August 

Glad you enjoyed it :)

Thank you!

Thanks! I agree about the (not my) voice 🙂 These 890s are known for sounding like a bucket of bolts. The only ones that I’ve heard that don’t sound like that are the ones with aftermarket pipes.

Pipe noise just covers up the detonation/knocking/pre-ignition, which IS dangerous to the engine. Have you noticed that the bucket of plastic bolts sounds disappear at 3,000 - 3,500 rpm? That's because the engine is not lugging once up to speed. This lugging/knocking/pre-ignition is due to the H I G H compression ... and need for super high octane to mitigate it; but the octane isn't enough. In cars, the ignition advance curve is held back until higher rpm; apparently, KTM ignition advance is not so sophisticated. Unfortunately, the cure for running at slow speeds is a lower gear (e.g. 1st, rather than 2nd). If throttle control is jerky in the lower gear, more clutch feathering is required. C'est la vie. I think that this is why larger displacement, LOW compression engines, as in the Royal Enfield Himalayan can chug along tractor-like at low speeds; the larger displacement, under-square combustion chambers and LOW compression yields low-end, tractor-like torque ... withOUT the engine knocking/pre-ignition. @@HighDesertHills

@discoveror9576 I gotcha. Yeah, I’ve working on not lugging in general because I know these engines are happier at higher revs. I also wonder about the octane - I always put in 91, per the manual, but with such a relatively small tank, the amount of lower octane gas in the hose when I start pumping could make a difference. Anyway, thanks for looking out 👍

With a low-compression, under-square (stroke longer than bore) torquer, like a Himalayan, one can get away with a LOT more lugging/knocking than with a HIGH-compression KTM engine, likely running a LOT of ignition-advance - to get those high hp numbers. I have a KTM 390 Adventure (similarly high-compression with lots of ignition-advance); so, I'm well familiar with those low-rpm bucket-of-bolts knocking sounds, which I avoid like the plague.@@HighDesertHills

Went out for 60 or so miles this evening, and tried to keep it above 4K the whole time. It’s an adjustment mentally, but it does feel way smoother up there. On my single cylinder 300 Rally, 4K feels like lugging, but with the parallel twin it feels pretty high. Getting used to 7-8K is going to be an even bigger adjustment, but I’m trying to follow F9’s advice. “You paid for the whole tachometer, so use the whole tachometer”