Argentinian Miguel Garay is no slouch when it comes to hustling a motorcycle. Regardless if it’s the smooth asphalt of a well-maintained racetrack, the potholed and rough edges of the street, or the dirt stages of the Dakar, Miquel has turned a wheel on all of them.
For Bernard Mascarenhas, riding motorcycles came as a matter of necessity. Having moved to Bangalore, with no prior riding experience and living far from college, the best means of transportation was on two wheels. Little did he know at the time that this hard introduction to motorcycles would become his ultimate passion.
Everyone who’s ever watched a motorcycle stunt show, will have felt that urge; I want to do that! But as easy as it looks, the sort of stunts and tricks guys like Rok Bagoroš bring to the table are incredibly difficult to master. You’ll find that out soon enough once you book a lesson at the Slovenian stunt rider’s Wheelie Academy.
Gran Canaria – beginning of March. Media launch of the new KTM 790 DUKE. The journalists are totally obsessed with the latest addition to the DUKE family. Its razor-sharp handling has earned the 790 its own nickname – “The Scalpel”. The new 790 plugs the gap between the 690, the most powerful single-cylinder on the market, and the “Beast”, the KTM 1290 SUPER DUKE R with more than double the power. The complete genealogy of the 790 was on display in all its glory at a presentation at an aircraft hangar, beginning with the original DUKE, which was replaced as the KTM 640 DUKE “last edition” by the DUKE II exactly 20 years ago.
Freestyle stunt rider Rok Bagoroš began his professional career in 2011 with the KTM 125 DUKE. Since then, he’s performed around the world on every single cylinder DUKE in the range. KTM BLOG caught up with the Slovenian rider to see what he thinks to the recently updated KTM 125 DUKE, KTM 250 DUKE and KTM 390 DUKE and to ask him what he loves about the new generation and what made the previous models so good for stunting.
Product Management are a department within KTM tasked with the difficult responsibility of juggling all the subdivisions within KTM – Marketing, Sales, Production, R&D, Kiska Design, KTM PowerParts … Using their collective experience of motorcycling, engineering and customer behavior, their purpose is to make sure that new or updated KTM products are introduced to the market in a way that satisfies the core values of KTM, hit the initial concept target and excel the expectations of the end user. Managing this mammoth myriad of motorcycle must-haves for the exciting new KTM 790 DUKE was the task of Adriaan Sinke, so the KTM BLOG grabbed a chat with him.
KTM expend a vast amount of resources and cash to enter tracks from Dakar to Doha. Like most companies they take valuable benefit from their racing exploits. We asked the Vice Presidents in R&D at Mattighofen for some more details …
From 125 to 1301cc, the current KTM DUKE range is as wide-ranging and diverse as ever in 2015. The KTM BLOG attended the ‘DUKE IT’ media event in Thailand to ride the six-strong line-up back-to-back and found out more about the many changes that KTM’s first global superstar – the 390 DUKE – receives this year.
Winter Olympic snowboarder Aimee Fuller is passionate about winter sport and motorcycles – now she is official allowed to ride KTM bikes.
The 1290 SUPER DUKE R might have sat at the top of the table at the EICMA show but there were also a couple of other worthy ‘dinner guests’ at the double-tiered KTM stand.
