at last the plaster came off on tuesday after 6 weeks of frustration, was plastered right arm from small broken finger up to the elbow, broken knuckle.

tendons still stiff etc but thought got to get out on the new bike that has only 16km.

did 140 km on the 1290 on my favourite roads, did not go above 7000rpm but did ride hard getting up there.

previous ktms were the 08 sd 990, smr 990, rc8 so plenty of mix, the 1290 is very similar on the posistion as the sd was, not much wind blast which has been done very well.

the viewpoint whilst on the move is spot on and overall relaxing to be on.

the route was through mountains whic normaly were taken in 3rd on the other ktms, with this one you can be in 4th with more than plenty of go.

brakes are very good (overkill for the road) the suspension at the moment more than adequate, so what is the difference, the engine is amazing.

had the tc on in sport mode and i found you can still do wheelys although at the moment my throttle control is not too good so only favoured small ones. coming over a nice crest whilst in 4th it went up very nice and controlled, i did have one moment in 3rd opening up and a slight tiny crest when my hrottle and let me down and the thing went skywards then back down with a nice nutcracker, i would say the speedo was at eyelevel which is normally what im after but not today.

the engine is smooth but still with the vtwin vibes so thats good, pulls very smoothly and the fueling is spot on.

it did have a slight trate to sometimes be not as quick to turn in as the sd990 but i do not think it will be a problem.

in terms of suspension and overall handling it does not rreally move the game on anymore than lets say the sd990 but what does change things is that engine, very impressive on the road.

the tc said it was working but did not feeling anything other than a giant shove forward, the display is ok but i hate the cheap swithcgear. if anything the speedo part is too overloades with info and the other one for me is plain ugly.

am i glad i bought it, at the moment yes.

in typlical ktm style i also had my first problem at 60km, said it wanted a service, but after plugging in at the dealers they were able to get rid of the annoying triangle warding service thing on the dash.

off to strect my tendons now ready for the weekend............

Good write up Gringo.
Seems to be a issue with the service coming up early. Mine did it at about 400km and the dealers demo did it after 3km.
As ugly as the speedo is, it is somewhat effective in cutting down the wind blast.

I'm bummed we aren't getting the bike here in the states. I would love to try one out.

Glad to hear you were finally able to get out on the new bike. Sounds like a great bike with a magic motor. It's funny that every one who rides the new SD mentions how poor the switchgear is. KTM seriously needs to upgrade that thing with the next model year bike and offer a replacement for this year's bike. Of all the expensive technology that go into making a modern sport bike why would you go backwards on the quality of the lousy switchgear?

ok, so Ive only done 50 miles on my 1290[due to shitty weather] but switchgear is good

Loving mine too, only 600klms on the clock.

Finicky high beam switch
Oil leak, around sump plug
Traction control pain in the arse to turn off.
Crowded garage!

1300k's so far.

Stand sucks, yeah need to cut down high beam switch, digging the hazard switch, never had one of those before.

Only issue is bike is stuck in sport mode, says shut throttle off or some like that when you try to change it, even with engine off, but I don't want to change the setting anyway, so will let the fix it next service.
Only realised it was like that after reading a post on here with someone that had the same problem, so went and checked mine over for any problems and bingo, stuck in sport mode, just where I left it, don't really care if it stays like that, have fuel dongle as well, so traction control is off and it stays that way even when ignition is turned off
Throws a warning on the dash saying "Not Legal" when you start it, just press a button and it disappears, would like to get rid of the warning if I can

Other than that bike is a weapon, just starting to give it a little more and bursts of flat out here and there, think the tyres is starting to show the strain, not wearing badly, but just starting to show the signs of brutal torque