MSRP.
A constant theme you will hear in the ADV space is how you can’t do real off-road riding with a big dual-sport, like the Ducati Multistrada 1260 Enduro and its siblings in the category.
They are too big, too heavy, and have too much power to be real off-road machines, some will tell you. Of course, to say that, you have to forget some history – namely that iconic off-road races like the Dakar Rally were competed on machines that aren’t all that different from today’s ADV bike.
It looks like we are resurrecting a rumor from five years ago, as once again there is talk of a midsized adventure bike from Honda in the pipes.
It remains to be seen if this new model will take over the “Transalp” moniker (Honda canceled its Transalp trademark in 2016 for the USA, after reviving it in 2013), but right now the rumors from Europe are suggesting an 850cc twin-cylinder ADV bike is coming from Big Red.
Whether the rumor is true remains to be seen, but there is plenty of ammo to see a so-called Honda CRF850L hitting the market.
It would seem that Triumph Motorcycles didn’t quite show us everything at the EICMA show in Milan (which is a good thing, since the British brand didn’t have much of note on display in Italy), as we are gearing up for the release of a “new” Triumph Tiger 900 in a few days’ time.
The news comes from Triumph itself, which is teasing the Tiger 900 on YouTube, and the rumormill is suggesting that the increase in displacement also brings a number of improved features to this popular middleweight ADV machine.
Continuing their glacially slow trickling of information, Harley-Davidson has sprinkled a couple more details to us about its upcoming Pan America motorcycle.
Expected now in late-2020, the Harley-Davidson is an American v-twin adventure-tourer, which the Bar & Shield brand hopes will attract new blood into its cult of two wheels.
At the core the machine, is a 60° liquid-cooled v-twin engine, which Harley-Davidson is giving some specs about at EICMA.
It has taken a long time to wrangle this bike into existence, but the KTM 390 Adventure is officially a thing now and coming in 2020.
I could look back through the pages of Asphalt & Rubber, and see when we first started talking about this small-sized ADV bike, but it would be downright depressing for the Austrian brand. It has been…a while in the making, let’s just say that.
The good news though is that the KTM 390 Adventure arrives with an exclamation point, and it is certain to dominate in markets where the 373cc engine is considered quite large and peppy. It should be fun in the western markets too.