Another "ride along" video. Footage from my most recent exploration of Arkansas backwoods on a 2023 KTM 890 Adventure R and Ducati Desert X. More review and comparison videos coming soon.
My favorite area to ride. Have been back in on some of that on my 890 and watched my buddy beat his SuperTenere through it. Would love to get that track from you.
I'm only about 1/3 through and this looks awesome. Absolutely my favorite kind of terrain on a midsized ADV bike. Edit: just finished. That looks like an amazing route. I'd like to take that on either my DX or KTM 500.
Great question... I did not trust the E07's for the stuff I wanted to ride, switched out for RallZ. I've been pretty happy with them, but I'm only at about 500 miles on the bike so far, had it 3 weeks.
Great riding from both of you. I like that DesertX :) Out of curiosity, which website were you talking about that has the route? I'd love to check it out!
It's fairly subjective, but in my opinion, Ducati is slightly better on the road. The KTM is still great in the twisties, but the Desert X feels more at home there. Where the KTM shines is off-road. The suspension is really really good out of the box. It will take quite a bit of money to get the suspension on the Ducati up to the KTM level for aggressive off-road riding.
So I actually went from the AT to the 1290 to the 890... still have the 1290 / 890 combo... for now. They are all great bikes. The 890 feels significantly smaller and lighter and is a lot more confidence inspiring in the technical stuff than the bigger bikes. If I had to choose only one ADV bike today, I'd go 890, but I'm still processing. I plan to do a pretty thorough video comparison when I can get the time.
Im picking up my 890r tomorrow, coming from a 17 Africa Twin. So far, just from the test ride the 890 seems exactly as I expected in terms of weight and power. I rode the AT through a decent amount of difficult terrain and can't wait to get the 890 out there, IMO it's a huge improvement over the AT. However, Im disappointed with the 890r 6th gear cruising rpm (70mph ~4500rpm) I had the same complaint with the AT, although I think its a little better, closer to 4k rpm. Id change sprockets but I didnt want 1st gear being any taller than it already is (on either bike)
