VOL. 56 ISSUE 12 MARCH 26, 2019 P87
At Cody's request, I ratcheted the MTC
up to Level 7 and gave it another go. Cue
light bulb moment. The 790 R crawled
up that hill in the same way a 4x4 does
when you select low range. It didn't even
break a sweat, and I was at the top—no
spinning, no cutting from the MTC—just beautiful,
uninterrupted drive. It dawned on me while looking
at the rock formation at the top of the hill that I'd
been using adventure bike traction control wrong all
these years!
However, there is a time and a place to switch all
that stuff off, and that, my friends, is in the dunes.
I've ridden dunes many times before but never
taken a proper ADV bike into them. It
didn't matter. The combination of the right
amount of horsepower, smooth throttle
response, superb chassis balance and a
little help from the Continental TKC80s,
made for a riding experience I'll not forget
in a hurry. Taking that 790 into the dunes was the
motorcycle equivalent of carving fresh powder at
Vale. So to my surprise, the 790 just lapped it up.
Keep your weight back, be gentle of the handle-
bars and let the bike track its own line.
It was then I realized what the KTM 790 Adven-
ture R was all about. This is a KTM dual sport bike
turned into an adventure bike, not a street bike
Vast desert plains
are the perfect
country for the 790.
But it's equally at
home in snotty,
tricky tight terrain.
