Rioters!

What a riot! That was the thought spinning through my head, heart and body as I twisted that throttle harder and harder, trusting those fantastic machines to deliver on their promises as I rode around the Chakan track.

- Avinash Noronha / The Monk

We rode the completely new 2017 KTM Duke 390 and the Duke 250. These bikes are a paradox. Wild, will scare you, yet you are forever in control of its every movement. The Austrians haven’t built a machine, as much as they have built an extension to the rider’s body.

According to the KTM MotoGP factory riders, their RC16 is a fierce bike to ride, needing to be muscled and manhandled around every corner. That maniacal ethos trickles down to the new Dukes! Which are modelled after the most powerful naked ever, the 1290 Super Duke. Earlier, the 390 was a larger version of the 200, not anymore, there is nothing in common between the 200 and 390 now, the 250 and 390 do share a lot of parts though.

The new bike is quite the lean, mean, ‘been on a diet’ kind of a motorcycle. It’s angular and sculpted looks grab you by the (eye)balls and irrespective of whether you like it or not, you surely can’t ignore it. The headlight on the 250 is a traditional halogen, but the 390 gets a LED cluster. The bottom two LEDs are for the high beam, the centre two LEDs are the DRLs, the top two LEDs are the low beam and AHO, while the LEDs on the side are the parking lights.

The 250 gets the console from the older bikes, while the new 390 gets the fancy TFT screen. We’ll get back to the TFT in depth later. Both bikes get beefy open-cartridge forks adjustable by 8mm with plastic shrouds to help keep the dirt out. The front disc brake increases in size to 320 mm on the 390, while the 250 still gets the older 300mm disc. The larger disc ideally should have been standard on both.