KTM 1190 Adventure Revisited: 283 Mile Update, Cooked Thighs and Fueling Scares.

After the excitement of a weekend full of racing, I had to get out on a bike and ride for myself. Since I currently have a stable full of ponies to choose from, the choice of which one to ride was a bit difficult. That was until I decided to go North in search of adventure and fried fish making the choice easy.

Since parking my friend's KTM 1190 Adventure in my garage while he is on deployment to exotic foreign lands (been there and done that, even have the T-shirt), I haven't done more than putt-putt around the block. I decided that the KTM would be the perfect ride for my plan and the plan would be the perfect way to get a big chunk of the break-in miles knocked out. In the pic above you can see that the KTM has finally been christened by a bug gut sacrifice.

Getting in some serious seat time on the 1190 allowed me to really evaluate all aspects of the bike. From the good to the great as well as the not so hot and the absolutely way too hot (I'll get to that in a minute). 

First off the seat. It is firm and wide making for an initially comfortable mount. It narrows really nicely to the front for standing and riding the pegs off road. The seating position on the bike overall is very open and upright. The bad is the transition between the wide, flat part of the seat to the narrow front. There is a hard line that can just be barley seen in the pic above. That line dug into my legs over the course of the 230 mile day. If it was rounded a bit more I think it would be fine.

Power delivery with the big twin engine is really controllable both at low throttle and more aggressive throttle twisting. There is no low speed bucking that I get with the V-Strom and that I noticed on some of the Ducatis I test rode. I used both the "Street" and "Sport" throttle settings and only find the difference to be slight. The gear ratios are very well spaced. I could cruise at 80 mph at 5000 rpm in 6th gear, but could switch that to 5th and ride around just as well in freeway traffic. Trying to keep the revs under 6250 when doing freeway on-ramps was a challenge as the bike wanted to do more. The nanny light came on twice to remind me that I have a lower rpm limit during the break in period.

The KTM gauges are very, very informative. I had a plethora of data available between the two sides of the gauge pod. Switching around using the left thumb control allowed me to see oil and air temp, tire pressure, throttle and suspension settings, suspension load settings, trip miles and riding time and much more. I did change the throttle mode setting on the fly while on the road. To set the throttle response settings while riding you will have to completely close the throttle. Make sure you do it on a flat, straight portion of the road. If shifting to "sport" or "street", the suspension settings switch to match. When I shifted to the "comfort" suspension setting on the freeway ride home, the suspension stayed in "street" mode. Very cool.

Not so cool was the heat coming from directly under my legs at times. Since I had air and engine oil temps available, I was able to put together some trends using the data. The ride I did had the outside air temps swing from 64˚F all the way to 99˚F. When the air temp was lower the engine oil temp would hover right around 174˚F. When the air temps were around 84˚F, the oil temp would be in the 185˚F range. Once oil temps got up to around 190˚F you could really feel the heat coming from the rear cylinder head area under the seat. At times I thought I might have had the seat heater on. In slow speed traffic or slow roads with higher air temps, the oil temp reached 205˚F which really sent heat out and up my thighs from the engine area. I have never had this problem with the V-Strom. The Strom engine is half the size of the KTM, but has a front mounted oil cooler. The Strom also has plastic body panels in the same under thigh area keeping the heat from getting out while the KTM is open.

I'm not sure if it is the culprit, but the black, finned square thing in the middle of this pic was putting out some heat as well. The silver plastic scoop(?) on the side of the bike also seemed to channel air straight to my inner thigh. Once I got home I felt the cylinder head of the rear cylinder and found it to be warm obviously. It wasn't excessive, but what was oddly hot was the frame member in the area. It was hot enough to surprise me when I felt it. With the riding terrain available here in California where temps swing over 30˚F in the space of a few hours, this could get annoying. 

Another annoying issue was this. Take a close look at the ODO reading and them look at the indicated tank level. Notice something fishy? I was going to head to my favorite Lompoc Fish and Chips place for lunch when I finally did the math after looking carefully at the ODO reading and the fuel tank level. The pic above was taken when I stopped for gas. 196 miles and still a full tank? I decided to head for the gas station and skip lunch.

Yep, the fuel gauge sender is wonky or stuck. Guess I'll have to take the bike to the shop sooner than I expected. I noted the ODO reading while stopped for gas and I'll just keep an eye on it until I get the bike checked out. With a 6.1 gallon tank I still had a few more miles before pushing, but that was too close for comfort. Some very quick Google searching shows that this is a known issue, but can get tricky if the sender fixes itself on the way to the shop. Good thing I took pics.

All in all it was a great ride. 283 of the 624 miles of the break in period are complete. A couple more rides like this (well maybe not EXACTLY like this one) should just about do it. As it is the tires are scrubbed and I have a good feel for the different throttle and suspension settings available to me. I will take the bike out for some smoother twisty bits to really feel out the "sport" settings. If I can find some dirt roads, I'll give them a go as well. 

Come back for more of the KTM 1190 Adventure soon.

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