2016 KTM 1290 SUPER DUKE GT

How can a motorcycle be soft and approachable, but also sharp and brutal?

It depends on what you’re comparing it to, and also on the sophistication of its electronics. The 1290 Super Duke GT represents the softer side of a seriously hard-edged motorcycle family, and it’s only the brilliance of its combined Keihin and Bosch brain power which makes it so civilised. Because, make no mistake, the GT retains all the brute force of the Super Duke R from which it was derived, but somehow delivers it in a softly rounded package of useability. Like meticulously prepared lunacy, lovingly delivered in easy to chew lumps of grunty goodness. I can still taste it now.

The Mattighofen mob’s first true road-only tourer is still very much a Kiska-designed KTM in the modern mould, and so has all the aggressive angularity, sharp edges, and Vegemite-effect looks which identify its styling as Austria’s finest. But in comparison to its naked non-identical twin, the Super Duke R, there has been a subtle softening of the all-round ride experience for the GT. And this has been done miraculously and thankfully without blunting the Super Duke’s signature of savage performance which, as anyone who has ridden one knows, gloriously walks the line between silly and sublime.

READ THE FULL STORY IN THE CURRENT AMCN ISSUE ON SALE 12 MAY 2016