2025 KTM 390 Adventure Review : What is an adventure bike? Most people probably believe that an adventure bike is dedicated or a hardcore off-roader. So it is that adventure bikes do exist across a spectrum — from road-dominant to off-road-to-the-max. But essentially, an adventure motorbike is primarily designed for travel, and the concept is to travel anything, so the land or the range is basically the one who should not be hindering you. And going anywhere means riding through busy cities, long open highways, or on trails where real
roads don’t exist. It’s not meant to be the best machine in any one of these applications, but one that can give you the best aspects of all worlds. Now, while the last gen 390 Adventure was a pretty well-rounded bike, it was lacking in many of these areas, and that was just a limitation with the platform that was initially designed with the Duke in mind. But back to this new 390 Adventure — it’s a built off a far more versatile platform that claims all these talents. So does it finish off the holy trinity for a true blue adventure bike?
Just what does a good city bike need to do? A nice city bike should be easy to handle at low speeds, it should be agile in stop and go traffic, and it should make you feel at ease on your commute. It’s in an upright position, and you’re perched high enough to get a good view of what’s happening on the road ahead while riding the new 390 Adventure. And despite the 835mm seat
height, it’s really quite easy to flat foot the bike even if you’re somewhat short. The bike itself is extremely narrow, although you may find that the footpegs interfere with your legs a bit if you’re trying to flat foot the bike. But even at 5’9” I can flat foot the bike as long as I keep my feet outside the pegs. This is a bike most folks will hop on and feel right at home with.
Yes, the seat is slightly narrow and slightly firm, and a little extra padding would have taken it from great for city riding to absolutely perfect for city riding. But even that didn’t lead to blood throbbing through my temples, or muscle ache from the slalom that a few hours of Goa traffic was.
Despite a kerb weight of 182kg (5kg heavier than the spoke wheel version of the earlier 390 Adventure), this one feels far lighter while mounting it, and is an absolute breeze to handle, regardless of whether you’re walking it with your feet, or inching through traffic. And despite the massive 21-inch front wheel, at speeds of 40-50kmph, this feels super agile and easy to steer. The 2025 KTM 390 Adventure gets the same 399cc liquid-cooled, single-cylinder engine as the new 390 Duke with identical power and
torque figures – 46PS @ 8500rpm and 39Nm @ 6500rpm respectively. As we saw with the new Duke, this 399cc motor is far more tractable than the old 373cc unit. And on the Adventure, the rear sprocket is also three teeth larger than that of the Duke (46 teeth versus 43 teeth). So you get a much better bottom end response, which made navigating narrow and crowded Goa streets a cakewalk.
The best part is that the same engine that feels close to manic on the Duke, feels much more relaxed here. It isn’t the most pliant of engines, but there is still no trouble riding at 30kmph in 4th gear. And if you have a low-rpm crawl function, just leave the clutch and have the bike maintain 1800-2200rpm in the first 3 gears. So at slower speeds you can comfortably get around without needing any clutch input, or most importantly the fear of stalling the bike.