2025 KTM 390 Adventure First Ride Review: The Segment Benchmark

No other bike manufacturer has earned as much recognition and accolades in off-roading as KTM has. The Austrian brand might be facing its toughest challenge yet, even more challenging than winning the gruelling Dakar rally, which is to stay afloat amidst troubled waters. And we shall soon hear about how the brand plans to rise from the brink of bankruptcy. However, Indian enthusiasts have been left hanging, devoid of experiencing any of the off-road lineage that made KTM who it is.

Thus far, the 390 Adventure has been nothing more than a slightly jacked up Duke with a longer footprint and a taller stance, fit only for fast touring, feeling out of place on dirt. But there is a new 390 Adventure in town, one that looks bigger, meaner, fiercer, more purposeful and yet more accessible and inviting. All in all, it has the capabilities to be the new segment benchmark. Does it deliver on its promise now?

Mildly Dakar-esque

One can clearly see that this new 390 Adventure means business. In terms of design, it feels like a descendant of KTM’s Dakar Rally winning 450 Rally bike. The high rise enduro beak, tall windshield, rally tower instrumentation setup and rally bike fairing evoke the sense that if you dare, you can make it to the start line of any rally you wish.

Even the flat seat gives you the feeling that this is more purposeful. But in fact it is quite a bit lower than before, now standing at a more digestible 830 mm, rather than the slightly more serious 855 mm of the older machine. Plus, the narrow mid-section ensures that even shorter riders find their footing rather easily.

The lowering of seat height hasn't come at the cost of reduction in ground clearance. On the contrary, it has gone up to 237 mm, nearly 30 mm more than before. Further on, you get a proper 21-inch front and 17-inch rear tubeless spoke wheel setup with 50/50 (road/off-road) bias Apollo Trampler XR dual-purpose tyres. Finally, it gets a dedicated Off-Road riding mode, where you can switch off the traction control and the rear ABS to muck about.

On the quality front, KTM has upped its game big time and this is a world-class product. The bike is put together neatly, everything looks top notch. And while I don’t personally like the graphics too much, they have been applied on to the fairing using a pigmented polypropylene technology, which simply means that in the event of a crash, the livery will not be damaged as the colour is deeply embedded into the plastics.

A Lot More Sensible

Our first riding interaction with the 390 Adventure took place in the quaint town of Benaulim in Goa, ideal to test out the chill and easy going mannerisms of a KTM (#sarcasm). But having lived with the new 390 Duke for over a year now, the new 399 cc motor is very capable of behaving itself, not grumbling and moaning like the old 373 cc mill did. On the Adventure, KTM has provided a softer throttle map for Street mode. It dulls down the response just enough to make it easy to manage in tight and narrow lanes of Goa, something that will definitely come in handy in peak Pune/Mumbai or any metro city of India.

And even though the Adventure is sizeably longer and noticeably heavier than before, it does a great job of masking its heft. The longer footprint doesn’t come in its way of making mince of traffic jams. There is an initial bit of vagueness that you will experience with the 21-inch front wheel but it rapidly disappears. For its class, it is very light, flickable and very maneuverable through the city.

The quickshifter has further been optimised, providing slicker and quicker shifts, making sure the fun zone lasts without any interruption. The one on the Duke was already better than the older 373 cc mill but this one is far better. And you can leave it in third or fourth gear and putter around town pretty calmly.

Another new feature that is helping the new Adventure is the ‘crawl’ functionality. This isn’t something new, as we have already seen TVS and Suzuki employ on its mid- to large-capacity bikes, where the ECU doesn’t allow the engine revs to drop so low that it stalls. It will keep the motor chugging, which on the KTM was possible to do at speeds as low as 20 kmph in third gear. Could you have imagined that statement ever being true about a 390? Neither did we.

Fast Touring Becomes Sorted

Fast mile munching was always the 390 Adventure’s forte. Where this one is a marked improvement over the other is the suspension department. So, the motor has the ability to sit happily at speeds in excess of 100 kmph. But unlike earlier where you had to dramatically slow down to avoid obstacles in your path, the new bike allows you to be a bit more carefree. You have more than 200 mm of wheel travel at both ends of the bike and the same scope of adjustments as the older SW trim. And even though the stock settings aren’t quite as sophisticated and plush as the Royal Enfield’s non-adjustable Showa units, the setup is far more liveable and digestible, no longer a dealbreaker.

The 390 Adventure also becomes the first sub-500 cc ADV in the country to get cruise control, which is tuned and calibrated quite well. There’s a dedicated button to engage the aid, there are toggle switches to set/reset as well as increase or decrease the speed. The presence of the aid takes a lot of stress away from the rider on days where you have to cover miles on end.

And when you do decide to embark on a pan-India trip, you will realise that fuel stops aren’t likely going to be farther apart than what you would manage on the new Duke. The Adventure is packing a 14.5-litre tank, holding one litre more than before but half a litre less than the Duke. And in case if we were to get the same fuel efficiency from the motor here as we did on the naked, which is a respectable 25-26 kmpl when ridden hard (like any KTM should), then your range will be more or less around the 400 km mark. There is a boon to having a conservative fuel tank and not a super large one but that we shall get to in the off-road section.

Despite the longer wheelbase, the 390 Adventure still feels very eager to please in the twisties. It is reasonably sharp and very light to throw it around in the bends and be a hooligan. The Apollo Trampler XR holds up rather well on tarmac allowing the rider to carry some serious lean angles.

And don’t let the spec sheet fool you, because even though on paper it might not have a radial front brake caliper, the system works brilliantly. The bite is not too sharp, as it needs to do its bidding off tarmac as well.

A Proper KTM Off-roader

More suspension travel, right spread of power and terrific chassis balance that helps you unlock great off-roading potential, the building blocks are finally in place. To begin with, there’s a new Off-road riding mode, where throttle response is crisper yet not as direct as the Duke’s. It likes to kick up dust and yet doesn’t go radically out of control in case your inputs are far from perfect.

And once you do approach a rocky patch and adopt the off-road stance, the Adventure literally flattens everything in its path. Yes, you will be warned of just how tricky the terrain underneath you is, not isolating you from mother earth in that regard. However, the suspension doesn’t throw the bike balance out of whack. It makes sure that the bike is more or less neutral, collected, composed and always in control of the rider.

It could’ve dealt better during jumps, though. The stock tune for a 100 kg rider (and a few more kilos for my riding gear also to be considered) meant the suspension units bottomed out when you want to get some airtime. Adjustability will minimise the issue to a great extent and that is something we wish to sit and tinker around once we get the bike for a longer duration.

But still, this bike gives the rider enough confidence to take on anything in its path. Even when you are going down steep rocky trails and powering through tight tricky sections, this felt natural. This will surely give a lot more impetus and courage to newer riders who want to get into the world of off-road riding.

The BENCHMARK

KTM India has smashed it once again with the asking price of the 390 Adventure. At ₹3.67 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), it is just a few thousand rupees more than the older bike’s SW trim. And there’s an affordable yet not severely compromised variant – the Adventure X – also available at ₹2.91 lakh.

What this 390 Adventure is able to deliver is fulfil the desires that a lot of Indians had with the bike for over five years. The 390 Adventure is finally a desirable one-bike garage sort of motorcycle that can literally do-it-all and how. It is calm in the city, fast on the highway, composed over bad roads and makes for a great off-roader. Simply put, KTM has found yet another champion.