Le vainqueur a posté ses impressions sur AdvRider.
https://advrider.com/f/threads/ktm-ultimate-race-merzouga-rally-790r-review.1380214/
While I have spent some time on pavement, the vast majority of my
experience with the 790 is off road. I did not try to carry any luggage
beyond tools and spares.
Many motorcycle manufacturers profess to build a do-it-all, off-road
capable adventure bike. Some of them are little more than gussied-up
street bikes with marginally more travel, smaller tread blocks, and a
more upright seating position. Others go a step or two further with a
21” front wheel, reasonably good travel, and good ground clearance
numbers backed up with ergonomics conducive to standing. The BMW F800GS,
KTM 1X90 series, and Africa Twin all fall into this category of bikes
that can go some crazy places off road with the right rider. Only a few
bikes have ever existed in the dirt-focused twin cylinder space, notably
the BMW HP2, the KTM 950 Super Enduro, and the Aprilia RXV550. The
progression of legislation means that we are unlikely to see the likes
of these hero bikes from the factory in the near future.
These are all great bikes for different purposes, but the experience on
most dirt-oriented big bikes tends to fall apart when you really start
pushing harder and trying to add some pace to the equation. With some
work, especially in the springing and valving departments, it is
typically possible to remedy that, but it is not cheap and you still
have a bike that takes a lot of muscling around in some terrain. I put
my beloved 950 Adventure in this category as well.
KTM was pretty brave in giving 12 unknown riders brand new 790Rs to race
in a major rally event. That speaks volumes to the confidence that they
have in this bike, and their determination to set it apart from the
other bikes on the market. Contrary to what a few places have reported,
the 790R Ultimate Race bikes were largely stock machines. The suspension
was stock (not cone valve as reported in a few places), as was the
engine, mapping, air intake, and nearly everything else that I've been
asked about.
Key modifications were limited to what was needed for the competition.
Michelin Desert Race tires with mousses were mounted to the narrower
Power Parts wheel set. Tall Power Parts seats were installed on all of
the bikes, as the stock seat with the bump is not as well suited to
aggressive off road use. All of the bikes had the aftermarket Akrapovic
muffler. The street grips were removed in favor of foam rally grips, and
the stock steering damper was replaced with an aftermarket Scotts piece
as required by the ASO. Longer KTM Rally pegs were installed as well,
and of course the bikes had a powered roadbook holder mounted to the
bars and a Stella rally computer mounted to the tower above the factory
display. The sidestand switch, ABS, and traction control were also
disabled for competition, though we did get a chance to test the rider
aids before competition started.
Point being, these weren’t custom race bikes made to look like 790s in the interest of marketing. They were largely stock.
Weight:
On a cheap bathroom scale, the 790 weighed 224 lbs. on the front tire
and 237 on the rear with no luggage and a full tank of fuel. Compare
that with my 950, which has had quite a bit of light-weighting done to
it: 241 lbs. front and 248 lbs. rear with only a gallon and a half or so
of fuel in it. The 790 also carries its weight much lower than the 950
and doesn’t have that slightly top-heavy feel. It’s initially almost
disconcerting because it feels light/low, but still has all the inertia
that goes along with the weight. As with most bikes, it feels lighter as
speeds go up, the weight only making itself known in really big hits or
when traction is lost. It is the lightest bike in its class, and only
10-20 lbs heavier than a well-set-up 950 Super Enduro.
Engine/Clutch/Transmission:
The 790 twin impressed me. For those of you looking for comparisons to
some of the other bikes on the market, the Africa Twin engine feels
capable but is not exciting and has a much more pedestrian power band.
The AT resists stalling better, and is smoother due to high inertia. The
F800GS has a much weaker bottom end, an overall much less enthusiastic
feel, and is only happy in very narrow rpm range. The F800GS also
vibrates much more than the 790. I’ve always been of the opinion that
the engine is the biggest letdown of the F800GS to the point where it
would keep me from buying one. The LC8 (carbureted, at least) has a lot
more go at the bottom end and tolerates laziness better, but the 790
revs out better at the top. The LC8 is also a much noisier engine than
the 790.
Fuel injection on the 790 works well, but you can tell KTM had to make
concessions to keep it in the emissions box in a few areas. At low revs,
it feels ‘sharp’ in the sense that it is on the lean side, which is
probably the chugging feeling that a few others have commented on. As
with many new bikes, this one is ride by wire, and you can feel the
throttle smoothing at times. It almost feels like a slight delay in
throttle response and it is only particularly noticeable when using the
clutch in more trialsy-type technical terrain. Switching from the Rally
throttle mode to Street makes it feel a bit more natural, making me
think that the aggressive mapping in Rally mode might drive throttle
plate speeds beyond what the throttle plate motors are capable of.
Modern torque-request throttle mapping always feels a little unnatural
to me compared with cable throttles though, so it’s quite possible that
other riders will not notice this at all.
Riding higher in the rev range and using more power, the engine feels
fantastic. The 790 engine feels like a rally bike engine in the sense
that it is low inertia and likes a bit more revs. It feels very happy
being ridden hard, and pulls strong and smooth up to the limiter. It’s
almost electric in its power delivery, a feeling reinforced by the
nearly silent exhaust. One person riding with me likened it to an angry
sewing machine. It’s got some slight rattliness to it, but you only
notice it because the rest of the experience is so quiet. Even the
PowerParts Akra exhaust is very quiet, though it does sound good. I
would like a little more sound out of it so that, at higher speeds, I
could hear the engine over the wind and terrain instead of looking down
at the tach.
Fuel consumption seems very good, with range close to 200 miles before reserve. I didn’t have much of a way to test this.
Transmission ratios felt slightly tighter than the LC8 adventures, but
also didn’t seem to matter quite as much because the 790 is happier at
higher rpm on the road than the LC8 is. I love wide ratio transmissions,
so of course I’d like to see a lower first and a higher 6th. Gear
spacing is great; none of that silly short 5th-6th jump than the F800s
have. Shifting action is precise and positive as you would expect. I
missed one or two shifts right when I started riding, but that was just
due to MX boots and an unfamiliar bike.
The clutch took all the abuse I gave it in stride. Clutch pull is light
and pretty predictable, but the engagement zone is very narrow. Combine
this with the ride-by-wire throttle delay, and it got a little
frustrating at times in really technical terrain – this was one of my
biggest annoyances with the bike. One of the first things I would do
would be to add a longer clutch pull arm, which would lengthen
engagement and further reduce effort. I don’t really see any need to
retrofit a hydraulic clutch at this point. While some people were more
abusive, I never had issues with the clutch in the sand in Merzouga. It
bit hard and consistently, and the adjustment never moved.
Electronics and ride modes:
I did not get any experience with cruise control or the factory heated grips.
I’m not really big on electronic gadgetry on cars or bikes, and some of
the 790’s features are more gimmicky than others. I’ll start with those
first. The 790 does have KTM My Ride, which I did not mess with. Even if
I owned the bike, I doubt I’d bother what with my general dislike of
apps. Apparently it can do turn by turn navigation (but it doesn’t show
the map, which is why I would just use a separate GPS instead) and can
act as an intermediary to control Bluetooth music playback. The knob on
my Sena works just fine for that, so adding another step of complexity
doesn’t interest me. Fortunately, if you don’t use these features, they
never get in the way or clutter the display unnecessarily.
KTM’s quickshifter programming works well on the street if you like that
kind of thing. After verifying that it does work, I turned it off. I
can do the same thing with my throttle hand, and I was having some
issues with slightly bumping the shift lever with my boot off road. This
would cause the engine to cut power, but because I wasn’t actually
trying to shift, I would either end up between gears or would
accidentally end up in a different gear. I also never got comfortable
using it between first and second crossing through neutral. Clutchless
shifting without the quickshifter software is natural and easy both up
and down.
Ride modes are what we’ve come to expect from KTM, and they work well. I
tried rain mode to make sure it works. It does. Throttle response is
mushy, ABS and traction control are aggressive. Not much else to say
about that.
Normal (Street) mode lets you select between ABS on/off, throttle in
rain/street/rally, and traction control on/off. It works well on the
street, as the name implies.
Rally is the mode I used the most, and is the mode I would use if I had a
790. This activated Rally ABS, which is on the front wheel only. I
turned ABS off entirely and it works fine, but you will need a dongle to
maintain this and traction control off after a key cycle. I left rally
ABS on most of the time; it works very, very well. It’s pretty amusing
diving into one loose sandy corner after another with the lever
chattering away, but if the back wheel is locked up at the right time,
it loses its reference speed and you can still lock the front. I only
got it to do this when I was trying to trick it. It’s a really good
system.
Rally mode also activates the multi-level traction control. I left it
down a 1 most of the time, where it only made itself known if I lost all
my momentum in the sand and was trying to climb a big dune or got
stuck. After riding an LC8 for so long, it's hard to turn the traction
control in my right hand off enough to feel it doing anything at level
1. Up in the 5-6 range it gets too intrusive for me in sand and loose
stuff, and could get you stuck by cutting too much power. On anything
more solid than sand, it works well and really helps the bike hook up. I
would only turn it up higher than this on slippery wet pavement or
something as a safety net when I really don’t want any wheelspin at all.
The highest traction control levels would also cut power and make some
loud exhaust pops when jumping the bike, which isn’t great for attitude
adjustments.
Rally mode also uses the most aggressive throttle map, which is great
off road most of the time. It was too aggressive for me on the street if
I was just cruising around trying to be smooth…which is probably why
there is a street mode. As mentioned before, I used street mode if the
riding got very technical.
The display worked well and was visible in most conditions. It’s not a
matte finish so can be annoyingly reflective in direct sunlight. I like
the built in voltmeter, and toggling through screens while riding was
mostly intuitive. The tach and speed are easy to see, and the tach turns
red when you get close to redline. Backlit button clusters were cool
riding the dark, too.
While this is a CAN bus bike, it looks pretty straightforward to add
accessories. The fuse box is easy to get to under the seat, as are the
battery connections. There is enough space in there to hide some wiring,
USB charger, etc. It looked like there were accessory wiring
connections at the front and rear of the bike under the seat as well –
great thinking on KTM’s part.
Just remember that my perspective is just one random guy's thoughts, accompanied by some pretty pictures.
Lots of different ways to look at this.
I have a whole bunch more written up that isn't posted yet; I didn't
have quite enough time to proofread and upload more pictures last night.
Handling is in that bit.
For most people, the 790 would replace a 950 or 990 adventure and be
quite a bit more capable. However, in really technical, muddy, nasty
terrain, I think the clutch behavior and predictable engine response of
the 950 still give it the edge. It remains to be seen what the
aftermarket will come up with. To me, a Rekluse is not a solution, but
for some people it might be sufficient.
The 950 SE is a different kind of bike. It is a completely analog
hooligan bike, and the 790 is a bit more quietly competent. For some
people the 790 might be a good replacement and is definitely a more
versatile bike, but I think most of the hard core SE fans would miss the
character and simplicity of the older bike.
The F800 had a lot more downsides that drove people away than just being
less powerful and not much lighter. While the suspension was okay, the
engine is not enthusiastic, is annoyingly vibey on the road, has a
frustratingly heavy clutch, mileage isn't that great if you're riding
faster, and the gearing is pretty bad for adventure use. They also have
some niggling reliability issues from personal family experiences with
them.
The 790 has much more separation from the "big" adventure bikes, in my
opinion. It's the most capable off road big bike you can buy. I do think
it will steal some sales from the 1090R in particular, since that is
the off road big bike overlap, but road-oriented riders will still
probably lean towards the bigger bikes. I would guess most sales will be
people otherwise considering (or past owners of) Africa Twins, F800s,
and the like.
Chassis:
Chassis-wise, the 790 doesn’t really break any ground. It’s still a
trellis frame with the engine suspended beneath as a stressed member.
The subframe is steel, which should resolve a lot of the problems people
have had with toting luggage around in the past. It seems to be a very
well done design, with integrated bosses for mounting luggage racks.
Many have commented on the lack of frame under the engine, and at least
one picture has been posted of a smashed oil pan. The 790 has a small
steel subframe supporting the front of the skidplate, with the bottom
supported by the oil pan and some small steel brackets. The catalyst
backs up the skidplate in the back, so removing this with an aftermarket
exhaust would require some additional brackets to provide support. The
small tabs that link the sump guard up to the frame under the pegs are
not beefy enough to do the job on their own. Remember that there isn’t a
single stock bike out there that comes with a guard that you can slam
the bike down onto without doing some damage. Only one of the Ultimate
Race bikes had an issue with the pan, which had made very solid contact
with a large rock and pushed it up into the tank at the front. Overall,
they held up well for a factory design, but I would be looking to the
aftermarket for a solution if you plan to be double blipping over logs
and bouncing through rock gardens.
The fuel tank is the most striking difference from other adventure
bikes, and has been discussed to death by now. Yes it is one piece, yes
is it slightly wider than the 950. You get used to it, and it does a
reasonably good job of protecting your feet and legs from brush, wind,
and rain. I only had one gap on a trail where it was a bit wide and did
some scraping, but my 950 would have done the same thing before it was
raised up. I did drop the 790 a few times due to inopportune stalls, and
had numerous getoffs of varying severity in the sand and hardpack in
the desert. The tank was unfazed by the hits, and showed no damage
beyond some cosmetic scuffs. The only real risk here is a crash on
pavement, where the ground acts like sandpaper and will wear through the
tank in a long enough slide. However, I think the sacrificial plastic
covers for the tank petcocks will largely make this a nonissue, similar
to the plastic 990 tank protectors I use on my 950.
A few people have mentioned this already, but the rear side covers have a
nifty little toolbox area in them. There is also a lot more room under
the seat to stash stuff than I was expecting, though it is still nothing
like the pre-ABS 950s. The stock rear luggage rack could be a lot
better. It only has two slots in it for straps, and the handholds are
only connected on one side. Tying stuff down is impossible, and the
handles seem a bit flimsy. All the current KTM ADV bikes use this setup,
so it should not be hard to find an alternate solution.
The tower is similar to the 1X90 design. It’s mainly made of plastic,
with steel tubes adorned by small acrylic (read:brittle) wind deflectors
wrapping around the outside of the forks to support the tower. The
factory GPS mount area is above the screen and really amplifies the
bending moment at the tower mounts. After the Merzouga experience, I
would strongly suggest not mounting anything additional to the tower if
you ride off road in high-vibration and impact situations. The
aftermarket has come up with solutions for the 1X90 bikes – I would
expect to see something from TripleClampMoto and others to beef this
area up. There is a 12V cigarette outlet on the tower as well.
The LED headlight works well and is a massive step up from other factory
headlights I’ve used in the past. However, the adjuster allows the
headlight to jiggle a little, creating a distracting strobe effect off
road at night. I would imagine it will be relatively easy to fix this
and mount it a little more positively. For a factory light, it works
well.
Not strictly chassis-related, but I wasn’t sure where else to put it:
KTM did a great thing putting a high fender on the front of the 790R.
However, I find it ironic that they installed the equivalent of a low
rear fender, with the tire-hugger design. I really hope the aftermarket
comes up with something better, because I fully expect the space between
the outer fender and the shock/swing arm to get jammed full of debris. I
don’t have any proof of this since there wasn’t any mud in Morocco, but
I definitely heard a few rocks get sucked past it when idling through
the bivouac. There's a pic in an earlier post that shows this.
My opinion, for what I use a big bike for, the 790R is probably the next
best Adventure. It has some advantages over the 1090 and is definitely
better off road than the 1290.
I think any bike would have wallowed some in that sand, but the 950 does
have more relaxed geometry that makes it more stable, especially once
tuned appropriately. That said, the 790 was perfectly manageable out
there and actually felt really good in the sand outside of my rider
error, not really knowing how to ride in sand like that.
The 790R has a tower instead of a mask, has that steel rear subframe,
has a lot more weight in brake hardware up front, and has ABS along with
all the wiring, sensors, and extra brake lines that go with it. The 950
SE was built to be a dirt bike...and once you make it adventure-ready,
it's not all that much lighter than the 790. The 790 was built to be a
very capable adventure bike. It is just not possible for a bike in this
market to be sold with a single brake, no electronics, etc. It would get
lambasted in most reviews, and would sell just as poorly as the 950 SE
did when it was new. It's a different design ethos that does come with
some extra weight - it would be very interesting to see how much weight
you could lose if some of these systems were removed. Outside of those
systems, I didn't see much low hanging fruit... in some areas I think
you would hit the point of making the bike fragile in extreme situations
pretty quickly if significantly more weight were removed from the basic
design.
Ergonomics:
Controls on the bars are pretty traditional; not much to say there. Foot
controls offer a good amount of adjustment, but the brake barely
adjusts high enough if you are used to riding on the balls of your feet
trials-style. Most people will not have an issue. The stock grips are
hard rubber street items, and I assume the heated factory options will
be too. The foam grips on the Ultimate Race bikes were a massive step
up; I highly recommend them. Anything is better than street grips.
The sidestand has a tab on it to make it easier to kick up and down, but
I had some issues hitting it with my heel and killing the engine. There
is a little rubber strap to help keep the sidestand up, but it isn’t
nearly stiff enough to fight the force of your heel. Cutting the tab off
the side stand might help, but ultimately disabling the side stand
switch is my favorite solution.
I am 6’4”, and the standard stepped seat is far too low for me and has a
fairly abrupt transition from the low spot to the high spot. I didn’t
care for it, as I needed to sit essentially on top of the bump, and my
height make the transition from sitting to standing harder than it
needed to be. The taller Power Parts seat is the single best thing you
can do for ergonomics if you’re not concerned about seat height, and I
found it to be very comfortable.
The center of the bike is very narrow, much more so than the 950 is.
This gives the bike a feeling of being nice and small, even though
dimensionally it isn’t actually far off of the old LC8s. This also makes
it easier to lean the bike while standing, where the 950 tends to run
into your low-side leg pretty early.
I found the bars on the stock bike to be a bit too low for me, and the
combination of my height, lowish bars, low seat, and high pegs made
standing fairly uncomfortable. The slight additional height from the
Scotts damper mount, slightly lower KTM Rally pegs, and taller
PowerParts seat made it very nearly perfect, though I might move the
bars to the forward mounting position to make standing and attacking a
little more neutral with my gangly arms. If you are not going to be
riding in attack position and stand more vertically as is typical of
adventure riders, you may want taller bars, but you can see how well the
bike fits in the pics I've attached.
I have seen some posts out there about buffeting and wind noise. We ran
the windshields in the low position, and I really had no issues with a
dirt helmet. Airflow over the front of the bike is much, much better
controlled than on the 950/990 even with some of the alternate solutions
I have tried. That said, I have never had a bike with a big windshield,
so my standards may be lower than others.
Looks are subjective so I won’t comment much on that, but I was very
happy with the tower and windshield setup for comfort and would not
spend any time or money trying to change it. Of course, I am tall, and
everyone is a bit different. The tank, as mentioned, does a wonderful
job of keeping wind and rain off of your body when sitting down.
However, the low corners of the tank direct water spray more or less
directly at your feet. Most adventure and dirt bikes I’ve ridden do
this, though.
Suspension and Handling:
I think this bit has been the biggest question mark for most people. The
950 was somewhat revolutionary when it came out, but it was by no means
great from the factory. Other bikes since then, notably the Africa Twin
and newer KTM bikes, have stepped up out-of-the-box performance quite a
bit, though there are some longer term durability concerns as
manufacturers try to figure out what the right balance of
cost/durability and performance is for the broader market. There are no
bikes on the market that are set up well enough to handle competition
environments that I am aware of.
The 790R, as we all know by now, is not massively long-travel (240mm)
and the internet seems to have a fairly negative opinion of WP’s
Xplor-branded parts. Our competition bikes did not have the
longer-travel Xplor Pro parts, contrary to what some have reported. The
rear shock also visually has a pretty steep angle that seems to be
scaring a lot of people because it is different than what we’ve come to
expect.
This is easily the best suspension on a stock adventure bike that I am
aware of, by a wide margin. The bike is well-balanced in both spring
rates and damping front to rear. Bottoming resistance is exemplary for
what it is; I only had issues if I really pounded through a G-out or
didn’t see an obstacle in time to adjust my body position. This would be
true of any dirt bike though, let alone an adventure bike.
It speaks volumes that, after getting back from the first ride, we all
agreed that the suspension was absolutely outstanding. There were some
extremely capable riders in the Ultimate Race group, and we were all a
bit blown away by how good it was. Note that my previous post in the 790
thread noted some negative characteristics – the valving was updated
and seems to have fixed the problems that I had with it.
Riders not used to how performance-tuned suspension feels may find that
it feels a bit stiff. I doubt most riders in this category will really
find the limits of the suspension, at least not until they get used to
how much higher the limits are than you might expect. The clickers offer
a wide range of adjustment, and the damping is done well enough that it
should have no problem accommodating stiffer springs if needed to get
the sag right. This is not a bike where you dial 6 more clicks of
compression and you don’t feel it; the clickers actually work. The bike
is sensitive to sag settings – mine was notably more stable with preload
removed from the rear, max preload in the front, and the forks dropped
in the triples a bit.
I expect aggressive riders will be quite happy with the suspension. It
is very capable, and very well balanced. I have quite a bit of effort
into the suspension on my 950, and really the main improvements are that
the 950 is a bit plusher in smaller chop, and doesn’t blow through the
travel as quickly on really big hits. Of course the extra travel on my
265mm 950 is a plus, and the 950 does a bit better in keeping the front
wheel touching the ground in really nasty slower terrain where the 790’s
stiffness hinders it a bit.
For comparison, I tend to blow through all of the travel on F800s,
Africa Twins, and the like if I am not paying attention all the time.
The competitions’ stock suspensions feel soggy and isolated due to
comfort-oriented damping and springing, and often are too stiff at the
rear when the bike isn’t loaded with luggage. This results in a rear
tire that skips around and struggles to put power down. The 790 doesn’t
suffer any of these ill handling traits.
The stock rims are wide, as you all know by now, but they are a lot
stronger than the 950/990 wheels of old. I hit a lot of stuff in a lot
of bad ways and didn’t do any meaningful damage riding at an aggressive
dual sport pace. KTM offers DID Dirt Star wheels in a narrower size via
their PowerParts catalog, and these were a big improvement in handling
off road. At race pace with mousses and the PowerParts hoops, I did dent
the front and rear slightly, and I saw a few others that also weren’t
perfectly round anymore. We were all hammering through nasty rocky
terrain at high speed for 5 days in a row, though – the suspension was
so good that it encouraged us to ride at a rim-denting pace, and I think
even a 450 would have come away with a few tweaks.
The 790 has a factory steering damper, but it doesn’t seem to do much
that I can tell. The Scotts damper was my first experience ever riding
with an adjustable damper, and it was definitely nice. My 950 does not
have a steering damper and doesn’t feel like it needs one. I have not
had any issues with the 950 wanting to tuck the front wheel under, but
did have some issues with that on the 790 even with the damper. The 790
has more aggressive geometry that helps a lot with handling on pavement
and hard pack, and for it I think the Scotts is a worthwhile upgrade if
you like riding in sand or very quickly off road.
Handling on pavement is very good. This thing is very adept at attacking
a twisty canyon road, blasting down the highway, dodging potholes, etc.
It has a much more natural feel and turn-in than the 950 and 990 do on
pavement (remember mine is very tall; I don’t remember what it felt like
stock). Even if you just bought it as a sport tourer, I think you would
be happy. It’s a very willing partner.
Handling on fast dirt and gravel is equally good. It turns in naturally,
breaks away smoothly, and overall feels well balanced. In faster
straight stuff, the bodywork felt good for clamping your knees and
keeping that lower body locked into the bike.
Tight, technical, first-gear-slipping-the-clutch terrain is one key area
where I still prefer my 950. The 790 is a bit easier to balance because
it carries its weight so low, and the narrow body again lets you steer
with your feet like you would on a trials bike. The (modified) 950
suspension just seems to handle slow stuff and trials suspension loading
better, possibly because of the longer travel. The 950 also has much
more ground clearance, and the throttle response and clutch feel more
intuitive to me.
Jumps are flat and stable, where the 950 likes to nose dive if you get
the launch wrong. As with any adventure bike, you really want to make
sure you land on the back wheel if you’re getting more than a foot or
two of air.
While the turning radius is improved, it still uses the trellis frame
and so doesn’t quite have the lock of an F800GS or Africa Twin.
Well, that's it - my full review of the KTM 790 R. Overall, a very
impressive bike with a few small things that I think the aftermarket
will quickly step up to address for the crazier riders out there. Am I
rushing out to sell my 950? No, but when it comes time to consider
spending a lot of money refreshing the engine, I will absolutely be
taking a look at the used market for the 790 as an alternative.
