Anoyone on here ride a KTM?

[Jayy]

What they like on reliability?

Been riding my brothers SX 125 supermoto and I love riding it. It's such a fun bike to ride compared to my ninja.

I was toying with the idea of getting on for winter but couldn't sell my bike as it was wrong time of the year but not I'm seriously considering a KTM Duke 600 / 625 / 690.

My mechanic said KTM parts are expensive though? The sound of them is something that draws me to toward it as well.

In the 10 months I've owned the ninja, never had a problem with it, just don't want to consider an un-reliable bike if that's the case with them?

[MaybeGuy]

i had a ktm 400 for a few months. shit on anything other than off road and around town.
topped out at about 70-80mph but got there in an instant. any fucking mug can wheelie one, and theyre really easy to balance.

dont buy one in bristol then ride it to plymouth. they're not long distance friendly.
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Blue_SV650S wrote: it was a sh1te wheelie, but it proves that he can get it up in 3rd and can do angles. In summery, mattsprattuk is a gobby little sh1tebag, dopehead tw4t, but sadly for all of us, he probably isn't THAT full of sh1te!!
Kickstart wrote: Hi I tend to agree with Matt. All the best Keith

[Jayy]

What's the problem long distance? Not that it would be a problem for me as I only use the bike for caining around locally, never really gone that far on it.

I just think it would be far more fun than buying a litre bike like I was going to.

[Seb]

The seats are not particularly comfortable, I did ~20 miles on a kmx yesterday and I was starting to feel it towards the end.
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2010 Triumph 1050 Sprint ST

[G]

[MaybeGuy]

anything above 20 miles or so combined with cold weather will give you 'ktm dick'... You dont want to stop for a piss while suffering from that in case someone sees.

You sit on your gooch rather than your buttocks.
Think pushbike seat as opposed to bar stool
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Blue_SV650S wrote: it was a sh1te wheelie, but it proves that he can get it up in 3rd and can do angles. In summery, mattsprattuk is a gobby little sh1tebag, dopehead tw4t, but sadly for all of us, he probably isn't THAT full of sh1te!!
Kickstart wrote: Hi I tend to agree with Matt. All the best Keith

[Jayy]

To be honest, the speeds I've been clocking recently on normal roads have been stupid and dangerous. I can't help it though, if the power is there, you want to use it, well I do anyway. I think getting something like a duke would be more fun and slightly less dangerous than getting an r1 instead?

Really need to decide what I wanna do, got till the end of the month before I get rid of mine. Deffo going to try and blag a test ride on an r1 and a ktm and see what I think.

So the KTM ride is nothing like the SX? Obviously the KTM is much heaver as you said G but it's not a smiliar kind of ride like the flickability of them? What kind of max speed you looking at?

[G]

I don't find my GSXR particularly 'fun' to ride in a going out for a ride sense - I like using the power I have and that'd mean getting to near the top speed of my 690 in first gear. It does everything you'd want to competently and easily - if you want to get from A to B with minimum fuss and any speed you could reasonably want, it'll do the job very well. However it's this being 'too good' that means it's not much fun for me.

Note that the 690 is supposed to be considerably smoother than the older LC4s. I haven't had any decent experience of them to compare - but had ruled them out for a long term bike on this basis.
Further, different seats do make a decent difference - plenty of people have gone very long distances on LC4 bikes and not suffered anything like matt has.

Stick wide bars on any bike and it'll feel much quicker steering generally. Modify the geomtry a bit and you've got not far from that feeling the Duke will have.
In my experience the 'road' biased bikes like the LC4 offer a significantly different feel from competition based bikes like the SX you've got (which is one of the lightest full size bikes it's possible to buy - a GP 125 is about the only way you'll get lighter with a 125cc engine! - and they are pretty diddy actually).
Max speed is around 107mph on the newer 690 models, don't know about previous ones.

I would still be tempted to sway towards the 690SMC rather than the duke if you're looking at the newer bikes. It's lighter and a bit more of a supermoto than the duke's 'road bike' bias.

[Irezumi aka Reuben]

The older LC4 engined bikes vibrate. A lot. When you first get on at idle it is hard to see as it blurs your vision (seriously).

Theyre uncomfortable, the power isnt very friendly (kicks in hard and needs at least 1800rpm to go anywhere & redlines at about 9000 I think). Theyre good for pissing about on, longer rides are agony though. Hards seat, no protection whatsoever, frequent fuel stops (60 miles to a tank isnt uncommon).

Great fun though.

Having ridden litres bikes, theyre extremely droll and boring. You will go just as fast in most places on a 600 as a thousand, but the peakier engine makes it more interesting.

I'd suggest trying both & then getting a newer 600.

[hmmmnz]

i had a 400sx which was just a stupid bike to own,
it was fast for a dirt bike, far faster pick up than my 500 rotax based single, but it only had 4 gears so ran out of steam pretty quickly,
parts were very easy to find here in nz, over here they are probably the most popular dirt bikes so the parts back up is there,

i rode the lc4 for a week, and i found it great, not top end fast, but more than enough to do what needs to be done

because it has less power than any il4 you tended to thrash it a whole lot more. not a bad thing to be doing thrashing = fun

id only buy the ktm, if i had a another bike for long trips and touring as well
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the humans are dead
I kick arse for the lord
Wiring Diagrams BIDNIP it bitches

[Jayy]

I was at the lights in the village today and one of them filtered up next to me, it sounded awesome with akros on it whilst idling and even better when he shot off. Speaking to a mate who races bikes, (he's got an aprilia rrv450, beautiful machine) and said he sold his litre bike shortly after buying it because there's way too much power for the roads. I know that doesn't apply to everyone and some on here used litres as daily hacks, just personal preference but considering I'm relatively new to big bikes (july 2009) I think I should stay in the 600 class for a bit longer.

[G]

[Jayy]

Ha, that's the thing G, I don't want to be riding faster! I've been pulled over 4 times in the past 6 weeks and my bikes marked around here, all them CSO's have got it in for me as well. Although I'm going to attract more attention on a loud KTM, at least I'm not hammering about at silly speeds all the time like I do on the ninja.

[G]

A newer 600s probably not for you then as they do seem to do it all that bit more easily with less drama. This is part of the 'litre bike' effect I was describing - the bikes are so capable that for the sort of speeds you might ride on the road, it requires even less effort to get to them.

[Jayy]

Someone said 60mpg on them? I think I'm going to go with one and see how I get on, if I don't like it, i'll just sell it and get something else.

[G]

A quick calculation shows my 690 doing around 45mpg which is better than I thought actually! However I usually only think about it when I've been sitting at speed on motorways, often with big panniers etc.

[G]

Saw this and thought of you! Seems to be a very reasonable price: https://www.ktmforum.co.uk/showthread.php?50993-2008-Duke-3-Orange

(Haven't checked location etc.)

[MarJay]

[J D]

I test rode one of those good fun little bike but it was my first time on a single so i hated it

Love them now though.
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m0l0t0v wrote: Chris, just so you know, JD is a nutter

[Jayy]

Nice one G but slightly out of my price range now due to this speeding bollocks and paying a solicitor

Still on the look out but something around £3,000 mark now.

[thewildblue]

Had a Duke 2 640. Used to do a 50 mile each way commute on it every now and again.

Ragging the arse off it would net low 50s and going steady would net high 50s on fuel.

You had no weather protection when it rained. Your hands went numb after about 35 miles due to the vibration. Mine drank more oil per thousand miles than my RX8 and that was meant to drink the oil. The oil was expensive as well.

The bike itself was superb fun, I found myself wheelying at every given opportunity....slight hump in the road and it was clutch it up, problem was you ended up doing it in 30s as well. So it wasnt that good for your license in that respect. Whats worse wheelies or getting clocked over the ton...both positively slaughter the kittens.

I found mine ran out of steam at about an indicated 95ish but would pull off the clock(105 IIRC)

I found the single disc just about adequate when riding single but throw on a pillion and it was sorely lacking.

Suspension was great though as was the handling.

Mine got part exed for my 10R as I just didnt use the bike enough on the trips I did. Would be great to have now though as my commute has changed.

[G]

The vibration is much better in the 690 models with fancy balancer stuff - shouldn't drink oil either and brakes are probably a bit better.

[thewildblue]

The new ones look alot nicer as well, but for a 4th bike (that I'm not allowed) are far to out of budget.