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KTM Duke 200 Review

protokultur said:
Cuz the Honda is $4k and even KTM mini-bikes cost more than that?
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JO EBRMC said:
Since it is built in India, I'd imagine it would be fairly cheap. Perhaps more than the CBR but I'd be willing to bet there are a lot of people who would pay a bit more for a significantly better looking bike.
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sliverstorm said:
Why do you think it is too big?

I never said the MSF should replace their bikes with 350s. A 250, or hell even a 125 is enough for tooling around a parking lot at less than 40mph.
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And that's about all it's good for. It's not about the bike, nor the rider- it's about the other drivers. Masses of street-legal sub-250s have been woefully absent from the streets for decades, replaced by twist-and-go 600s and 1000s. Drivers are now accustomed to this. I fear the onslaught of bringing small bikes into the folds of traffic with uneducated and unprepared drivers. The number of green-light rear end collisions are going to go through the roof. Mark my words.

Prabhat said:
Duke 200 beats CBR 250R in performance tests. If CBR 250R can be ridden on freeways, so can Duke 200.
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Just because it can, doesn't mean it should.

Sure, on paper everything is up to snuff and the bike is legal to run on the freeways. However the 200 is going to have a tough time breaking 65, putting said rider of the machine in the slow lane with all the big rigs, blind grandpas, and fast-and-furious slalom racers, plus all traffic coming onto and off of the freeway. Any truly freeway-capable bike must be able to achieve 75 mph quite readily, and maintain it for at least 15 minutes without sounding like a B-2 bomber humping a paint shaker by the end of the run.
 
bluenoser said:
And that's about all it's good for. It's not about the bike, nor the rider- it's about the other drivers. Masses of street-legal sub-250s have been woefully absent from the streets for decades, replaced by twist-and-go 600s and 1000s. Drivers are now accustomed to this. I fear the onslaught of bringing small bikes into the folds of traffic with uneducated and unprepared drivers. The number of green-light rear end collisions are going to go through the roof. Mark my words.
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That's sort of silly. There are more scooters on the road than there will ever be Duke 200s and we don't have an epidemic.


Just because it can, doesn't mean it should.

Sure, on paper everything is up to snuff and the bike is legal to run on the freeways. However the 200 is going to have a tough time breaking 65, putting said rider of the machine in the slow lane with all the big rigs, blind grandpas, and fast-and-furious slalom racers, plus all traffic coming onto and off of the freeway. Any truly freeway-capable bike must be able to achieve 75 mph quite readily, and maintain it for at least 15 minutes without sounding like a B-2 bomber humping a paint shaker by the end of the run.
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The Duke 200 has a top speed of 85mph. My XR barely goes faster than that and while I wouldn't enjoy long stretches on I-5 on it, 'm not afraid to get on the freeway.
 
Lol, 'not a real bike.' Some of you guys would have been the same people who would have passed on the FZR400 and go for the 600. The 400 was a much better bike but was 200 cc's less in the motor department so clearly it just wasn't worth the money. :laughing

The 200 ktm would probably be a great city bike and a ton of fun to ride. I also doubt the motor will explode in 1500 miles.
 
Okay, so 250Rs were selling above MSRP and dealers can't get their hands on enough cbr250s and yet, people are still absolutely certain there is no market for small bikes?


About every week or two I am approached by someone looking to get into riding asking for suggestions as to what to get. Most of them are aware of and excited by the ninjette but looking for confirmation that it's a good bike. Not once have I heard one of them mention a concern about it not being big or fast enough.

It is my firm belief that riders impress the 'bigger is better' mentality upon their friends considering getting into riding and that in their natural state, people looking to start riding will gravitate toward smaller, less intimidating bikes. Many of us didn't get into riding out of peer pressure but arrived their on our own.
 
ToraTora said:
Yes there is a market (that is being manipulated), and yes we have been programed by the sales/marketing departments that bigger is better and a 500 is a small bike.

Riders that start off on a 50cc bike have a tremendous learning opportunity advantage over those that start off on a "man's" bike.
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You are missing my point. Not everyone has been programmed like you have.
 
I think Im a better rider because I started on an over powered under braked, unreliable death trap and survived it for a surprisingly high amount of miles.

srsly, lotsa these dudes get a ninjette, crash it, get a an r6 and proceed to crash it also.
 
Still the KTM looks totally badass IMO, I'd get one and ride it. Since my wife is now on a 250 Ningette, it'll be very compatible!

Then of course when she's not riding it, you may just see me on the Ninja until the KTM comes out. 250? Yea, why not? How much horsepower does it take to round a corner anyway?
 
ToraTora said:
I've cleverly outlined that idea here.
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You also cleverly omitted any discussion whatsoever as to why you think a certain bike falls in a certain place. That post is roughly the equivalent of me posting a simple graph of tread deformation vs. temperature in a thread about grip, providing zero discussion, and concluding that "obviously, Metzler makes the best tires".


ToraTora said:
Clearly. I was giving you an example to put forth a reason why a 350 is a reasonable first bike. Even still that seems to be a challenging request.
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I'm waiting for you to demonstrate some reason why a 350 is unreasonable.

ToraTora said:
Have you taken MSF?
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Yes.

ToraTora said:
Tooling around at 40 mph is plenty for a new rider, which is why MSF chooses the bikes the do--they are appropriate for the task put forth--learning how to become a good rider.
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You misunderstand. The goal of the MSF is to teach, among other things, a very specific set of skills. These skills are best learned at low speeds.

MSF is a training course. MSF is not Riding. As such, trying to make the argument that "Well, MSF uses bike X so obviously bike X is the only bike for a new rider" is ridiculous. MSF material is only one part of Riding.
 
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ToraTora said:
Yes there is a market (that is being manipulated), and yes we have been programed by the sales/marketing departments that bigger is better and a 500 is a small bike.

Riders that start off on a 50cc bike have a tremendous learning opportunity advantage over those that start off on a "man's" bike.
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Manipulated? Marketing departments? Please. I was "manipulated" into thinking like I do from personally owning and riding a 250 and two 500's. The 250 would sing like the Fat Lady on the freeway, and due to its chassis size & geometry it was less than stable at those speeds. The 500's were solid, but they were large-ish and had more than enough get-up-and-go for basic riding, which is why I turn my eye to a 350-400 as a hopefully ideal compromise. You may condemn freeways, but they are a fact of life in America, and it is unreasonable to demand new riders upgrade bikes 3 weeks into riding to get onto the slab.

I'm going to call "B.S." on that one. A 50cc bike doesn't ride anything like a full sized bike. This is not to say you must ride a literbike to learn to ride, but rather there is no such thing as a 50cc motorcycle in America (at least that I've ever seen), so whatever you are riding is not going to teach you how to ride a motorcycle. Unless you are 12 years old, weight 90lbs and can ride a miniature dirt bike.
Why does no such bike exist? Because a 50cc four-stroke makes about 2-3HP, and in a full sized bike that's going to earn you a top speed of perhaps 20mph no matter how light you make it. Good luck riding on the street & learning the ropes with a top speed of 20mph.
I say this having personally spent a summer riding an electric scooter with 1-1.5HP. You learn how to ride it like a bicycle, in the bicycle lanes obeying bicycle laws and bicycle practices. You learn how to waddle to get it up hills. You do not learn how to take a turn, because you require about a mile of steep downhill to get up enough speed to where things like turning technique matter.

I guess by your book, the 7-9HP 185cc a friend of mine learned on, that couldn't break 40mph and slowed to 30mph trying to make it up the hills to our house, was dangerously high-strung at more than 3x the displacement of your ideal 50cc. Nevermind that he couldn't keep up with traffic just getting home.
 
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Sorry man, you really haven't made a case here. I cannot, for the life of me understand what I would miss out on learning if I were to have started with a 350 single that puts out an estimated 40 horsepower.

So far, it seems that your argument is that because small displacement bikes exist they must be safer.

Tiered licensing is great and I am all for it. However, there is absolutely no evidence that starting out on a 50cc 2T bike will make you a better rider.

If you can come back with conclusive evidence that 50cc 2T trains your skills better that 350cc 4T, then you will have a valid argument.
 
That Duke 200 is kinda like my plated WR200, only 100 lbs heavier.:laughing
 
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