Living with KTM's 2020 1290 Super Duke GT: MCN's Long-term test verdict

Hello and welcome to Motorcycle News and welcome to a lay-by here in a chilly rural Lincolnshire in KTM's 1290 Super Duke GT which I've been very lucky to run as part of MCN's 2020 long-term test fleet. And in that time I've done around about six and a half thousand miles in between two lockdowns. I've also done as part of that I've done a mini tour, I've done weekend work, I've done rides up and down the country for various reasons and this is my roundup of the bike because sadly it's going back to the manufacturer very soon. So I've got my trusty notepad here, I've broken down my year into bite-sized chunks and I'm going to bring you my overall verdict of the 2020 Super Duke GT. Okay so I think the first place to start with this is a couple of stats on the Super Duke GT. So in the middle you will notice that there is a whopping 1301cc liquid-cooled v-twin engine. Now that v-twin comes straight from the Super Duke R Super Naked, the previous version to the one that's currently on sale. Now because it's come from the bonkers Super Duke R that engine actually makes 173 brake horsepower or near as damn it and that means that thing shoves along with more poke than a mid-noughties superbike and let me tell you it's been absolutely amazing fun just winding it on and we'll come back to that later on. So away from the performance this thing weighs dry around about 209 kilograms that's what KTM are telling us and then we actually weighed one of these fully fueled and fully laden with fluids last year and and away from that the seat height is 835mm on the standard seat and that's actually been real easy to get on with this year. You know I'm five foot six on a good day with a decent pair of boots on and whilst I haven't been able to get flat-footed on the bike at all times it's been an absolute doddle with the narrow position with the engine meaning I can get my fairly fairly well down on both sides. So before we could get underway with serious adventuring on the GT this year we had to run the bike in. Now I'm a stickler for the rules ask anyone in the MCN office and they'll tell you that and I was determined to follow the manual on what it stipulated and as part of that for the first 1000 kilometers or around about 620 miles you weren't allowed to use full throttle and you could only use up to six and a half thousand rpm. Now on a normal bike and in fact on bikes that I've previously tested following in the running in procedure has been a little bit problematic because it meant that you can't really do road legal speeds and you end up a little bit of a sitting duck for the traffic around you but because this thing makes so much power six and a half thousand revs in top gear is well past 70 miles per hour so you can cruise in top go up and down motorways without stressing that engine and still following the book and then when you're out on the twisty roads and stuff like that there's so much torque and so much power at the bottom end of the engine that you really don't need to go past six and a half thousand rpm anyway unless you really fancy letting your hair down and I'll be honest once we had run it in I did let my hair down a couple of times which we'll come on to. So after I'd run the bike in one of the first things I did before lockdown was just go to and from the office for uh for commuting purposes as well as go to our London show back at the Excel Centre in London. Now as part of my commuting duties I've got a round trip of around about 110 miles with some A roads and some country roads and the KTM excelled at looking after me during that journey. You've got heated grips up front, you've got three throttle maps, three suspension settings and then options to change for pillions, luggage and so on and it just dealt with the job perfectly well with a manually adjustable screen up front. Simply lift that up to get you out of the wind and it just ferries you to and from effortlessly. I also did a number of weekend blasts as well exploring the country roads around my home where we are right now. The bike was amazing fun as the weather started to warm up a little bit and the road started to get a little bit heat in it and you could get a bit of heat in the tyres and get a bit more confidence. The bike just came alive I mean with that engine that absolutely punches from the bottom end I mean you really need to try one of these thumping twins to understand but just gets going from so low in the revs and then with the quality WP suspension at the front and rear which really soaks up the bumps well. It was just a really nice package and really inspired you to get some decent lean angles and just have fun really and considering this bike is something that's designed for you know long distance touring and stuff like that it's astoundingly nimble it really is. It comes equipped to standard with Pirelli Angel GTs and they had so much bite even as an OE spec and you know you could just lean on that front tyre so much and as we started to climb towards more of the summer months it just you know it just carried on impressing to the point where I thought that it would be quite good on a track day. So as track day season came around and we came out of lockdown I decided to book onto an evening session at Caldwell Park. Now unfortunately for me after a week of lovely dry weather on the evening of our track day it decided to rain and then rain some more and continue raining all night to the point where we had flooding out of Charlies 2, we had flooding at the bottom of Mansfield Corner and whilst it was great fun it wasn't the knee-scraping ballistic you know motorcycle hedonism experience that I was hoping for. That said it was another example of just how good the Angel GT tyres are. You know I'd and I ended up being the only road bike out there with road tyres and you know the bike didn't disgrace itself. I'd be lying if I said we were the fastest thing out there because there were people on proper track day wets but actually there was plenty of you know plenty of confidence on that front wheel and the electronics package with things like the TC were able to just pick up any slips that that rear had which it had plenty of because you know there's so much power coming out from that rear wheel and then obviously because you've got heated grips as well it was a little bit chilly you know it was quite nice to leave those on and just get a little bit of feeling back through your mitts as you're as you're riding around. In an ideal world I'd have gone back to another circuit on a dry day and you know really got a chance to experience all of that super duke R bread credibility to its fullest but it just hasn't happened unfortunately. That said as we got into the summer months there was plenty of opportunity to have a go on twisty roads and it was cracking fun you know I then swapped the Angel GTs out for a set of Metzeler M9 RRs and that just unlocked a little bit more of a sporty nature you know they've got a bit more of a sporty profile than the GTs and without sacrificing wet weather performance and and they've they've been a real nice addition to the bike. The rear has squared off fairly quickly in around about three three and a half thousand miles which is a little bit disappointing but you know overall I can't really fault them they've been a lovely addition to the motorbike. So away from those tyres that I've added to the bike what else have I added to the GT over the year? Well the eagle-eyed amongst you will see that I've got some hard cases on there some colour matched hard cases from the KTM power parts department. They cost around about 700 pounds which is quite an investment but unlike other sports tours that I've tried before the actual bracket tree for the bike for the luggage sorry is already included on the bike so there's a little lug that comes off the rear pillion pegs which the luggage slots into and there's some little lugs on the top of the subframe that the that the luggage grabs onto as well and then it's just a simple case of locking it in with the key and you're away. So whilst the initial outlay might be a lot you haven't got to fork out for any additional fitting kits which is a real nice touch actually. Now these had plenty of room to swallow up all of the stuff I needed for three nights away so that was locks, spare visors, some emergency waterproofs, a bit of PPE obviously because still covid times and a couple of sets of clean clothes and a pair of shoes. I've also managed to squeeze a crash helmet in there before my Aero GP500 however it kind of depends on the shape of the helmet and you know if yours isn't going to fit I wouldn't continue trying to shove it in because you're just going to end up scratching your nice lid so I found that that Aero fitted however your your crash helmet might differ and indeed other crash helmets I've tested differed as well. So as well as the luggage I've also installed courtesy of KTM a £787.02 Akrapovic slip-on exhaust. Now I think it looks lovely it looks really nice compared to the the standard exhaust which is a little bit bulbous and a little bit ugly I think. When it was installed it kind of left me a little bit cold and when I fired up that engine for the twin it sounded nice and it looked a lot better than the standard can but yeah it just left me ever so slightly cold but then over time like a fine wine it's kind of matured and got a lot better. Now I don't know if there's any science behind that or anything like that or if it's just the placebo but it just seems to have got ever so slightly louder not boisterously so and there seems to have been a little bit more of a crackle when you throttle off and then also when you're changing up with the quick shifter you get a nice pop sometimes as well a bit like a finely fettled race bike you know and you hear them banging through the gears on the quick shifter and you can just hear that bang bang bang between gears which just sounds brilliant and it sounds extra good when you're you know in a in an area with like maybe a nice tall wall next to you or you're going past a lorry or something like that and you get a little bit of a reverberation of that noise it's a little bit yobby but uh it's it's brilliant and it's kind of the noise and soundtrack that a bike with such a massive engine deserves but we've also got a ktm power parts ergo seat on there as well now that was around about 217 pounds as an option and the reason i wanted to test that was because i'm a little bit of a wuss basically i don't like the cold weather you know i'm the i'm the guy in the room when it's 20 degrees still and i got a jumper on people are giving me funny looks so the idea of having a heated bum as i'm riding around was uh it's just kind of a nice addition however i'm not entirely sure it's worth the money now the heated element is absolutely lovely but at 217 quid this is a serious outlay for what is effectively a seat and actually here's the kicker when i was on my long distance tour i actually found that it wasn't as comfortable as the standard seat now it's still okay but after around 150 miles i just wanted to get off and give my ass a little bit of a rest because i was just getting a bit of it's just a little bit disappointing you know the the heated element is absolutely lovely and if you're keeping your journeys below 150 miles at a constant then you know by all by all means get get get involved with it but if you're you know someone who just goes out at the weekend or is you know someone who just likes riding on warm days or in sunny days i'm not entirely sure it's worth the money that argument is is added to as well by the fact that the rear cylinder head actually generates a fair bit of heat itself as well so on sort of mild days you're getting a little bit of of heat just from the engine so if you're not riding in the winter time or the or the late autumn you don't really need the heated element anyway away from the bolt-on parts uh this bike's also been treated to a couple of electric goodies as well a little bit behind the scenes so this has actually got the track pack on it and it's also got things like hill hold as well now i'll start with a track pack because i was a little bit skeptical on that because why do you need a track pack for a sports tourer however although being called a track pack it's actually really useful to have on a daily basis so if you put it in track mode you can still cycle through things like what level of throttle response you've got what level of uh damping you've got on the suspension but you can also cycle through nine levels of traction control on the fly so if you want a little bit less electrical intervention you can literally just tap down on the left switch gear but if you come to a road that's maybe wet or or gravelly or you just you just want a bit more of a safety net just tap it up a few it's absolutely fine and then on top of that if you want to take it on track that track pack also unlocks things like launch control you can also turn off the anti-wheelie as well separately to the traction control so you can keep that safety net but also hoist the front if you want to do a little bit of a cunning stuntery i think it's been a real good good option it's not cheap it's over 300 pounds but if you've got the money and you want the you know the to be able to say down the pub you've got the track pack on your bike and you want that sort of freedom to customize your ride i'd absolutely recommend it something i would recommend less so is the hill hold system now this was added at the same time as the track pack and i'm not entirely sure it was worth it at no point did i think oh i really wish this had hill hold it's simply a case of holding the rear brake and then pulling away safely and i find the hill hold is quite grabby and it can catch you out so you'll apply enough throttle to pull away and enough clutch to pull away but you'll find sometimes that that hill hold will carry on grabbing at the rear and a couple occasions it was it's caused me to stall because i've applied enough power to pull away safely but the hill hold is holding me back more than i'd want to so you end up giving it a bit more throttle and a bit more clutch slipping and sometimes you can look a bit yobby especially if you're in a town or something and you're and it kicks in because it just looks like you're revving it up to show off to people at the side of the road when in reality you're just trying to make sure you don't topple over by being caught out by a bike that's kind of holding you back a bit so although my plans for a track day didn't quite go to plan i actually had one of my probably one of my best ever riding experiences on the gt this year you know at the start of the year if anyone's read my long term of pieces either in mcn or on our website they'll know that i really wanted to go into europe i've never toured in europe by myself and when travel became a bit more restricted kind of put it out the question again unfortunately however so i thought do you know what i'm gonna go away in the uk i'm gonna see some parts of the uk i've never ridden down i had a week off in mid mid october and i thought sod it i'm gonna do it and uh booked some hotels the night before and just went for three days down down to devon and cornwall and although it was a little bit drizzly we ended up covering around about 860 miles over three days and it was absolutely brilliant because i had no agenda i just thought well this is the hotel at the end of the day i'm just going to look at the map and these roads look quite cool and i'm just going to go and explore so i did the a39 down to linton and linmouth which is a cracking road coastal road with uh sort of undulations twists and turns coastal views then the village is lovely at the end for an ice cream i went to padstow i went to new key i went to bude i went to all these lovely places that i've been to in a car but i've never had that experience of on a motorbike and the bike was absolutely fantastic for it so in order to maximize my time down south i used the motorway for the first 250 miles from my home just outside lincoln uh to the south and then on the way home after devon i jumped on the motorway to get home again but then after that i simply dropped the screen down out of its tallest setting put the put the suspension into a bit more of a sporty mode i just spent three days just carving around some lovely twisty roads now they weren't all dry and some of them were covered in agricultural mud because it was uh autumn by this point but the bike was brilliant it was comfortable at no point did i feel tired at the end granted i had a bit of a numb bum because i had the ergo seat on that i've mentioned but everything worked as it should have done and because you've got so much power as well when you get stuck behind the inevitable so lines of caravans or farming traffic you can just blast past them not in a yobby way but safe way you know just drop a gear and you're gone you can just clear five cars in in a matter of seconds and then you're on to exploring the next road and i i got a new level of respect for the bike on that trip i uh i always loved it i loved the engine i love the handling i love how it looks as well i know that's a bit divisive but i just it proved that it was a credible sports tourer and i absolutely want to go again next year and i'm i'm gutted that i probably won't end up doing it on a super duke gt because it was absolutely brilliant my only thing is i wish i went earlier in the year because i could have enjoyed some of those roads in a bit warmer weather and the tarmac would have been drier uh but but no i couldn't fault it as i said before there was plenty of room in the luggage to to carry my essentials i had a little rucksack on as well and yeah it was just really really good fun unfortunately it hasn't been all plain sailing with the super duke gt and after around 3 000 miles i did find that the bike let itself down ever so slightly which was disappointing for a machine costing 17 200 pounds without any of the extras on it now i'd seen on previous long-term updates that i'd done both for the paper for our website and also on our youtube channel people had got in touch and they've responded and commented talking about ktm's reliability now i couldn't comment on it on these first few uploads because the bike had been good as gold but as i say after about 3 000 miles it just started to let itself down so the first of these happened just after the first lockdown around about a month later peak of summer round about one of the hottest days of the year we decided to pitch this against the bmw s 1000 xr probably one of its main rivals both for touring and for weekend fun now it was two cracking days of testing loads of twisty roads those are bone dry roads plenty of lean angles just big smiles but unfortunately the second day was cut short after i went in to pay for fuel for this bike and i came back out and the key had stopped responding to the motorcycle so luckily the steering lock was unlocked but i couldn't turn the bike on couldn't turn the dash on couldn't do anything spoke to ktm they weren't sure we ended up calling breakdown and we had to wait for two hours and then a guy arrived and it ended up just being as simple as taking the seat off undoing the unscrewing the battery reattaching it and essentially the system inside the bike did a reset like you would reboot your computer and then it was good to go again now i know that for future issues when the key stops responding but for a bike that's sort of essentially just over 3 000 miles old i just i was left a bit cold and a little bit disappointed in the bike now after that happened everything else was was business as usual and fine there were a couple of phantom warning lights which when you turn the bike off again they would just disappear and it was perfectly fine to do that i checked with ktm until around about six and a half thousand miles so i just got back from my tour and then i was heading somewhere else for a bit of work i got two or three miles down the road and the dash turned off just out of nowhere just i'm riding along and then the dash just switched itself off i thought well that's a bit odd so pulled over to the side of the road turned it off turned it on nothing turned it off turned it on nothing lights still work stuff like that bike ran fine oh well that's not good so uh turned around to go home and then i realized when i went to change gear the quick shifter wasn't working the blipper wasn't working either so i was like right okay so went home put the bike up and then it had to be returned to ktm because unfortunately some water had managed to get into the dashboard as a result of that the shifter and the blipper had got upset amongst a couple of other bits and bobs i think and it is obviously things have just stopped working so bike was returned to ktm and a whole new tft dash has been installed on the machine and then all of the the numbers and so the previous dash this would all be covered under warranty if this happened to you however again it's sort of like this is a 17 000 pound motorcycle that's done six and a half thousand miles it's been kept in a dry garage i wash it regularly it gets it gets pampered basically it gets loved and things like this just shouldn't be going wrong you know granted this could have just been a flash in the pan and an unfortunate event for just this bike but obviously we have to comment on it because because it happened and it's it just kind of just spoiled the overall package but it's funny because now i've got the bike back it's running fine and it's going back to ktm soon and i'm absolutely gutted because this thing has sort of wormed its way into my heart over this year despite the things that have happened and the the minor niggles and things like that it's such a well-rounded motorcycle with an engine that just makes you laugh and and i look forward to riding it every day and you know opening the garage and seeing those flashes of orange just as the the garage starts opening up just gets me a bit excited like a kid and um it's been a long time since i've i've had a bike long term be that my own or a bike that i've run as for motorcycle news uh to do that and the fact that it's going back next week is is really quite sad and i mean i'd love to i'd love to keep hold of it of course i would but the overall package and the the character of it and the engine and the the capability that it possesses is just it's just totally won me over and i'm gonna be really sad to see it go so we've covered a lot of ground there and i hope you found this video really useful in summary then this is a real credible well-rounded bike that is worthy of kudos it's got 17 inch wheels you can get some real tires for it it's got a bonkers engine in the middle it's got more poke than most super bikes up until the last 10 years it's got wp electronic suspension incredible chassis it's got a lot of electronic gizmos on it and and when it's all working it's absolutely fantastic it's quite comfortable i toured no problem the power parts extras feel really good quality i've been left really impressed with it i just wish that 2020 had been more of a conventional year to allow me to get more out of the bike to bring it to you and also selfishly just for a bit more enjoyment for myself in another lifetime i'd have done a little bit more on track with it we'd have gone back in the dry but you know that's uh that's by the by we didn't manage to do it but i've got so many fond memories of ripping up and down my favorite country roads on this smashing to and from work doing distance work on it it's just taken everything that i've thrown at it and it's it's returned plenty of smiles and plenty of top performance unfortunately my experience with the bike has been marred slightly by the electronic gremlins which have come in on a couple of occasions which have left me a little bit cold however if you can overlook that and you want a machine that delivers super bike punch but will also take you to the south of france and back then this is a great place to look now if i've missed anything here or if you want more information on this bike please feel free to go to motorcycle news.com to see a full detailed year-long write-up of the bike you can also buy mcn every wednesday to see our mcn fleet updates and feel free to email me as well you can reach me on dan.sutherland at motorcycle news.com if you've got any questions and i'll try my best to answer so thank you very much and here's to a brighter 2021 cheers guys