SuperBike Magazine June 2020

57
If you go back a few years to before 2014 where the
most angry naked would be a 1000cc four cylinder
, the advent of the 1300cc twin KTM caused quite a
stir. Move on a few years and all of a sudden we have
Supercharged Kawasaki’s, V4 Italians in the form of
Ducati and an Aprilia, and the German offering in the
S1000R is also a vicious machine. Yamaha have the MT10
and Suzuki have gone the cheaper route with their 1000
GSX-S which is still a proper machine and value for money
at the same time but pales next to these other naked offerings
which want to rip your head off.
Something that is interesting is that it would seem that
once you have bought a 1290R SuperDuke you get captured
into the world of KTM, because most of the buyers of the
new bikes have been current owners and funnily enough,
not too many of them are trading in their old ones, they
seem to have grown too attached to them.
So first off, what can you expect to pay for a Gen 1,
obviously depending on condition, extras and milage the
price varies between R140 and R160k, then Gen 2 between
R180 and R210k and the latest incarnation will set you back
about R270k. The question is does the extra money justify
the expense, and yes this is a relative question.
The first bike, Gen 1, is a Brute with a capital B and the
name Beast was born from guys riding it, it was and is a
Beast in every sense, Traction Control was mandatory and
was included as a standard feature thank goodness. The
torque available at about 2500rpm was more than what