LONG TERMER: KTM 790 Duke

MoreBikes Editor Ross has been riding the KTM for over six months now and has clocked up a few thousand miles. Here’s his latest thoughts…

The KTM 790 Duke is built in China. Up to now, I’ve not really mentioned it. Plenty of stuff we own and consume is built over in the Far East, and yet plenty of you have an awful lot to say about bikes built in that neck of the woods. I understand some of the concern, though any criticism about the quality of the build is becoming less and less pertinent with each passing year. There’s still some rough stuff out there, but if you stick to the larger, more established brands that aren’t simply focused on building cheap, you’ll not go far wrong.

One that’s come out on top is CFMOTO. They’ve been around for quite a few years now, making a name for themselves by knocking out value-for-money middleweight and small-capacity motorcycles. That’s probably why KTM decided to join forces with them back in 2011, before entering into a joint venture in 2017.

There’s evidently a lot of trust there, and the CEO of KTM, Stefan Pierer, has said exactly that. “We built up a very good trust level with CFMOTO. They are a very serious Chinese company. We’ve now arranged to do a 50/50 venture on KTM products made in China for sale worldwide. I’m happy to attach the KTM name to something made by them.”

And that’s what happened, with CFMOTO recently handed the designs to the previously defunct KTM 790 Duke, which was dropped from the range in favour of the 890. It’s largely the same as the old model, minus a few minor tweaks. KTM and CFMOTO have made some subtle changes, including revising the engine (with 20% more rotating mass to help improve handling and stability).

It’s a brilliant motor. Fun, flexible and free-revving with enough bite and a desire to be worked hard. It’ll have no qualms holding its own with bigger and ‘more capable’ bikes on the road.

The chassis is spot on, too. It’s unchanged for 2023, which means there’s the same decidedly budget-focused 43mm WP Apex forks up front and Apex shock at the rear. They’re set up pretty much perfectly for the bike, with a definite focus on performance over comfort. A pair of radial-mount four-piston calipers help to haul it up to a halt, offering plenty of bite and more than enough feel.

It’s near on impossible to ever really know a bike without owning it, but six months together is a pretty good amount of time to get a good feel for it. As it goes, I’ve been seriously impressed with the CFMOTO-built KTM 790 Duke. It’s sharp, agile and surprisingly easy to ride – essentially offering all the good stuff that made the original 790 Duke a winner. Only now it’s made by CFMOTO in China instead of KTM in Austria.

Importantly, the build quality of the new 790 Duke looks just as good as the previous generation, and I’ve had absolutely no issues in my three-and-a-bit thousand miles. The older 790s have been known to have a few reliability issues, though we’d like to hope most of the niggles have been ironed out for the ‘new’ version.

Ultimately, if this new deal helps the Austrian firm keep costs down enough so that they can continue pricing it seriously competitively (there’s a deal on at the moment which’ll snag you one for under £7000), we’re all for it. A world in which more people ride this bike can’t ever be a bad thing, I reckon…