VOL. 55 ISSUE 48 DECEMBER 4, 2018 P45
The 2019 Super
Duke GT—at
the Isle of Man,
no less—is a
nice example of
refining an already
excellent product.
performance and benchmark handling of
the take-no-prisoners 1290 Super Duke R
streetfighter, coupled with everyday practi-
cality and user-friendly convenience. It's a
successful marriage of opposites.
Despite being the first-ever KTM V-twin
street model with touring pretensions, the
GT has been such a hit that KTM has now
devoted some extra R&D budget to making
it better still.
At Intermot 2018, KTM unveiled the seri-
ously improved 2019 version of the model
that Greiner and his R&D colleagues, led
by project manager Tobias Eisele, have
been working on ever since the GT Ver-
sion 101 was launched three years ago—and
just a couple of weeks later they asked me
to come and ride it for a day in glorious
autumn sunshine along the superb riding
roads running up and down the hills and val-
leys of KTM's Upper Austria hinterland.
The 2019 Super Duke GT is even more
fun to ride than before, as a sharper, stron-
ger and more refined version in every way
of its predecessor. It's a fact underlined
by the outgoing 2018 model GT, which my
riding companion Luke Brackenbury, KTM's
PR Manager, had brought along to compare
with the new bike.
Swapping back and forth between the
two was educational—I'd never have thought
the outgoing model would seem quite so
dated, having itself set new sector stan-
dards on its 2015 release.
A
lready Europe's largest motorcycle
manufacturer, KTM continues to
ramp up its sales numbers, with the
126,808 bikes it sold in the first half of this
year representing a further 15 percent up on
2017, itself a record year for the company.
Perhaps surprisingly, one of its palpable
hits helping drive that increase has been the
most expensive model in its entire range,
the 1290 Super Duke GT, first launched
three years ago as the Austrian company's
unique take on sports touring with a differ-
ence—i.e. with an accent on the "sport!"
Those sales say this model has complete-
ly addressed KTM president Stefan Pierer's
concerns before it appeared. "I don't think a
sport tourer in the classic way matches 100
percent with KTM's brand identity," Pierer
says. "Our customers expect something
sporty made the KTM way, not like other
manufacturers do it." That certainly de-
scribes the GT, which since its 2015 launch
has provided its owners with the dazzling
