KTM 2024 Duke Lineup
The KTM 390 Duke new and updated for 2024, and basically one of the most performance orientated A2 friendly learner bikes that you can currently buy.
This, on the other hand, is the 990 Duke over twice the power and over twice the price.
This though, the proper beast, the 1390 Super Duke Evo, and it’s basically the most premium bike in the entire KTM lineup.
But look which one is the best road bike and is spending more money and getting more power. Always worth it.
390 Duke
Let’s start with the 390 Duke, and sort of work our way up to the more bonkers end of the spectrum.
And this one, as you might have gathered, is powered by a 390 engine.
It’s a single cylinder, liquid cooled, and it makes about 45 horsepower peak and 40 Newton meters of peak torque.
That’s pretty much the maximum you can go for an A2 compliant bike, but the rest of the spec is really quite sporty and elevates it above a lot of the bikes in that part of the market,
you’ve got suspension from their in-house WP brand with an upside down fork and adjustability, which you don’t always see at this sort of price point.
A radial front brake caliper from Biber, which is a more affordable subbrand of Brembo.
The styling package looks the nuts as well.
It looks every bit the baby Super Duke, and also you get a really impressive suite of electronics with a TFT display, good switchgear, a bunch of riding modes and lots of settings and phone connectivity and good stuff like that. the thing I really love about bikes like this is that you can properly rev them out, even on the road.
45 horsepower might not sound like a great deal, but you really can use all of it and get it right up to 8 or 9000 rpm.
And there is just something really satisfying about that with smaller bikes, it feels like you’re not the limitation, it’s the bike and you can’t always say that for the big, super powerful, super naked.
Now the other thing this bike has massively in its favor is the weight it’s about 154kg fully fueled up.
And so that means it’s just so, so easy to ride, so nimble, so flickable, so agile, and so on the one hand, that’s great for newer riders who don’t want something too big and too intimidating.
But even if you’re a bit more experienced, you know it’s a joy. Great on the brakes as well.
Good suspension, good ride quality, and although you can tell it is a slightly smaller than average bike, there’s not a great deal of reach to it.
It feels quite sat up. You know, it still has that KTM ness, the slick quick shifter, the Reaviness, the immediacy on the throttle, the great handling.
So it’s worthy absolutely of the Duke name. Now, clearly, with this bike being the lowest price of the bunch, I’ll have to give it five stars for affordability.
It is the lowest on power though, and so we’ll give it one star there. And for the looks although for a learner it is quite impressive, it just doesn’t quite have the presence of the other two.
And so I’ll give it two. As for the overall fun factor and enjoyment of riding well, honestly, for the road and the way that you can just pin the throttle everywhere you go, plus the great handling, I’ll have to go for a for.
990 Duke
Next up, the 990 Duke, and it may look to the untrained eyes somewhat similar to the 390, but this is a completely different kettle of fish.
It used to be the 890. It’s gone up in capacity to a 990, and now you get 123 horsepower peak and 103 Newton meters of peak torque.
And it really does have a lot of mid-range shove.
The downside, I guess, versus a smaller bike like the 390 is this is about 40kg heavier, but given that it’s over twice the power, you really do have a massively superior sort of power to weight ratio.
Tech wise, it’s not that dissimilar. There are just more settings and more rider aids.
Looks wise, it’s not massively different either, but the chassis spec is a little cut above with a pair of four piston radially mounted KTM brake calipers up front, Bridgestone S22 tires, which I think are really good for a bike like this.
And again, the WP suspension, full adjustability and all that good stuff. This one is almost certainly going to be more fun.
As soon as you get on this bike, you’ll notice it’s a bit more sporty. It’s longer in the riding position.
You feel a touch more stretched out. Actually, to be honest, it feels more natural and just of course like a proper big bike.
I love the way this engine sounds, this parallel twin. Crackles when you come off the gas.
Not only do you get that huge step up in power and this bike is.
You know, properly, quick, but also the character that you get from a twin over the single, which is just a little bit less soul stirring.
if you were trying to pick your way through city traffic and wanted the the smallest needle to thread through, then the 390 Duke is going to do that job a little bit better.
But I will still say this doesn’t feel like a massive bike. It feels manageable. It feels light enough.
In fact, I’m gonna say this is right up there with the best of the best naked bikes for me.
And it is a little bit expensive versus obviously the 390 Duke, but also versus some of the immediate competition.
But it’s very, very, very, very good. Now this bike is a little pricey versus the competition, so I’ll go three stars for affordability and three stars for power as well, because it’s somewhere in the middle of the other two.
Looks wise, I know this new headlight is a bit divisive, but for me it’s better than the previous generation and it has more of that super cute look about it because they’ve made it look butcher.
So think I’ll go for stars there. And while it might not have got the maximum score in any specific discipline there for on the road, it’s the total package in terms of fun.
1390 SDR EVO
So super Duke time 1390 a big step up it’s a 75 degree V-twin, 187 horsepower peak and 145 Newton meters of peak torque.
So it really does pack a punch and given that this bike is close to 20 grand, you can see the chassis spec is worthy of that sort of price point.
Brembo brake calipers up front, which are pretty much the best you can get, and the latest and greatest from WP in terms of their semi-active electronically adjustable suspension.
So not only can you adjust it through the switchgear and dash with a bunch of different settings, but also it’s going to constantly adapt to the current riding style and conditions to give you the best possible damping.
Also, it’s got automatic preload, so it’s going to get the bike level no matter what you weight or whether you got a passenger or not.
And you’ve got different preload settings. So you can put it in automatic high, for example, and it will jack the back end up and get the bike on its nose to give you a more aggressive and flickable geometry.
Or you can put it in automatic low, and it’s still compensating for the rider and passenger weight, but it will just sit down a bit so it’s easier to get your feet down at a stop.
And also that’ll slacken off the geometry and give it some more stability. A brilliant feature in my opinion.
So much power, so much performance tha handling is brilliant. There’s loads of braking power and that suspension package.
You know, the ride quality is excellent, but then you’ve got all that versatility. You can set it up exactly how you want it and you don’t even need to get off the bike.
Now look, can you realistically use it all out on the road.
I think the 990 Duke is way better suited to, you know, general road riding, whereas this, you’re barely scratching the surface of what it can do.
But I suppose really it’s a bit like owning a supercar. Of course you can’t do supercar speeds on the road, but there’s that specialness, there’s that knowledge that it’s the best of the best in terms of performance.
There’s the level of spec, there’s the finish, there’s the presence and size and aggression of the design.
This fight gets like the single-sided swing arm at the back, which just elevates it and makes it look a cut above what you get from a middleweight like the 990.
It just feels so special to be around and ride and there’s this absolute effortlessness to this blistering in speed.
But look at close to 20,000 pounds. You have to say that this is realistically a one-star for affordability and only within budget for a relatively small proportion of riders.
Obviously it’s five stars for power though, and for me the looks are the best of the bunch too.
Thing is though, as for the fun factor, well, like I say, it’s a lot more serious than the 990 and you don’t quite get the sensation of properly ringing its neck.
So specifically for road riding, I think I’m gonna go for a four that puts the 1390 and 990 even on 15 points total.
And so if I had to call it between the two personally I’d say the 990 is the one I’d probably go for. It’s fast but not too fast.