The Austrians did their job perfectly with their Dukes. Dukes had that oomph factor, performance, styling, sound and more over their price tag was so less, that they sell like hot cakes. Dukes took over everyone from those who wanted a commuter with mind-boggling performance to a tourer to guys who spend their weekends on tracks. But, there was only one thing that somehow tried to distract customers from Dukes to the faired participants of the market. Yeah, that was basically the lack of fairing.
So, KTM decided to develop a series of faired bikes on the same platform on which the Duke200 and 390 were based. And the models showcased were the RC125, RC200 and RC390. Now they have launched both the bikes in india on 9th of September. BikesIndia soon will be coming up with the comprehensive road test review of the RC390, yes, we’ll focus more on regular roads. So we will tell you how did the bike felt live and what’s the positive and negative over the Duke and other bikes.KTM has kept the way premium with every part of the bike, starting from the parts to the design. There you may get fascinated with are the front blinkers, pillion seat and the position of battery. The pillion seat looks like a cowl even in flesh, but it is soft and usable seat in sportbike limitations. The rear view mirrors have a wider and triangular shape to them and looks usable though.
The special arrangement done for the single-sided grabrails is an after-thought and only for Indian market. Indian motor vehicle act has a phrase that makes a compulsion over two-wheeler manufacturers for the rear grabrails.The front dual projector headlamps with dual DRl can drool you away. The next thing that will serve very useful will be the rear tyre hugger and the two-piece saare guard. The LCD instrument console unit is the direct lift-up from the Duke390, while rear single line LED tail-lamp in just a delight to watch in dark.
The chassis is the same trellis frame from Duke but, it’s been elongated at rear to make space for pillion seat. The visor is down, and we don’t think that it’d be any better than duke 390 in case of windblasts. The gear ratios are same and there are no technical changes to the bike except for the wheelbase.
The Moto-3 inspired bike has even borrowed the triple top clamp for the clip-on handlebars. The bike is expected to behave much better in corners, while for the whole comprehensive road test of the bike you need to keep visiting this space.
The bike we got to experience in flesh and hear the start-up and engine revs were courtesy KTM Ghaziabad. BikesIndia thanks Mr. Preet Singh, Manager, KTM Ghaziabad who himself is a stunter and biker from heart.
