KTM 200 Duke : Dealer Test Ride

If you’ve been following our Duke 200 coverage so far, you know that we’ve ridden the bike on Bajaj’s test track and came away with mixed feelings. Sure, the Duke is fast, light and in a class of its own. While Bajaj is yet to provide test bikes that we can ride on the street for a real-world assessment, we did manage to wrangle a solo ride from a dealer after much pleading and waving of our visiting cards.

Sadly, the display bike was the one and only Duke available, and was not registered, severely limiting our ride to just a few hundred meters. Still, here are some thoughts; take from them what you will.

Quality

The test bikes were quite inconsistent, making it quite hard to assess overall. Differing significantly in their performance and finish, we cut the pre-production Dukes some slack for being early examples. If the bike in the showroom is any indication, the KTM 200 Duke in India is of excellent quality. Metal and plastic bits are very clean and well turned out, with no casting flash visible on the gear. Plastics appear to be of high quality and gauge, and braced appropriately so we won’t be seeing those askew mudflaps as is usual.

The metal bits also look very good indeed. The USD WP-Endurance front fork is drool-worthy, as is the very well-finished trellis frame and engine block. The handlebar is a tapered aluminium piece, not just satin-finished steel. Everything just feels tight and well put-together. Double bonus points to Bajaj for including steel-braided brake hoses!

Sound

We generally disliked the sound of the little Duke at the press ride for its lack of any intake roar. I can’t say I heard much on the dealer vehicle, but the exhaust has a nice blat to it that sounds rather good at the engine’s typical rev range, which is a flat-out silly 10k RPM if you’re riding it right. It sounds a lot better to passers-by, so rest assured that the sound isn’t much of an issue.

Performance

As the rest of our team will testify, I’m not the quickest rider by a long way, tending toward being overly cautious. The KTM took said caution, chewed it through and ejected it in a sharp blast from its under-body exhaust. This is a bike that absolutely insists that it be ridden like you’re trying to outrun a shock wave. We weren’t exaggerating when we said we red-lined it at 10,000 RPM in every gear, even first! This is no mean feat for a little single, but the Duke 200 is just so smooth and vibe-free, that you just have to twist it for all it’s got. And it’s got a bit.

Acceleration is pretty brisk, but lacks a bit in feel since the torque and peak power is made high up in the rev range. There’s less discernible shove than with a CBR250, say, but I suspect the Duke will be leaving challengers a few meters back and gears down in a stoplight drag. The power-to-weight advantage that the Duke has over pretty much everything else near its class should be quite handy around a track as well.

Ergonomics

This is a minimalist naked -- so ergonomics aren’t likely a focus -- but the Duke’s riding position is worth a mention. Think about riding an Yamaha R15 with an FZ16 handlebar, and you have some approximation of how the Duke expects you to accommodate yourself. The front is decidedly dirt-bikeish, while your feet rest on relatively rear-set pegs. The result is a rather aggressive rider stance which makes you look like you’re out for trouble.

This could have been a disaster while braking hard (I’ll get to that) but the Duke 200’s huge tank scoops seem designed to accommodate one’s knees and thighs almost entirely, providing great purchase and leaving the weight off your wrists. The result: bad-boy braking. I can’t think of another bike Abhay will want to do stoppies on all day long.

A headline feature of the Duke 200, I think, is its low weight. At 136kg kerb, it’s a breeze to push around with your feet while negotiating tight parking. No doubt, this has a large part to play in its quick performance. This should also help when you have a pillion aboard, though accommodations for a passenger are rudimentary, with a small pad for a seat. At least one prospective buyer in the office has been vetoed by his partner exactly for this lacuna.

Brakes and bouncy bits

The brakes are quite good for the featherweight Duke. The front-end feel is very good indeed, giving the indication of a solid block rather than an assembly of parts. The tyres also appear well-matched to the brakes and front-end, stopping the bike with confidence on what would otherwise be near-irresponsible behaviour. The Duke 200 does not offer ABS, and I’m not sure I’d want it either. We couldn’t get a sense of the rear tyre, but at 150mm across, it should suffice. The compound felt somewhat harder than that offered on the first-gen R15, so we’ll have to see how it turns out.

After-sales and parts

Bajaj moving their Probiking infrastructure over to servicing KTM, so we imagine there’s a strong commitment to the bikes and their upkeep. What we’re hearing from the dealer is that parts are going to be quite cheap, costing in the hundreds and low thousands rather than tens of thousands. This should make the KTM Duke 200 easy to live with. A 2-year, 30,000km warranty is provided as well -- par for the course in this class. We have no fuel economy numbers and the hearsay sounds optimistic, so we won’t get your hopes up.

Conclusions

This is a lot of bike for the money. A light, tight, aggressive package at a price that should make the incumbents worry. Bajaj intends to make low numbers of the Duke 200, so hopefully the service support they’re putting in place should keep owners happy. If they can avoid any serious quality issues, we recommend you get one just because you can.