Here is my unprofessional opinion about ktm 990’s…
To start with, I am not sure if I’m the right person to talk about ktm’s as I’m not very big fan of them in the first place, but for some reason the old 990’s (and 950’s) always attracted me.. its probably the headlight of it, the shape in general and the tanks that really got me… oh and that -“a bit like enduro” looks! Love it!
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against ktm’s as those are generally really good bikes, obviously with their own problems, but the look of the new ktm’s is just… let’s just say that I’m not a big fan of their FLY FACED headlight design… that’s all…
Going back to 990’s… they are cool bikes, sold one, still have one (for now at least), and to be honest, 2008 with aftermarket exhaust was fun, at first, but it was a little bit on the thirsty side… and somehow it did not deliver enough smiles per miles as it cost me…
the other one, the 2011 one, a bit more fun to ride for some reason and it sounded much better with stock exhaust too… 2008 had quite badly snatchy throttle (throttle tamer mod helped a bit but not enough) and 2011 one – quite decent and not as snatchy (go figure)!
One had Touratech seat, and the other standard, and after trying both for a while – standard seat was a bit better… aint that funny?…
Done some work on both bikes too, and it was ok… nothing too tricky or super annoying, some quality aluminium parts on it with some steel fittings… maybe a bit deep and hard to reach air filter box cover bolts (screws I meant…screws…come on KTM…) and perhaps weird “glove box” and its removal… but that’s about It, I guess…
What I liked about 990’s (apart from the looks of it), that off road it felt quite solid for a big beast, low weight of the tanks did really help with that I suppose and suspension also quite decent (not like I pushed it to the limit, but for an average rider lime me – it felt good enough).
Another thing that I have noticed that plastics felt a bit rubbery, and that’s a really good thing as something that flex – is much harder to break! Haven’t dropped any of them (for a change) so I cannot confirm that thought!
Decided to pass them on because… well I don’t know… I like to have fun for as cheap as possible and running ktm’s with all 100 horses appears to be not the cheapest thing to run… especially if rider is throttle happy!
Well, here you go – love it or hate it!
