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.
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