Another KTM owner here: 2011 990 SMT. KTMs were great before all the electronic wizardry came to bikes. Now they are super techy and also have a poor reliability reputation. The 990s in Adventure form as mentioned above, and SMT form can tour, hoon around on, do light off road (SMT) to serious off road (Adventure). I had my SMT remapped by BSD Performance and it transformed the bike.
If doing any proper offroad on the new Transalp just google the horror stories about the broken sumps due to them being the closest part of the engine protruding towards the ground!
Harley Pan-America?
Harley riders hate them because they're not a real Harley. Off-roaders hate them because they weigh as much as a (albeit a small one) real Harley.Â
They do IMHO look cool though, and however much more refined it is than it's big-twin stablemates, it's still a V-Twin.
(This is not a leading question, rather I've been thinking "hmm, bike?" for a little while now)
@Cougar there's a little bit of chicken and egg when it comes to motorcycle engine design. The more balanced it is, the faster it can rev, and therefore the higher up the rev range it's optimized for. And in simple terms the more cylinders it has, the better job the engineers can do of balancing them (a straight 6 is perfect, but an i4 or V4 is better than a triple, is better than a twin, is better than a single). There's nothing to say you can't make a lower revving i4 with the lower of a twin, but there wouldn't be much point, so you end up engine layouts that define their tuning, which defines the need for that layout.
And not all twins are created equal. Â
A 90deg twin (ducati and most V-twins intended for or derived from race bike engines) has perfect primary balance due to engineering mathematics and witchcraft. But has an uneven firing order (because V-twins have common crank pins) bang-270-bang-540-bang-etc. A 45deg twin has a slightly less uneven firing order, but less balance. A parallel twin can have the crank in any configuration, 360 cranks have the vibrations of single but smooth power, 180deg cranks trade one sort of vibration for another which makes them a lot lighter, but at the same time gives an uneven firing order. 270cranks give a sort of hybrid, they're popular because they feel like a v-twin, but without having to actually build one. e.g. The Triumph Bonneville uses a 360crank, but they used the same engine but a 270deg crank for the cruiser/America variants.
There's also ergonomic and packaging considerations. More cylinders = wider bike = less lean angle and poorer cornering (if you're a riding god on a millennium era Ducati anyway). Wider engines also gives them a more awkward stance off-road and leaves the engine casings vulnerable in a crash.
So basically the motorcycle market segments itself on a spectrum between the BMW S1000, near perfectly balanced and screaming to an ungodly RPM to make maximum power from the displacement. To Harley Davidsons which make the bare minimum amount of power from the displacement available, but maximize character.Â
If doing any proper offroad on the new Transalp just google the horror stories about the broken sumps due to them being the closest part of the engine protruding towards the ground!
TBH isn’t that due to people not installing skid plates and assuming the ride heights going to keep the interesting bits off the floor ?
My off road toys got a lot of thick aluminium plating instead of broken dreams 🙂
hmmm coming to a town near you Harley Cougar 🙂
 Im "new" (except the misspent youth) into biking and i swung my leg over a Transalp at the weekend - felt very natural compared to my brothers Tenere. I still need to pass my Mod1+2 which is currently booked for July - but ipopped out yesterday and emptied my bank account of funds on decent riding kit..Not true - somebody suggested a Transalp and now seriously thinking of getting one. Its not a bike I'd considered but it seems to tick most boxes. I'm particular but openminded.
