2024 KTM 390 Duke: First free service & 2,250 km ride update

We ended up visiting Dholavira, Great Rann of Kutch and some beautiful coastal villages of Gujarat like Porbandar and Mangrol.

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First service and a long ride touring update

Penning down a brief ownership review and a slightly long ride update on completing my 2 months and 3500kms with the KTM Duke 390 2024

First free service update:

With the year end break approaching, I booked the service online through KTM app with Ahuja Andheri Service centre in early December. I had a few issues to report as follows:

• Clutch lever felt quite hard while down shifting. This happened randomly
• After cancelling the left indicator manually, the blinkers would stop but indicator warning continued on the console wrongly. Had to switch on right indicator every time and then cancel it to stop the incorrect warning on console. This meant I ended up unintentionally signalling right turn for a moment
• Squeaking sound from suspension over bumps
• Engine stall at slow speeds
• Chain rusting
• Software update to latest version

The service was a swift one with the bike being delivered within two hours and an invoice of INR 1,930 (oil, filter, chain lube, consumables). However most of the above issues baring point 5 and 6 remained unfixed. I couldn’t test everything properly while taking delivery in the limited test riding space. I plan to take it back to them soon with some more critical issues to fix that have cropped up during the long ride as mentioned below

Long ride update:

With no dedicated destination, two other riding buddies and I started the ride and we ended up visiting Dholavira, Great Rann of Kutch and some beautiful coastal villages of Gujarat like Porbandar and Mangrol.

We covered 2,250 kms on this ride in 5 days and the following was my experience overall:

• The engine and chassis combination is simply marvellous. The lightweight nature of the bike and that addictive power delivery gets you the best of both worlds. The beautiful concoction of just about enough power to scare the sh*t out of you if you are not careful at times and that sublime handling in almost all conditions is something I wish everyone should experience once.
• I had read reviews of how one feels fatigued and tired from touring on the vibey and consciously demanding / engaging nature of KTM 390s. While I agree to some extent that this bike needs attention but it has been pretty accommodating and I didn’t feel too fatigued even after 700-800 kms in a day. I feel this has a lot to do with the lightweight nature of the bike as it hardly takes any effort to manoeuvre it around in traffic and it is razor sharp to slightest of your sub-conscious inputs. The shortened wheel-base and rake angle really worked wonders IMO. It almost feels like a toy bike at times with that low seat height. But one silly twist of right wrist is good enough to get you back to your senses while the traction control is working overtime to forgive you for your misadventures
• The engine is amazingly refined at certain RPMs between 4-6k and cruising is effortlessly smooth at 100-120 on 6th gear with ample power on tap for overtakes even without downshifting. No buzzing hands were felt even after 150-200 kms of almost non-stop high speed rides. Things do get really thrilling post 7-8k RPM.
• The adjustable suspension on both ends is pretty neat and I ended up adjusting it to my liking for highway and off-road duties on the go. Even in the softest of settings, the bike is still pretty agile on highways
• The fuel tank range is another feather in the cap towards the touring abilities of this machine. With full tank, 450kms of indicative range was always displayed on the consolde and I ended up refuelling only between 350-400 kms once the fuel reserve warnings popped up. No false warnings ever on fuel indicator which is very important while touring.
• For those who like the stats, 26.8 KMPL was the overall mileage during this ride with average riding speed of 66km/hr over 34 hours of riding in 5 days
• The rider seat is hard and not touring friendly which is why I had my old air cushion seats which solved the problem for most part. 2-3 hours of non-stop riding was almost irritation free
• The Metzeler tyres are getting better I feel as they are getting older. The cornering grip is pretty confidence inspiring and they don’t loose grip easily on gravels and sandy roadside which we found in abundance in Gujarat. In comparison I’m finding the Apollo Alpha H1s slightly lacking now in terms of corner grip but maybe that has to do with the CBR250r chassis. I agree to the thoughts mentioned by most reviewers about these tyres being more than adequate for most use cases unless one intends to use the bike mainly for track riding
• I have always believed in getting 80-90% of stopping power from front brakes and that is how I have accustomed my riding style over the years. However, I feel front brakes on my KTM 390 are slightly less responsive in comparison to the rear ones. As a result, I have ended up triggering rear ABS multiple times while the front ABS has never been triggered so far during any hard braking scenarios. Have to get this rechecked once or I may just need to readjust my braking abilities more consciously biased towards front brakes. I did try the adjustable brake lever to all possible combinations to improve my reach to front brake and the response thereby but so far very limited success has been achieved.
• The chain tension is holding up well and a quality chain lube (I use OKS chain lube) is lasting well over 700-800 kms.
• I used an old Cramster magnetic tank bag and a Viaterra Elements tail bag. The combination was more than sufficient for one week of touring requirements and although it looked difficult, the small exposed portion of metal tank was able to hold the tank bag really well even at high triple digit speeds. Bike looks compact but has space for practical stuff
• This may seem odd but I felt the wind-blast to be lesser upto 120 kmph in comparison to my CBR250r and I only felt the need to tuck in as I inched towards the top end of this bike’s capability. Came back and rode my CBR250r to reconfirm this. The weird extended tank shrouds are doing some aerodynamics jugglery I suppose
• While the ground clearance is abundant with 180mm, I ended up scraping the underbelly on some average off-road terrain while reaching the famed Chipper point in Dholavira. This was largely my fault as I was over-confident on the ground clearance which caught me a bit off-guard. It’s off-road performance is nowhere close to my Xpulse 200 4V off-road but that’s not a fair comparison anyway. In isolation I really liked the handling characteristic of Duke 390 off-road.
• While we were riding in comparatively cold environment, I had no problems with heating at all even in slow moving city traffic during afternoons. The coolant temperature hardly went above 90 degrees and I hardly ever felt the radiator fans going crazy.
• Mirrors are decent enough but need to find some better alternative or mirror extenders for touring
• There are lots of electronic features on offer but I hardly ever used anything. I didn’t even change the riding modes and completed the entire ride on ‘Street’ mode. The rain mode is really not fun even in city but I guess it’ll have its use during rainy days.
• Having ridden most single cylinder sub 400cc bikes in India, I could say this is a very promising candidate for street+touring duties. The new 390adventure with this engine should be a really good option so please wait for it if someone is eyeing for a new touring bike below 400cc. While the Triumph 400s are really good in their own regard especially the Scrambler, I don’t regret cancelling my bookings for both the 400s and taking a leap of faith on this mini monster of a bike.

Now onto some minor and major disappointments

• The vibey/rattling nature of bike did create some problems. Few components like the front number plate, right mirror, silencer pipe cover at front started getting loose and rattled at certain RPMs. Some easy DIYs fixed these but have to be conscious for these irritants on long ride.
• The slipper clutch has become slightly unpredictable after the service. Most downshifts are butter smooth but the upshifts are jerky and felt rigorously at times even though I used the quick shifter only at high RPMs. I ended up using the clutch lever for over 50% of the ride.
• The stock headlights and horns are terribly useless. Glad that I had my Maddox auxiliary lights which were crucial for the night rides although they need better positioning to improve the light spread.
• There is a very irritating whining/grinding sound when I engine brake at about 100-80 kmph. This is very audible even under my nicely insulating AGV K6 helmet with earplugs. Based on google search and some YouTube videos, I read this issue may arise due to over tightening of chain slack, the slipper clutch components doing its duties to avoid locking the rear wheel while downshifting aggressively, new wheel bearings settling in etc. The chain slack is within the limits and the bearings should have settled in nicely after 3.5k kms but the noise just keeps bugging me everytime. Have to recheck this with SVC.
• While returning back, noticed a small drop of oil leak and to my horror saw half the front left engine side drenched in oil and dust particles. Showed this to some local mechanics who confirmed its a busted seal somewhere on engine casing but nothing to worry about as long as the oil levels were holding up. I kept cleaning the engine underbelly to find the source of leak but couldn’t locate it. Luckily the oil level stayed above the required levels and the console showed no distress signals ever. The bike performance was good so decided to get this fixed in Mumbai rather than experimenting in Gujarat

Will report further after my visit to SVC in the next few days. Happy to answer any questions meanwhile

Some pictures from the trip

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