New 2024 KTM 990 Duke Review: 10 Best Things!

This is the brand new 2024 KTM 990 Duke and it's absolutely one of the best mid to large capacity nakeds on the market. So what makes it so good? Well in this video we'll go through my 10 key favorite things about it and then at the end also one reason why you might not want to buy one. Now the previous generation of this bike was the 890 Duke R and it was one of my favorite bikes on the motorcycle market in terms of you know riding fun and that sporty performance and just general all-round brilliant road performance. So you might have guessed with this new 990 Duke that it has taken a little bit of a bump in capacity. Thing is though there isn't really a huge jump in the sort of performance output figures. You've got a couple more horsepower so it's now 123 peak. There's a few more newton meters of peak torque but it's not exactly night and day. That said the 890 was already an absolutely rapid bike and so arguably it didn't really need masses more power and torque and what I'm glad to report is that this engine absolutely delivers on the same sort of character which is just masses of mid-range. It basically doesn't really matter what gear you're in it'll just pull and pull and it's super linear. The throttle map is really direct you've got this very immediate connection especially in the more performance orientated riding modes and look it'll power wheelie no problem and just have you grinning from ear to ear absolutely everywhere you go. Honestly for a road bike this is pretty much the perfect engine for me and it's more of the same from the 890 just with that little bit extra on top. Number two has to be the way this bike sounds and it's got that 435 degree firing interval in this parallel twin that sort of mimics the 75 degree v-twins in their bigger bikes like the 1290 and 1390s. So yeah it sounds absolutely fantastic at a standstill especially for a stock pipe but also out on the road you've got loads of little burbles and pops and it's spluttering away on deceleration and downshift and it just all adds to the sensation that this bike is a little bit unhinged and wild. Now on top of that adding to the sort of sportiness and riding entertainment you've got a really good quick shifter on this bike and whereas in the past some KTM and Husqvarna quick shifters have felt a little bit too light to me and they feel a bit ambiguous and you're not quite sure if they've snicked into gear this one has a little bit of a click which makes it feel more reassuring and i've found it pretty much flawless out on the road. Now i should point out that it comes as part of the tech pack which is the best part of 900 quid but it does also open up some of the other features on this bike that i'd find very valuable like the cruise control, the adaptive brake light, MSR and the track pack which maybe is less of interest to me but i think you know nice to have the option if you do want to take it to the track and i'm sure it'd be fantastic. Now you do get all of these features to evaluate as part of the demo mode which unlocks them for the first 1500 kilometers or 932 miles but then after that it will automatically switch them all off and so yeah i do understand that some of you find that well some people don't mind too much but others do find that a little bit annoying to know that all that stuff is on the bike and it's just disabled. The thing is though at the moment the UK KTM team tell me that the tech pack actually comes for free on this bike so if you're thinking of specking it up you can save you know like i say almost 900 quid and look that's on top of an already fairly comprehensive tech package with a whole bunch of riding modes like street, sport and rain and also a six-axis inertial measurement unit that opens up lean sensitive rider aids like the traction control and abs. You've also got the supermoto abs fitted as standard which means you can disable abs on the rear wheel and that means you can slide it around and get a bit silly and it's all managed through the new switchgear and this really rather excellent tft display. I've said this before i think about KTMs and Husqvarnas and i'll say it again about this bike but i really really like the way that they lay out their menus and the information within the dash with these really intuitive graphics that just make it a bit more fun to use. I say intuitive because sometimes there are features like the amount of slip and you can adjust it between one and nine and on some bikes it's not always obvious whether one is more slip because there's less intervention or nine is more slip because the number actually represents the amount of slip. With this bike though because it's got the little graphic on the screen it kind of just shows you exactly how the bike's going to behave when you change that particular setting and so yeah very easy to use very easy to understand and also just makes it feel more fun than a whole bunch of lists and menus and text. Now to go along with the dash we've got this new switchgear that i just mentioned and i'm quite familiar with actually because we're running the Husqvarna Svartpilen 401 as a mid to long termer at the moment and it's pretty much the exact same layout. Now that bike costs less than half of what this bike costs so you might see that as like a you know maybe a downgrade in terms of inheriting some of the componentry but i'd say it's more of a reflection of how good the Husqvarna is rather than this bike being built to a price. These are great switchgear it's backlit which really does help at night you've got these big directional buttons that makes it really easy to get around the menus and i also like the cruise control implementation with this sort of paddle at the bottom to nudge the speed up and down. Then you've also got this custom button so you can assign one of your favorite sort of rider aids or settings to it to get to it quickly and so yeah i think this is all around a good change and it makes it nice and easy to use. As for how this bike handles out on the road well it really is as sharp and accurate as their new sniper nickname would suggest. It weighs in fully fueled up at around 190 kilograms so really competitive with other bikes in this part of the market like the Yamaha MT-09 and you feel it out on the road this bike just goes where you point it and it feels really intuitive to me as well. No doubt the suspension also helps we've got WP Apex front and rear this is their upside down fork that's fully adjustable the shock's got adjustability as well but i'd say out of the box it feels great to me and they've also made a whole bunch of little tweaks to the chassis in terms of stiffness and rigidity with this new steel trellis frame and at the same time they've reduced stiffness on the swingarm by about a third and they say that helps to improve traction. So look lots of little changes here and there all over the chassis but the net result is a light bike that handles like a dream. Thing is though one thing that kind of surprised me about this bike is the fact that that pinpoint handling isn't at the expense of stability that's something i did find with the MT-09 which we also reviewed relatively recently they've updated it with a steeper head angle to quicken up the steering at the front there's more weight over the front as well and while it is comparable to this bike in terms of liveliness and changes of direction it does feel a little bit twitchy especially at higher speeds whereas this bike feels a lot more stable and reassuring and easy to get along with which might be a little bit surprising for a bike as aggressive as a KTM. Now as for the cause of this versus the Yamaha well there are going to be some differences in weight distribution and geometry but also you get a steering damper on this bike which is absent from the MT-09 and i've no doubt that's got something to do with it. Now look this bike is quite a bit more pricey than the 890 Duke R that it replaces and in some areas you could possibly argue there have been some slight downgrades in spec the brakes for example are top-notch Brembo Stylemmas on that bike whereas this one gets own branded KTM ball pot radially mounted calipers. Now admittedly they do look a bit less bling but i will say out on the road i haven't noticed a massive deterioration in performance versus that bike and for me with the radial master cylinder as well there's just plenty of power and feel and so i think for the majority of road riders this is going to be more than enough braking performance. Now ergonomically there are some little changes to this bike for 2024 so they flattened out the saddle a bit to stop you sliding forward so much and also raised it by five millimeters but ultimately 825 millimeters is still pretty low and so it should be accessible for most riders and it really does actually feel quite roomy and relaxed. It's a little bit like the handling to be honest it can be sporty and aggressive when you want it to be but then also it's easy and comfy enough and stable enough to be usable day in day out. For me i'm 5 foot 9 or 175 centimeters and the bars fit very naturally into my hands and also you do have four levels of adjustability with the risers and clamp so if it doesn't feel quite so natural to you then hopefully you've got some chance of getting it dialed. Now i'm going to put myself out here a bit and say actually with the visual redesign on this bike i really do like it i think it's the best looking middleweight juke that they've made for some time. It is largely you know along the same lines as their other bikes it's orange and pointy and aggressive looking but i think the key features that have really made it look different and potentially neatened it up a little bit are the front and rear lights and so at the back you've got the integrated turn signals and brake lights which leave it looking very clean but then up front this new headlight with the daytime running light around the outside and then the stack projectors in the middle now it maintains a little bit of the same shape as the bigger lens type headlight on the previous generation but i think i prefer this one just because it's a bit more modern and edgy and maybe it doesn't quite stand out as much because it's not such a big slab on the front. Certainly this is a matter of personal taste though and so as always i'd love to know what you think of it down in the comments below. Honestly the only angle from which i can really criticize this bike is on the price it's now £12,999 and especially if you missed that deal on the tech pack and want to make the most of some of these features you know you're gonna have to add the best part of a grand on top of that and look i don't know if i'd say that you know standing alone this bike isn't worth that money it'll have you constantly grinning from ear to ear but it's just when you set it against some of the other bikes on the market which are already excellent the mto9 i've already mentioned for example is just over £10,000 and the sp version with the suspension and brembo brakes is still under £12,000. Then you've got the street triple rs that's less than £12,000 as well and even the ducati monster is just a bit over £11,000. So lots of fantastic mid-ish capacity naked bikes to choose from all of them cheaper than this and i think it also stands out a little bit because it's such a big jump on the previous generation the 890 dukar i think was £11,599 rrp last year and so you're talking about nearly £1,500 more which is a big jump year on year especially considering that that bike offered similar levels of performance below what i will say is this is one of those bikes that's just super addictive to ride with that brilliant mid-range great handling good ergonomics comprehensive tech package and just all-round levels of entertainment and so i think if you go out and demo one there's a very good chance that it'll get under your skin and so if you start to feel like that it might be easy to justify to yourself that extra amount of cost as always though i'd love to know what you think of it so do let me know down in the comments below and also if you want to see some of our other recommendations for the best new nakeds on the market for 2024 then i'll put our video on screen now so you can give it a click and give it a watch in case you haven't already also do hit subscribe if you want to see more of the latest motorcycle reviews like this right here on youtube and massive thanks for watching today and we'll catch you in the next one