690 Duke Opinions

Gday,

Has anyone owned one of these and what are their opinions re reliability, fuelling etc, low kilometre 08 models are starting to be seen for around half the new onroad price over here and I am seriously thinking of picking one up.

Cheers Cameron

Never heard anything bad about em , and TBH I wanted one before I bought a SD,, but the price here was a grand more than a leftover 08 SD ,so the choice was obvious,,, still want one though,,PM Plimton to see how he likes his

I'd have one for sure, but not to replace the SDR though. Bags of tight-twisty fun!

i found the 690 duke boring.... but the 690 R is a different kettle of fish... frickin awesome

The 690SMC would be my big single of choice.

I rode the 690 Duke, thought it would make a great lams bike, but that is about it. 690R would have been nice to try but I ran out of time.

As above the SMC would be my single of choice. Hole lotta fun that thing.

The 690 Duke is a solid bike, but you will most likely grow out of it quite quickly.

As for the other bikes mentioned here, well, I think the 690 SMC is relative to what you're used to.

I come from a sports-/racebike background. With the exception of my SuperDuke R, I've only owned pure sportsbikes (Blades, Gixxers, RC8 etc). Last summer, I took the 690 SMC out for a test ride. I found it to be the most boring thing I've ever ridden. There was simply no punch in it at all. The throttle response was laughable.

On the other hand, I took out a race prepped by KTM 690 SMR on track and found it a lot better. So, if I were looking to go for a KTM single, I'd go for an SMR and then modify the hell out of it. As for both bikes out of the box, I'm sure they're fun for some, but not for me.

i guess what it comes down to is what sort of roads do you ride... as a 690smc will be faster than just about anything (except a husaberg fs570) along a road like the dragons tail (is that right?) and any tight twistie rd... where you cant use lots of hp. This is part of the reason that the SD is better than a sports bike in the tighter stuff.

As for growing out of a bike like that... sure if you cant go round a corner fast. But if you love to come barreling into a corner (possibly sideways) and flying past a sportbike on the inside or outside of the corner, then this is for you. But if the road allows you to do more than 130km/h then dont bother. As for me I love the super tight technical stuff, i can do switchovers very quickly, put it sideways but stick me on a big sweeper and its all yawn (unless chasing somone)...