2015 KTM 1290 Super Adventure Spied

Fri, 08 Aug 2014

If you’ve been paying attention to our Motorcycle.com Best of 2014 awards, you’ll know the KTM 1290 Super Duke R took top honors in our Streetfighter/Hooligan class, and the 1190 Adventure was tied with the BMW R1200GS for the win in the Best On-Off-Road/Adventure category. Riding that wave of success, KTM appears ready give its adventure-tourer a significant upgrade that may give it the edge over the GS for next year’s MOBO awards.

A new spy photo snapped on the set of a video shoot in Monaco by mentounasc, a member of the KTMMania.net forum, reveals a redesigned fairing and new badging identifying a motorcycle as a KTM 1290 Super Adventure.

The name suggests it is using a version of the 1301cc 75° V-Twin powering the 1290 Super Duke R. From our 2014 Super Naked Street Brawl comparo, we had the Super Duke R leading the class with 156 hp on the dyno. Even if it gets a more sedate tuning than the beastly SDR, we can expect a big uptick in power from the already-potent 1195cc V-Twin in the current 1190 Adventure that twists out nearly 130 horses to its rear wheel.

The new fairing has larger side panels with new air vents in front of the rider’s knees. The engine guards are also new to accommodate the new fairing shape. Combined with a taller windscreen, it appears the Super Adventure will offer better wind protection than the 1190. The fuel tank appears to be larger, which is a surprising bonus considering the 1190 already saw a bump in fuel capacity to 6.1 gallons from 5.3.

We can expect the Super Adventure to come loaded with ABS, traction control and the Bosch-developed Motorcycle Stability Control which allows both those rider aides to work even when leaned into a corner. Hopefully KTM will also equip it with cruise control, a feature Tom Roderick felt was sorely missing in his review of the 1190 Adventure.

KTM will likely reveal the 1290 Super Duke Adventure this fall, either in October at Germany’s Intermot or a few weeks later at Italy’s EICMA show.

[Source: KTMMania.net]

By Dennis Chung