KTM 790 Adventure R vs. 950 Adventure

KTM’s 790 Adventure R is fast becoming a darling of the adventure bike world, particularly for off-road adventure fans. So what better way to celebrate it than to pitch it against its great-grandpa, the original KTM 950 Adventure.

This is injectors versus carburetors; ABS versus braking feel; traction control versus throttle control—two bikes a decade and a half apart built to do the same job. But wait a minute, are they? Sure, the 790 Adventure R and 950 Adventure are both built to be twin-cylinder adventure bikes with a strong off-road bias (compared to the rest of the market), but they go about the task in very different ways. Is the old bike too uncompromising, too aggressive to work as a modern adventure bike? Or has the new 790 sold its soul in search of accessibility for riders who aren’t either A) awesome or B) insane?

Finding out was so much fun that the two-day test spilled over into a week’s worth of riding, with no rider wanting to hand either bike back. Once the new bike had eaten all the tires Bridgestone could send us and the 950 had emptied all the fuel cans, staggering around trying to suck the dregs from the drip trays, we were forced to stop screwing about and put words on the page. Although, maybe we should go ride that last trail again just to be sure…

VIDEO: 2019 KTM 790 Adventure R First Ride Review

Before the 950 ever made it to a showroom, it was hauling ass through the desert, winning Dakar, and, it would be disrespectful to forget, taking its toll on some of the best riders in the world. The 950 is a tall, hard, and fast rally bike pretending to be an adventure bike, when everything else in the genre was soft, comfortable, and forgiving. It’s a hard bastard, a seasoned desert racer trying to get into a gentlemen’s automobile racing awards dinner by sticking on a posh suit and brushing the dust out of its beard on the way in. Every manufacturer has at some time pulled the “Dakar DNA” card out for their new adventure bike, but nobody stuck to the blueprint quite as closely as KTM did with the original 950.

Look up “known issues for 2003 KTM 950 Adventure” and it’s clear that the first run of production bikes carried the racebike’s servicing requirements to the showrooms too. But initial production niggles aside, if you lined up all the big-capacity, multi-cylinder adventure bikes from 2004 and rode them in fourth gear at a 2-foot-deep drainage gulley, only the rider on the KTM would be leaving with his collarbones intact.

When it came out, nothing could touch it for riding flat out off-road. Thanks in part to this, the 950 Adventure has garnered a cult following that makes religious extremists look like part-time hobbyists. To naysay the 950 KTM generates a defensive response from its followers so vehement, so damning that it’s a good thing none of them have the access codes for the nukes.

They may be prone to the odd hilarious mechanical hiccup (the bikes, not the nukes), but there is such an army of knowledgeable people available to offer advice on the best route of repair, that even breaking one becomes a good experience. “Huh, the battery has gone flat and the bike isn’t charging. Oh look, someone has written a fully illustrated step-by-step guide for diagnosing, then repairing the stator when this happens.” I came to the conclusion that 950 owners all ride like heroes, and when they inevitably have to take a few weeks off to let the broken bones heal, they spend that time writing repair guides.

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The 790 Adventure R doesn’t yet have the same kind of following; it can’t, it’s too new. But it has set a new benchmark for off-road performance on a multi-cylinder adventure bike, just like the 950 did, so give it time. At a time where adventure bikes had been relentlessly gaining weight, the arrival of the 790 was a breath of sub-450-pound (well, with half a tank of fuel) fresh air. Since then Yamaha has given us the light, simple Ténéré 7 and Honda has even shaved some kilos off its Africa Twin.

The 790 clearly made a statement of function over form too; its low-slung side tanks might not be pretty, but they serve an important purpose. The spec is maybe not as high as the top-tier adventure bikes, but it forgoes some of those luxuries to focus on the riding side of things. Multistage traction control, two-way quickshifter, throttle maps, off-road ABS—all useful items in a rider’s artillery and, thankfully, all easy to access and set up. The only two riding modes you’ll find on the old 950 adventure are “working” and “not working.”

Side by side, the two KTMs share the same, er, unique styling ethos—looks that can hardly be described as pretty but are purposeful and deliberate. The old bike looks bigger, thanks to the slab-sided bodywork, but in reality it’s actually a bit narrower than the 790. When you consider them next to each other—both with low-slung fuel tanks, both with tall WP suspension—it’s surprising they ride so differently at low speed.

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The 790 whirrs into life and its rider dives immediately into setup mode, scanning through the sophisticated display. On the 950, the old-style tach needle sweeps around next to a seriously dated-looking orange LCD dash. Choke on and the 950 clatters into life, the terrifying rattles settling down quickly to a barking, angry exhaust note that sounds for all the world like KTM made its 950 V-twin by welding two 450 motocross engines at right angles to each other.

We take it for granted with modern bikes that we can just hit the starter and leave them to manage their own cold-start strategy while we fiddle with gloves and helmet straps. I’m sure the rose-tinted nostalgia would wear off soon enough, but it was strangely satisfying balancing the choke lever and revs, coaxing the 950 into an idle steady enough to look after itself. Anyone with kids will know the feeling—the games and tricks required to get Little Precious off to sleep, one wrong move meaning you have to start the whole procedure from scratch.

For anyone who has been riding bikes for a while, there’s a reassuring familiarity to the 950. The throttle responds directly, aggressively, but exactly as you expect it to. The carb-fed motor snaps at the leash through town, begging you to open those butterflies and let it charge up through the rev range. The 790 is less direct, the electronic throttle smoothing and masking your inputs. Too much gas at low rpm on the old bike has it juddering and shaking in protest, whereas the 790 remains calm, smooth, and sophisticated. The payback for this is that it takes a while to learn the 790’s throttle, to know when it’s going to peg you back and when it’s going to give you all the power you asked for.

The clutches on the two bikes echo the same sentiment: The 950 heavier and direct, while the 790 is lighter but with a little less feel. In fairness to the 790, the standard 950 clutch is known for being a little finicky, but this one has an upgraded clutch slave cylinder (a common mod) so had an unfair advantage. The power figures aren’t worlds apart between the two, the 950 claiming 102 hp to the 790’s 94 hp. The 790 tips the Cycle World scales at 470 pounds though, 37 lighter than the 950. Which highlights two things: One is just how light the new 790 is for a twin-cylinder adventure bike, and the other is how, even now, the 950’s credentials stand up well on paper.

Cruising through villages, the two bikes are not so much chalk and cheese as Dwayne Johnson and Daniel Craig. The 950 is all swagger and noise, popping wheelies off speed bumps and skidding up to intersections. It is no more possible to ride the 950 sensibly than it is for The Rock to blend into a crowd anywhere outside of Venice Beach. The 790, meanwhile, sits in a high gear, cruising along all quiet and genteel, but you know that any minute it is going drop three gears and start a fight.

Attacking a mountain pass, the 790 has the old bike covered at every apex, feeling more confident and more sure-footed. On a good sunny day, the difference is less pronounced, but on a poor road surface or wet day, when you need all the confidence you can get, the 950 never quite feels as trustworthy pitching into turns. Both bikes were running the same Bridgestone Adventurecross AX41 tires but the front end on the 790 seems to do a better job of pretending to be a road bike. If you attacked the road, braking hard into turns and firing out the other side, the 950 started to feel better. Even more so when you discover just how easy it is to power-slide in the wet. Ah, there goes another tire.

For day-to-day riding, I fell in love with the 950’s glove box and its ability to house multiple bags of candy, along with decent wind protection for my 5-foot-8 frame. The smooth, easy-to-cruise engine on the 790 was a blessing on early morning half-asleep rides, along with the safety net of ABS and traction control. But either bike constantly nagged to take the long route home, the one with all the puddles and that big, rocky climb. Both share an infectious enthusiasm that always makes you take that one extra trail. Owning one is like having a live-in buddy who always leads you astray. The 790 would say, “Fancy riding for three hours to find some snowy mountains, riding all day, and then home again that night?” to which the 950 inevitably replies, “Sure, but only if tomorrow we can do it all again and try and beat our time.”

Head onto the dirt and the 790 will nurture you, look after you, cover up your mistakes, and flatter your shortcomings. The 790 builds confidence; the 950 runs on it. On a good day on the 950 you feel invincible. Using that exquisite throttle feeling, responsive engine, and well-controlled suspension to live out your rally fantasies. But show weakness and it’ll pounce on you. Get it stuck somewhere slippery, somewhere awkward and it stands poking fun at you. Suddenly it feels too tall, too top-heavy, and too angry to help out. Treat the 950 with an air of bravado, convince it that you are in charge, and it charges along with you, delivering an ability to go stupidly fast off road that few adventure bikes then or now can match.

The 790 Adventure R however, sits on the tail of the 950, carrying the same speed, but never quite feeling like it’s working as hard. On the trails we rode, the outright pace of each bike was eerily similar but the 950 always left you with a higher pulse rate. At the other end of the speed scale, the 790 is an absolute joy picking its way through slippery, technical terrain with an ease that the 950 cannot ever match. The 790’s lower center of gravity, better steering lock, and smoother power delivery at low rpm all combine to make it manageable and forgiving when the going is slow and tricky. There is no bothering with slow and tricky on the 950—you try for a few yards then give up, open the gas, bully your way through, and hope for the best.

If you want to be frightened, if you want a bike that offers a riding experience not dissimilar to blasting Baja rooftop-down in a trophy truck with your pants on fire, then a KTM 950 Adventure is just the thing for the job. But in all measurable ways (except outright power), the 790 is a better bike. It’s lighter, higher spec’d, and easier to ride. It still has that excitable edge that makes it a KTM; it still encourages you to turn the throttle that little bit harder, to make the most of what is still class-leading suspension performance. But where the 790 actually makes its difference known is back on the pavement. It no longer has the fish-out-of-water feeling the 950 can give you on the road, particularly when both fitted with knobby tires. It feels planted, happy to be ridden fast, slow, and everything in between. It is still an incredible off-road bike, but now it has the road credentials to be a formidable all-round adventure bike.

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The 950 was and still is an incredible adventure bike. And if we bring budget into the equation, they are an absolute bargain right now, providing you’re prepared to pull out the spanners more than once a month. People who love the 950 Adventure do so to the point of fanatical insanity and, after spending so much time riding one for this test, I began to understand why. It looks like the late, great Fabrizio Meoni’s Dakar racebike—just like it. It goes like a speedboat full of drugs over any terrain you point it at and, frankly, I can’t remember the last time a bike repeatedly scared the pants off me like this one does. Just when you’re feeling invincible, the handlebars snap side to side like a terrier puppy killing its latest chew toy. You stop to catch your breath and it then goes into a sulk and doesn’t start because of reason number 24 on the known-issues list. By this point it’s too late. You’ve already started making excuses for it, as you’re mentally listing other bikes on eBay to make room in the shed for the mad, one-eyed Austrian lunatic. If anyone wants me, I’ll be in the garage cleaning electrical terminals and safety-wiring flywheel bolts…