KTM has been caught road-testing the 390 Adventure R, a more hardcore variant of its competent single-cylinder adventure motorcycle. The development mule of the 390 Adventure R is very much stripped back and the flat blue-coloured seat does catch one’s attention immediately, so do those rudimentary parts and welds.
Equally attention-grabbing are
the wire-spoked wheels (the front rim is 21 inches for this model) that are
wrapped with tyres that belong on the rough stuff instead of smooth tarmac.
While KTM has not altered the 390 Adventure’s frame for the ‘R’, Team Orange
has decided to swap the regular model’s swingarm for a brand-new and different
piece.
It looks pretty close to the
new type of swingarm that the Austrian firm was testing on its heavily reworked
Duke 125, 200 and 390 as early as April last year. What’s more, the engine
(373 cc unit making 43 BHP and 37 Nm) also has a much more thicker bash plate.
Since the development mule does not have much bodywork, one cannot really
speculate how the final design of the motorcycle will be, but it should not
deviate too much from the current model in the styling department.
What’s obvious is that KTM has
changed the low front fender to a high-set unit. Other components of the bike should
remain the same, but suspension geometry will be tweaked for this particular
model.