This offering to the Motorcycling Gods by KTM is indeed a thing of bone, muscle and menace. The feeling I used to get before a speedway race – excitement / want to / serious sh!t’s about to happen, this bike would do it to me every time I walked to it.There is no antidote for a severe dose of LUST – wants one – real bad.KTM is going for the masculine, rough, unfinished looked (like the 5 o’clock shadow on a macho man) blended in with hints of futurism along with industrial and aerodynamic cues. An interesting mix, but in this an Italian would not have helped. Italians are not known for the overly masculine, rough, unfinished, industrial look. The more mechanical Germans are to an extent though.Nope, Italians, along with the French, are known more for the speedo look – not the look KTM was shooting for. I think the KTM looks meaner than anything out of Italy. Perhaps not prettier, but meaner. This bike was made to put foot to arse, and I think the designers nailed the style. It works for me.Oh, and one other thing. For the love of all that is good and holy, two things must now happen:1. Norm G. and mickey both have to buy one of these Teutonic space shuttles (mickey’s being the traditional KTM orange model shown above, while Norm G. gets that wild red, white and blue “Captain America” version we saw a couple of months ago), along with a pair of Go-Pro units.
2. After attaching the Go-Pros to their faux mohawk-bedecked Rossi “Mugello” Replica AGV lids, they must then film their very own version of the Big Sur TT…and none of this mamby-pamby time-trials wussification stuff, either. Nope, Our Heroes will set out together from the parking lot of Hearst Castle, banging bars all the way up Hwy 1 to Bixby Bridge. The winner won’t receive anything as crass as money, oh no. Nope, instead, he will receive spiritual enlightenment, for starters, plus his pick of his favorite Monster umbrella girl for a weekend bacchanal in the otter tank at the Monterey Aquarium.
This may be the first full-zoot, no apologies, no “tuned for midrange” (meaning: detuned) naked superbike to come down the pike. The Tuono comes close. The B-King wasn’t really a sportbike. Buell? Ummm…no. The naked version of BMW’s S1000RR hasn’t arrived yet, and we don’t know whether it too will receive the usual neutering during its transformation from Godzilla to Rodan.
I always expected hp-monger Kawasaki to be the first major manufacturer to do it, and if not Team Green then perhaps the Boys from Bologna, but nope, it looks like KTM beat everyone to the punch.
Kudos to those psychotic Austrians and their massive “melons” for stepping up and producing this bike. – Tom Sykes
Looking at that enormous text-based information cluster, though, one question does spring to mind…
I’m all in. Many of us looked in the mirror this morning after years of sun and wind pulverizing our faces as we rode into the sunset and asked ourselves the same thing! It actually looks a bit like a hawk racing down to sink its talons into its prey! Arrrgh! This would draw a crowd even in the Harley parking lot! This thing is so hot, you’d stop at a light, raise your visor and the beautiful lady in the car next to you would give you the “Meow!” Look. To which you, with that idle rumbling would reply, “Oh Behave!”
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