If you’ve just read my report on the mighty 1290 Super Adventure you’ll realise it left me with a bit of a frown, for many reasons. However, on the next day of KTM South Africa’s new 2015 Adventure bikes launch, we were thrown into the saddle of the new ‘baby’ Adventure option and my frown was instantly turned into a smile as wide as a hippo’s bottom.

There’s no denying that KTM are waging war in our highly competitive South African ‘big-bore’ adventure market. Not satisfied with their pair of 1190s, KTM has just released their biggest, and I mean ‘biggest’ in more ways than one, adventure bike of all time. And guess whom they’re attempting to take market share from? Yes, you’re correct and go buy yourself a large bag o’ apples, because it’s undeniably BMW, or more specifically BMW’s 1200 Adventure, also a massive motorcycle, so let KTM’s ‘massive attack’ begin.

What’s with all this “R” malarkey relating to motorcycles, specifically? It seems every manufacturer has to have a model of some sort or another with the “R” placed somewhere in its model name. Am I right or what? But it’s not a bad thing, far from it, because it makes the new owner feel like they’ve bought something “R”ather special which either evokes madness from the youth, or makes us aging motorcyclists feel their “youthful years” are still with them and not lost in old photos and pub phrases like; “Do you know how fast I used to be?” etc, etc…