The Evil Twin

The perfect real-world sports motorcycle? This very well may be the one!

- Alan Cathcart

KTM has had a smash hit with the 790 Duke, its first-ever parallel-twin model launched two years ago powered by the LC8c (as in, liquid-cooled eight-valve compact) engine. Dubbed ‘the scalpel’ for its focused design and pared-to-the-minimum weight and bulk, it’s provided Europe with a top seller thanks to being competitively priced and super fun to ride. Now KTM has gone one step further — make that several steps — with the debut at this year’s EICMA Milan Show of the 890 Duke R. Lighter, more powerful and even more purposeful than its kid sister, this is clearly aimed at topping the middleweight sector in terms of outright performance and razor edge handling.

In fact, the 890 project dates back to 2012 when KTM engineers first began work on creating the LC8c parallel-twin motor. ‘We always intended to develop a 790 Duke R which was in our planning from the start,’ states Sinke. ‘But then during the development programme it got to the point that we weren’t happy with our prototype of this — it wasn’t enough R, not enough KTM. So we decided to produce just the 790 Duke to start with, and then go full attack on the R, and make it what we believe a KTM Duke R should be, if necessary with a bigger engine. So we basically tore up the spec sheet of the original, and went back to the drawing board to figure out how far we could take that engine and that chassis — and the 890 Duke R is the result.’