KTM 950 Adventure

I knew I was in for something groovy when I noticed the Pirelli tyres on this spaceship were speed rated for 200km/h. The idea that the KTM might be unlike anything else I'd ridden was rammed home again when I hit the first gravel road. "Bugger me. This bastard's spinning the back wheel in fourth gear!" I don't know exactly what the top speed might be but experience suggests it's somewhere around 190km/h, so no, this is not your average trail bike.

But that begs the question, what exactly is it?

The closest thing I've come to the KTM 950 was the Honda Transalp or, more to the point, Cagiva's very nice Navigator. Both use V-twin engines and both were supposed to be dual-purpose machines that could handle light off-road duties. The truth of it is that both those motorcycles were designed for very light off-road duties. By the time I got my hands on the Cagiva in January 2001, it had already lost its dual purpose tyres in favour of full-on roadies and had pretty much dumped any pretence of being a dual-purpose motorcycle. As for the Honda, it remains what it always was; a bike that'll cop rough roads, but not off-road.

The point I'm trying to make is that the 950 Adventure is not a new concept. It owes quite a bit to bikes like the Transalp and the Navigator, but KTM has taken the concept one step further by giving the 950 fair dinkum long travel suspension and an off-road ability that easily exceeds what the Cagiva or the Honda are capable of. What we have here is a hybrid, or to use current marketing jargon, a 'cross-over vehicle', analogous to cars like the Holden Crewman four-door ute and the Subaru Forester 4x4 sports wagon, vehicles that can do far more than the average family sedan while retaining their practicality. Flexibility is the current catch-phrase. Drivers want it. Riders want it. That's why this KTM has a muscle engine, a high degree of comfort, attractive instrumentation, a nice fairing, long travel suspension, funky-chunky good looks... and tyres rated for 200km/h.

ON THE BACK ROADS
Okay, so now we've solved the identity crisis, what's this thing all about?

There are two models, the silver 950 Adventure and the orange 950 S-model Adventure. The S-model is taller and has more suspension travel. We got the silver Adventure. My first impression was how compact the bike is, with fluid bodywork expressed, like Pete Garret's head, in smooth panels where nothing sticks out. The bike looks tall but has a seat height of only 880mm, so most of us can pull up and put one boot flat on the ground while we're waiting at a set of lights to smoke the opposition (and you will smoke it.) The KTM has a claimed dry weight of 206kg, so by the time you've fuelled up and climbed aboard, the all-up weight is closer to 300kg. But because it carries the fuel low in the chassis, the centre-of-gravity isn't compromised and the bike is very stable and easy to manage, even at low speeds in slow traffic. At high speeds the straight-line stability is brilliant, helped no doubt by chassis geometry that talks to the road through road-biased tyres, and a suspension package that soaks up everything, no matter how hard you clout it. Thou shalt not deflect! Damn right.

The fork is the same 48mm USD WP used on KTM's motocross bikes and, of course, the shock is a no-linkage WP. Both have compression, rebound and spring pre-load adjustment so there's nothing about the suspension on this jet you can't change if you don't like what the bike is doing. KTM's workshop manual suggests midway settings on most adjustments and for most of us, these are damn near perfect. Our evaluation included several lumpy trails, the sort of thing most of us would ride on a Sunday arvo. On these, I ended up dialling in two more clicks of compression and rebound damping at both ends, but on gravel and bitumen, I followed KTM's recommendations and they were spot-on. The suspension is so good you can actually aim the bugger at a series of Baghdad bomb craters on a dirt road and know you won't go bug-eyed on impact. There are times when more weight is an advantage. This is one. What a blast!

Can you trail ride the big girl? Well yeah, within reason. The bike has all the ground clearance (281mm) you'll ever need, and plenty of wheel travel to handle trails, but the first thing that will make you think twice before sliding off-road though is whether or not you can pick up a bike that weighs 200kg if you dump it. The second thing is the tyres. The KTM wears Behr rims, an enormous Pirelli 150/70-18 tyre on the rear and a 90/90-21 incher on the front. These are not dual-purpose tyres, they're road tyres that can handle a bit of dirt, and although they're brilliant on bitumen, naturally, and pretty good at hooking up on gravel, they're no use whatsoever in mud, or red clay when God drizzles on it. The road tread that gives terrific directional stability on bitumen clogs instantly in these conditions, reducing forward motion to a few centimetres an hour, if you're lucky. If you hit anything wet you'll slide across it - 200kg going in the wrong direction. Yikes! Message to God: don't drizzle where I'm goin'.

Michelin makes a hard-carcass, desert-spec knobby for the rear end so if you're planning real off-road action, get one. You can also get an off-road tyre for the front, but because of clearance restrictions, you'll have to replace the standard front-guard with a high-mount version.

IS THE ENGINE ANY GOOD?
The 942cc LC8 V-twin is geared high for Australian conditions but even so, it's a rocket, especially on dirt roads where most of us are unfamiliar with such terminal velocities. Even with high gearing, the bike has tractable power at low revs when you're trail riding, so I guess that shows what's possible if you set it up properly with lower gearing and knobby tyres. On bitumen, it has the measure of many road bikes, and with lower gearing you can make that all road bikes. This thing's a holeshot missile.

The engine produces plenty of power, not doubt about that, but it's not a scary bike and the power comes on in a very predictable, progressive fashion. Fuel is delivered through a Keihin carb, not injection. When KTM was designing this engine, it believed carburetion would produce more accurate fuel metering on a bike like this, and would be easier to fix if something went 'klunk' in the middle of nowhere; a wise move since Australia has a lot of nowhere. While we're on the subject of fuel, there's an electrical connection under the seat which, when disconnected, retards the ignition timing and enables the V-twin to run unleaded fuel with an octane rating as low as 80. KTM actually recommends that the Adventure be ridden with the switch disconnected.

Other features we liked about this bike were the stylish instruments; a three-stage digital trip meter we could actually use; the fabulous front brake; the lovely exhaust burble on over-run; that you can unlock the seat retaining mechanism with the ignition key; the light clutch; and a brilliant gearbox that shifts effortlessly, and in which neutral engages first-time-every-time from either first or second gear.

The KTM's 17-42 gearing certainly favours the top end of the speed range. There's no point engaging sixth at anything below 90km/h, or fifth below 80km/h; all you'll get is over-fuelling and a lot of mechanical clatter. Tooling around town at the legal speed limit of 60km/h means nothing higher than fourth-gear, or even third. Theoretically, you could run around town all day and never use the bottom half of the box.

There's some vibration, but nothing to whinge about. The footpegs have rubber inserts to reduce vibration, but if your boots are muddy they slip off the rubber inserts, a very weird sensation. Any overtaking manoeuvre is safe on this bike, because you don't have to hang around waiting for revs to build, and the thing will sit on any speed you care to screw down.

Our fuel consumption over a variety of terrain including trails, freeways, back roads, and farting about for the photo spread, was 14.4km/l, or in the old money, 40.8mpg. I reckon that's pretty good for a bike that wasn't run-in, was ridden with enthusiasm, and weighs more than 200kg. From the 22-litre tank you could expect to travel about 300 kays before refuelling; about the same distance you'd get from a Husky TE610, but at higher speeds.

That we've criticised this bike for not being a mud bus shows what KTM was thinking when it came up with the 950. What Australians will do with the bike is unimportant in the overall scheme of things because most 950s will be sold to Europeans and Americans. The biggest market for this type of bike is Germany, believe it or not. There the long haul boys enjoy the pose value of a bike like this, and when they actually go somewhere, prefer a big boofy bike with plenty of power, ample ground clearance and long travel suspension. Those alps can get pretty lumpy.

For Australians, I reckon the KTM is everything they hoped it'd be, and in a corporate sense, reflects much of what KTM has achieved over the past 10-years. I remember when KTMs were distributed by Bert Flood Imports and only a handful of hard core riders knew what a KTM was. Now the entire dirt riding population knows, and half that population wants one.

Matter of fact, I know a few long haul Aussie boys who wouldn't mind this one.

WHAT BAZZ LIKED:

WHAT BAZZ DIDN'T LIKE:

TRANSMISSION:
Type: Six speed;
Final drive: Chain;
Gearing: 17-42.

CHASSIS AND RUNNING GEAR:
Frame: Tubular steel space frame;
Front suspension: WP 48mm USD fork;
Adjustment: Comp, rebound, spring pre-load;
Rear suspension: WP no-linkage shock;
Adjustment: Comp, rebound, spring pre-load.;
Front brake: Brembo twin-piston caliper and 300mm rotor;
Rear brake: Brembo single-piston caliper and 240mm toror.

DIMENSIONS AND CAPACITIES:
Claimed dry weight: 206kg;
Seat height: 880mm;
Fuel capacity: 22-litres (inc reserve).

OTHER STUFF:
Test bike supplied by: KTM Australia
Colour: Silver or orange;
RRP: $20,350 plus POR. (S-model, $20,499 plus POR).