Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1354648
Handling It All The KTM 890 parallel twin engine deserves some credit in all this balance talk, too. It's aligned cylinders and the mov- ing bits inside do little to throw the bike's balance off despite rowdy attempts to repeatedly do so. The bike likes to go straight, and it likes to go straight quickly. But it will also moto-turn, enduro mob, or grass track with the best of them and drift like a champ across gravel roads. Unlike its v- twin cousins, this twin behaves at some pretty amazing angles. In addition, enough cannot be said about KTM's WP Xplor 48mm fork on this bike. The action and compliance are top- notch with bottom-out control off-the charts for a 500-ish- pound machine. I jump adven- ture bikes fairly often because, when the opportunity presents itself, why not? But none of them really make me want to look for jumps. This one does! I pray for road-erosion-control berms in my direction when I hit a new dirt road on this bike. Generally, landing an ADV bike is an experi- ment. Here, it's proven science with bottom-out worries banished from your concern. It is abso- lutely controlled. It might be too confidence inspiring. Aiding the control confidence, stiffer steering stem material keeps front end connection to the ground insanely tight. The new aluminum steering tube feels like it has zero flex, pushing the front tire where you want it with sharp precision at the sacrifice of a bit of small-bump compliance, maybe. A tradeoff worth it if you need to count on your front tire footprint being on the right side of a rock or root, for sure. But if you're pounding washboards all day, you might want to mute that edge somehow. One of the only negative handling traits carried over on the 890 from the 790 platform is a bit of high-speed sand wash headshake that can sneak up on you. The standard stabilizer doesn't muffle it but bolting on an off-road racing stabilizer has proven effective in the past. Oth- erwise, don't trust this bike to do bomb runs without a little shimmy excitement. Also, take some time dialing in ride height/preload on the shock for your weight and cargo. The PDS shock system is simple and effective but if you get outside a usable range of rider sag, you can start chasing rebound to slow the back end down from kicking over bumps. 890! Now, for 2021 KTM has chiseled out their 790 to an 890 with an actual increase of 90cc. Why? Because the world is moving for- ward with increasingly restrictive emissions regulations and to stay on top of performance bench- marks for what they consider acceptable, KTM is willing to make more displacement hap- pen immediately. The benefit is a cleaner engine for the future and more ADV friendly power delivery for right now. You are seeing this VOLUME 58 ISSUE 12 MARCH 23, 2021 P107 makes throttle response icy calm. You know what Rally does? It rules. That's what it does. KTM's Cornering ABS gets updated software specs and a cleaner activation to reduce feel of intrusion to the rider. The Off- Road ABS disables rear-wheel abs completely and allows slides and rear-wheel control without limit.