With the 1290 Super Adventure R, KTM squeezes extra juice from its orange flagship. Is the competition pulp?

How much is too much? Inside a four-story building in Mattighofen, Austria, there’s no such thing as too much. That building houses the hundreds of engineers, technicians, and test riders for KTM. When it’s time to design any motorcycle bearing the name Super, you’d better bet everyone in that building will make damn sure it lives up to its title. In this case the bike is the 2022 1290 Super Adventure R. Too much is never enough for KTM, but is enough for them too much for mere mortals?

KTM revised the 1290 Super Adventure models for 2022 with minor updates to the engine and major changes to the chassis. There’s an updated user interface with a new dash and switch gear. This bike is the most refined Super Adventure to date, and I have to say it looks great as long as you don’t face it head-on; that’s a face only KTM could love.

So what is the criteria for a “Super” model designation? One thing: a 1,301cc LC8 75-degree V-twin. This particular example cranks out a claimed 160 hp and 102 pound-feet of torque. On the Cycle World dyno, the Super Adventure R produced 132.3 hp at 9,200 rpm and 87.5 pound-feet at 7,000 rpm at the rear tire.

Those weren’t easy numbers to hit; KTM had to maintain previous levels of performance while achieving Euro 5 compliance. It started by reducing friction with revised oil routing, diamond-like coating on the camshaft followers, and Grafal anti-friction coating on the piston skirts. New stick coils fire two spark plugs per cylinder. The cooling system is now more efficient, with two separate tall and narrow radiators rather than one large single unit.

Changes to the exhaust and intake tracts also contribute to the SAR’s continued power level. A new airbox, accessible by removing the small storage box ahead of the fuel filler, has been fitted with a vertically ribbed filter to clear sand to the bottom rather than trapping it in horizontal slats. The exhaust system gets new head pipes connected to a hydroformed collector with twin catalytic converters and feeding into a new stainless twin tip muffler.

Screw the ride-by-wire throttle to its stop and you’ll instantly receive confirmation that Euro 5 regulations do nothing to mute the omnipotent power of the Super Adventure R. It may not boast the highest output in the ADV segment, but the LC8′s forceful torque hit, followed by a rush of horsepower up to the 10,500-rpm redline, is one of the most satisfying power deliveries in all of adventuredom.

Select Sport mode on the slick, bright 7-inch TFT screen and you get every bit of the LC8′s fury complete with snappy throttle response. Even with that quick delivery, the fueling is neither jerky nor twitchy, a wonderful trait to have while leaned over on a bike with long-travel suspension and knobby tires. The Sport setting does allow some rear wheelspin from KTM’s lean-sensitive Motorcycle Traction Control (MTC), so add a few more bucks to your tire budget. Street mode still gives the rider full power, but the delivery is less immediate as throttle response is turned down from 11 to a reasonable 8. Rain does what rain modes do; power is muted, traction control is at maximum nanny, and throttle response is as mellow as Manilow.

There are options for dirt duty as well: One is standard equipment; one is a $174.99 dealer-installed option. Offroad mode is standard issue and highly effective on most dirt roads and two-track. This mode lets the rear tire spin twice as fast as the front for easy control of yaw on dirt roads. Additionally, the mode switches the Bosch 10.3 ME combined ABS into a highly effective off-road setting that retains antilock function at the front while disabling it at the rear. Cornering functions of ABS and MTC are also disabled in this mode. Overall, the Offroad mode is great. But if you’re looking to extract every bit of performance and dirt-slinging potential from the Super Adventure R, spend the extra dough on the Rally pack. Or, ultimately, go truly big with the $749.99 Tech package, which includes the Rally package along with Motor Slip Regulation, Quickshifter+, and Hill Hold Control.

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