KTM 390 Adventure SW & X First Ride Review - The Unhinged Ginger & The Everyday Animal

Published: Saturday, June 3, 2023, 9:50 [IST]

It was late 2019 and we had just heard about the dratted disease that stopped the world in its tracks. Thankfully, the news from Mattighofen was a whole lot more positive, at least for those who prefer the open trails of the wild.

Well, sort of positive. The KTM 390 Adventure we got here in India wasn't the fully rabid, little monster that could climb up every little crag as it didn't get the fully adjustable suspension or the spoked wheels that those with an itch for the ditch craved.

Fast forward, four years and a pandemic later. The higher-ups in the Austrian Alps decided that the 390 Adventure needed to be sold in its best guise in the country where it was built.

And when we got the call to ride the unhinged 390 Adventure in the ghats outside Pune, we were more than a bit excited to try out this new little gorge hunter.

So was the all-new KTM 390 Adventure SW worthy of all the buzz and were we just a bunch of nervous nellies who needed an attitude adjustment away from our keyboards? Or were the changes not worth the hype?

Oh and we did get to ride the new 390 Adventure X, the no-frills version of the bike that looks ready for long ghat rides. So here's a snapshot of our adventures in the saddle of the new duo from KTM's 390 Adventure lineup in the Ghats outside Pune...

KTM 390 Adventure SW & X - What's Changed?

Let's take care of the unhinged ginger before we go to the everyday animal. The SW has two major features that differentiate it from the 'regular' KTM 390 Adventure - suspension and wheels.

On paper, this may not seem too much but, when the suspension setup is a fully adjustable one that can be tweaked on the fly, well that extra 22 grand seems like a steal.

The changes to the suspension setup see the SW adopt fully adjustable front and rear suspension from WP. The upside-down front fork offers compression and rebound adjustment up to 30 clicks. The factory setting for both is at 15 clicks.

The rear monoshock on the other hand, offers preload and rebound adjustment with the former adjustable for 10 clicks and the latter offering 20 clicks of adjustability. Factory settings for the monoshock are set at 3 clicks for preload and 10 clicks for the rebound.

The unhinged version of KTM's 390 ADV rides on spoked wheels, which is where it gets its new designation. However, these are aluminium units and not the steelies that old-school offroaders rave about. However, they do the job without any fuzz or complaint and come draped in tubed tyres from Metzellers.

The new Adventure X on the other hand ditches the colourful TFT for the Adventure 250's negative LCD unit. The front suspension unit is a big piston fork, though the wheel travel remains the same at 170mm.

The levers are not of the adjustable variety and the quikshifter has also gone fishing. Also changed are the Metzeler tyres which have been replaced by MRF Meteor Mo-grip F2, the latter being more road biased.

The engine though is the same, tried and trusted 373cc single-cylinder lump that pushes out 42.9bhp at 8,000rpm and 37Nm of peak torque at 7,000rpm. The engine is paired with a 6-speed gearbox which is unchanged as well.

KTM 390 Adventure SW & X Riding - Worth The Hype & Much More

The KTM 390 Adventure SW is the more unhinged of the two bikes that were available to us to ride. And we put it through some tough terrain that would make any proper offroader jump with joy.

Be it for the rough and tumble of the great outdoors or the seeping tarmac of the ghats, the 390 Adventure SW has a setting for you. Riders can adjust the suspension to keep up with the needs of their waistlines as well.

The tweakery can be done on the move for the front setup but the rear monoshock requires you to pull the spanners out to get your perfect setting - KTM provides a sticker on the fuel tank with several setup options, but you have to remove the rider's seat to access it.

Once, you get your bespoke setting (do this at your own risk), the 390 Adventure SW gives you the confidence to jump up the steepest ridge and ford the nearest stream and slide across the dirt like the wannabe Dakar racer you claim to be.

The alloy wheels though made from the rather shiny aluminium, can take a hit giving you the confidence to take the big jumps without worrying about a spoked mess.

On the road, just like off the beaten path, with the right adjustments to the WP suspension setup, the KTM 390 Adventure SW turns into a ghat-carving little monster despite its ADV nature. And when the roads are straight, the 390 SW invites you to enjoy the views, which was rather fun in the ghats around Pune and its surrounding towns.

Our time in the saddle of the new 390 Adventure SW took up a whole day. After sleeping like the dead overnight, we got to experience the new entry-level version of KTM's 390 Adventure lineup - X.

The KTM 390 Adventure X with its stripped-down approach makes for a brilliant no-frills mile muncher. It is well-behaved on the road and unless you push it hard off the beaten path you don't really notice the change to the big piston forks and the road-biased MRF rubber.

Final Thoughts About The KTM 390 Adventure SW & X - A Tale Of Two Extremes

The KTM 390 Adventure looked to be half baked when it launched in India back in 2020. However, with the arrival of the new 390 Adventure SW (Spoke Wheel) and X, the new lineup is finally complete with a bike for every kind of ADV rider wishing to experience the 390 Adventure for themselves.

The 390 Adventure X is the more docile of the two bikes we rode, biased towards touring but not afraid to hit the trails for a slight bit of fun. Its no-frills approach makes it a good value buy.

The new KTM 390 Adventure SW, on the other hand, is Mr Hyde to the X's Dr Jekyll and will cover the needs of most wannabe extreme off-road enthusiasts looking to get into the game properly. The SW is what the KTM 390 Adventure should have been all along in its Indian sojourn and we're more than happy that the guys in the Orange Alp in Austria finally let us have it.