Let me take you back to 2017 and introduce you to a slightly younger, very much dumber version of myself. Back then, I’d been riding bikes for quite a while, mostly off-road and the frequent commute ride, but I decided that it was time for me to step up to a real motorcycle. One with a reasonable amount of power, and one that could get me on the freeway.
I’d been riding my trusty KTM 200 Duke for a little over a year at this point, using it to commute to work on a daily basis. But given the Philippines’ 400cc freeway rule (long story short, only bikes registered as having displacements 400cc and up were allowed access to the freeway), I felt that I was seriously missing out by not having a so-called “big bike.”
So what did I do, I bought myself a KTM 390 Duke, as it was a bike that had 400cc proudly stamped on its registration papers.
It was a used one, albeit very lightly, and by lightly I mean it had less than 1,000 kilometers on the clock, and had been sitting in a neighbor’s garage for the better part of six months. And by sitting, I mean really sitting. No rides, no warm-ups. Heck, the bike wasn’t even on a paddock stand—something that was made clear by the leaky left-side fork leg and the deflated tires.
My 2017 KTM 390 Duke was my first "real" motorcycle.
Nevertheless, I snapped it up for a steal, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed for all the adventures we’d go on. And to a certain extent, the bike was great. I learned tons of valuable lessons on that bike, did a bunch of stupid shit, and got in a whole bunch of trouble.
But it wasn’t all peaches and cream. The bike was riddled with problems. In fact, it’d be a shorter list if you asked me what parts I didn’t have to replace, because hot damn was that thing temperamental. It got me stranded several times with issues ranging from something as simple as a corroded starter relay terminal all the way to a crankshaft position sensor that went kaput.
I had to replace a fork leg because there was an unsolvable leak that kept returning no matter how many times I replaced the seal. The radiator fan conked out. Twice. And the thermostat thought it would be a good idea to not let the ECU know temps were getting too hot for comfort. Oh, and every now and then, the bike would throw an “ECU Failure” error code just just to piss me off. And after cycling the key once or twice, it would start up like nothing happened.
I went on countless adventures with my 390 Duke, but it was riddled with problems.
So yeah, after two years of ownership (and spending nearly half the bike’s value in repairs—a lot of which were not covered by warranty), I decided to say goodbye and good riddance. And since then, I’ve enjoyed tons of bikes from various manufacturers. But of course, there’s nothing quite like your first real bike.
Fast forward to today, and KTM has quite the stellar lineup of bikes. The 390 is better than ever before, the 790 and 890 are extremely well-balanced platforms, and now, the 990 Duke R is poised to raise the bar in the middleweight naked bike segment—if you could even call it a middleweight, that is.
What they are calling it, however, is "The Punisher." It’s a name that’s borderline cringe and borderline scary. Plus, I’m pretty sure that name’s trademarked by Marvel or something. But hey, I don’t make the rules here.
Needless to say, all this makes me feel…well, confused. Somewhere between mad, sad, and frustrated. On the one hand, it reminds me of all the fun I had with my 390 Duke, filling me with a deep sense of melancholy. It makes me imagine just how much more fun I’d have on a machine like the 990 Duke R—especially now that my riding skills have advanced exponentially since my KTM 390 Duke days.
But on the other hand, it makes me mad because I want this bike so much. However, at the same time, I can’t get over the trauma of my KTM ownership experience. Heck, that thing made me think of quitting riding motorcycles altogether.
Yes, that thing scarred me. Possibly for life.
Now, if you asked me if I’d like to take the new KTM 990 Duke R for a spin, I’d strap my helmet on and already be sitting on the bike before I could answer you. But if you asked me if I would buy it—I’d most likely say no.
And KTM’s current situation wouldn’t help my answer either. We know that the brand’s been going through quite a rough patch lately. A lot of you would agree that KTM has sort of lost its way in the sense that it’s stuffing its bikes with so much tech and watering down what it’s known for—Ready To Race and ready to rip your freakin’ arms off—in the process.
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