I am just hitting 10,000 k now after 6 months of completely trouble free riding on my KTM 890 SMT. I am already getting excited to swap mine for the 990 smt next year. It is a real shame that you have had so many of these issues, but it is my opinion that all brands suffer similar things. I personally stopped buying BMW's because of all of the very expensive issues over the years. Like the 2004 gs, that the top boxes just fell off after a while, or my GSA that had a faulty exhaust valve. ( very very common issue ) and was over 1000 pounds to be replaced, Or the fog lights that couldn't get wet... on my gs, and of course there were small issues like bolts dropping off. also issues with the servicing departments and very long waiting times etc. Best bikes I have ever owned were hondas, but even they had issues, Like my forza 350 with the vibrating dash, and sticking fuel filler cap as well as bobbing on the front wheel.... Unfortunately it is just part of owning a big toy....
I am happy to hear that you enjoy your SMT too! Maybe I should have pointed out that all of that is my personal subjective point of view obviously. I am not a paid reviewer/youtuber with any significant reach, so that my opinion actually matters, or affect anything. It's just my personal owners experience and I let people know about what I experience with this bike - positive as well as negative... As far as I am concerned it's less the issues themselves, but the way the manufacturer deals with the customers experiencing out of the ordinary amount of issues. I understand that almost any bike might have a certain number of issues. I could also understand that a new bike/model may even have more of them. But in my opinion, the way KTM reacted to my feedback would have been appropriate if this was a normal amount/number of issues. Which I am quite sure and do hope is not the case. I guess that most people will experience a handfull of issues within the first year, but 16 of them is out of the ordinary to me. So I think it would be a good idea to approach the customer and look for a way the customer is still able to enjoy the bike despite all those issues. KTM on the other hand just pointed out that there is no claim for such thing - which I know of course. But this shows the attention the manufacture is willing to pay to customers experiencing this amount of issues.
The exhaust valves you usually pull the whole thing out, get rid of weight and let your bike breathe better. I had mine on the africa twin and it rusted shut twice, the 2nd time i just replaced the exhaust can with aftermarket and got rid of the whole exhaust valve in the process also.
“All brands suffer similar things”??? My Kawasaki hasn’t had a single issue in 7 years! KTM after sales is terrible & getting parts takes ages, oh & they’re expensive, I for one would not buy a KTM especially now they are not admitting fault for the camshaft issues. Ride safe
I got a 890 Duke R and so far it hold up. There was a leak on some water regulation system at 17k km but otherwise its working just fine. Hopefully it stays that way. Thanks for your detailed report!
KTM is becoming a hot mess. Financially they are in big trouble. Moving production primarily to China and India is going to hurt brand perception as well. Between these issues, the cam issues, and their huge drop in sales = big trouble. Glad I went with a BMW M1000R instead of 1390SD.
Eey I own a 890 smt aswell, I got it for 6 months now, I constantly get a message that the oil is to low while its not. Im already thinking about getting to Yamaha again, also because there many problems with KTM indeed. Its a shame looks wise, technical if it works properly and the marketing they do they are a great company.
Danke für Deine tollen Berichte! Habe seit Juli meine SMT. Herzgriffe, H&B Sturzbügel (erster war falsch geschweißt, sehr ärgerlich und von Seiten H&B war der Umgang damit auch erschreckend), hohes Windschild, Koffer von FC Moto mit Givi Haltern und eine Ständerverbreiterung. Mich interessiert auch das Video über den neuen Reifen, das habe ich aber leider nicht gefunden, wie heißt es denn? Stehe vielleicht auf dem Schlauch, ist ja auch schon spät ;-) Morgen beginnt meine erste Tour (Österreich/Italien) :-) Herzliche Grüße! Harald
Mine has 13k kms since may i had once mtc failure that stopped the bike but disapeared by itself after some use on that morning, water on the light signal, and irregular blinking on the brake light, i am happy with the bike and his concept but it doesnt give me trust for having it like 80k or 100k kms
As another owner of the SMT890 I have to say, I really like your content. I had some issues too. Within the first year and within the first 10.000 KM. At the moment, its at the workshop. My Baebae got an MTC failure. First i didnt start at all, after a few days at the dealer they were able to start it. Still, the MTC failure exists. Unfortenately, nobody knows, what causes the issue, nor how to repair it at the moment. Two and a halft Weeks later, its still in repair and I really dont know what i will do, after they repaired it. We will see. Thanks for your work!!!
Thank you so much for your kind feedback! That sounds really unfortunate too! I do wish they find the issue and you can enjoy this otherwise great bike afterwards!
SMT owner here! As others have said, thank you for sharing your experience! Luckily the only issue I've had so far is a faulty brake switch which caused issues with the cruise control like yourself. Around 10:08, from the camera angle it looks like the angle between the shift rod and the pull rod isn't quite 90°? I had some issues shifting on my 790 duke which were completely gone after I set it at 90°. Also, did u grind away a bit of the plastic to change the bike to gp shift? Great video!
Thx for your comment and I am very happy to hear that you experience less issues with your SMT! Also interesting that you had a problem with the brake switch as well! And you did some very thorough observations, congrats! Yes, I did reverse the shifting to GP shift. Initially my plan was to get rid of this completely unnecessary platic nose KTM introduced here with the SMT (it's not there on the 890R where reversing the shift is even an option in the user manual! Why they did this stupid plastic think on the SMT is beyond me. Probably to keep a feature for the Duke R version) Anyway we achieved the reverse shifting position very elegantly by adding a couple of washers to the shifting rode screws! And also well observed, I did use a perfect 90° angle until recently, but the shifter lever was touching the bottom of the peg mounting brakets as explained and I could not adjust this enough by the rod adjustments itself, so I did move the lever for one notch - which you now notice as not being perfectly 90° any more. But shifting is working super smooth and perfectly fine now..
KTM bikes ride just great - if nothing breaks. KTM isnt too well know to do recalls. In 3 years there will be the followup model. Their product cycle is so quick, they dont take the time to fix things not working. Thats the very bad part. Because of this i try to look more to other vendors. But they often cant compare to KTM in riding fun.
very true so! Still I think KTM looses quite some business by not taking decent care of customers experiencing out of the ordinary issues with their products and eventually wander off to other brands therefore.. And/or loosing customers because of the initial image of bad built quality, especially in combination of customer experiences of how KTM deals with them. Mistakes and problems can happen - I don't have big issues with that - but it depends on how a manufacture deals with it..
It's like an unfinished product that sampled for you to test and find possible faulty parts. Let's try some other brands. Japanese ones or Aprilia may be.
www.givi.it/my-motorcycle/bike/ktm/890-smt-23--24 Thx for the info! They do look interesting indeed. Sadly I couldn't find lots of pictures showing it from different angles, but it does look like they would deflect the leg along the side of the bike more or less like the original plastic parts, which I now know is a huge advantage. Because knowing that your bike is better protected, but you basically are going to hurt your leg badly any time you run into a tricky situation, isn't a good feeling - which I had with the Hepko&Becker bar - besides of the other issues with it. So I'd like to try to see it "in person" and then there the issue of how tricky the top mounting point is. I know from first hand that this is a tricky one to install and how easy it is to damage the thread of the mounting point. Here it looks like there is a long bar extending from this mounting point which could make this easier, or harder I guess... Depending on alignment - and regaring this, it's and advantage that they are not connected, because then the mounting is more flexible... How it behaves in hard crashes though remains to be seen I guess... Very interesting option anyway! That's the link to it:
Hi Inam also looking for a different look to the amt! So if you have some pics available how the ease garage lot looks like on the amt that would be great! I was thinking of getting the rebelx kit for the amt!
Thanks for sharing your experience, and it is definitely frustrating trying to trace down the root cause and fix it. When I had the signal issue, the dealer stripped the bike down and took a couple of days to isolate the cause (ignition switch that acts as the "relay"). Luckily so far so good. Your points on the crash bar is valid, and I might go your route in the future. Now that you have the RG kit on, will you be clocking more mileage in the future? All the best in your future endeavours.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! Yes, I do plan to continue to do long tours with my SMT. The one really good thing besides of all the issues I did have - I never stranded mid-tour.. So I do feel ok to continue doing longer tours (~3 weeks) with it.
Thanks for telling us the real ownership experience. Has your 890 R had as many issues? Like you I knew from the moment I first rode the SMT that it was the bike for me. It is a really lovely bike to ride. So far, apart from needing 400ml of oil, I haven’t had any issues. Everything works brilliantly and as it should. I have a 23 model with 5000 miles (8000km) I hope it will stay that way
Good to hear that you have less issues and you can enjoy your bike the way it is supposed to be! There has been some issues with my KTM 890 R as well. Some missing fairing screws, clutch defect at 4200 km, there was an issue that it move to the right by itself which was caused by the frame not being symmetric (frame replacement), fuel pump defect, new locks all around due to immobilizer defect, water getting into the fuel tank due to bad seal of tank cap, usb charging ports defect, clutch wire replacement, thermostat defect, valve cover gasket replacement, spark plug shaft gasket replacement... Actually quite a lot when I list it up like this... : (
Wow! Reminds me of Italian bikes in the 80s they were brilliant to ride, but very fragile. Still people loved them and they are icons today. This is my first KTM and I hope it will be a good experience. I have another bike that is always having something wrong and I forgive it, because it’s such a nice bike. So maybe it’s ok?
Tango thanks for this review. I was wondering if you’ll mention about the crankshaft and you did. I wonder how it’s GS equivalent would would keep in your hands for the same mileage. If not smt what else would you choose for touring?
I plan to ask my dealer specifically about the crankshaft in 2 weeks when the 30k service is done. Maybe I can make them to take pictures, that would be great... Anyway I will report about this in future videos for sure, as this seems to be an ongoing issue for plenty of customers too. Well, besides of the windshield, basically all of those issues are completely unrelated to mileage in my opinion... It's rather an issue of reliability/quality of new parts - see the brand new starting switch not working properly.. I really don't know what else I'd rather ride. It was a very clear and easy desicion for my to go with the SMT after test riding a Norden 901, 1250 GS, Multistrada and Superadventure. If I'd do a lot more adventure/off-roading there would be more options I think. But with ~80-90% sporty touring on road I feel like I am not prepared to go away from a sporty 17" front road tire. With the SMT I can keep up with basically anything else on those twisty mountain roads, have various luggage options, comfortable, yet versatile seating position with rally seat and do light off-roading as well... It's very tricky to think of alternatives having the same power and versatile useability... Let me know if you can think of possibilities!
@@TANGORACING Thanks for this answer. Relative to the issues I think that yes partially is related to the initial design robustness of this bike but I hope you will agree that the way you use it will reflect the resistance for issues. As I mentioned under your different movie you`re an heavy user and they way you use it exposes all the weak points of the design. I think 30 000 km in one year is far above average motorcycle mileage in our European area. Its interesting that you`ve witnessed a lot of issues but the typical ones as piston head leakage, counter shaft leakage and camshaft failure didn`t happened in your case. You may be surprised that I`m kinda explaining the manufacturers imperfections but I know this industry from the "backstage" point of view: I`m automotive engineer in one of reputable parts suppliers (among others for KTM). What I want to inform is that all the components nowadays are designed to withstand a determined period of time. Today`s technology permits to precisely check for how long each component will perform with its nominal performance (HALT tests). It permits to the manufacturer to adjust their business and manufacturing strategy in much more precise way. Unfortunately instead of offering higher quality to build a good image of the brand they aim to satisfy the company shareholders by the cost of end users, and therefore we are the victims.. But now, the company like KTM is too late to push the lever to better quality side, as things went to faar in company financial strategy and the vicious circle runs.. Sory for this long digression but I observe a lot of complaining discussion about various brands but not a lot of people is diving deeper in the reasons of it. Regarding the alternatives for 890 SMT: this modell was introduced as some “trial” from Ktm to fulfill some niche. I wouldn`t say so… it was rather to catch up with the competion that has in their lineup ie. Yamaha tracer, or Triump tiger gt pro or Kawasaki versys. I think what makes the SMT outstanding from they is it`s ADV/Supermoto genes that make for me it has no competition, whereas the mentioned before bikes has genes of strict sport bikes. And yes, me either I don`t see any alternative for the SMT. From the ones you listed as alternatives I only drove the multistrada and GS 850 but I didn`t felt this unity with the bike while riding and it makes me stressful that if not the SMT what else…
I am just hitting 10,000 k now after 6 months of completely trouble free riding on my KTM 890 SMT. I am already getting excited to swap mine for the 990 smt next year. It is a real shame that you have had so many of these issues, but it is my opinion that all brands suffer similar things. I personally stopped buying BMW's because of all of the very expensive issues over the years. Like the 2004 gs, that the top boxes just fell off after a while, or my GSA that had a faulty exhaust valve. ( very very common issue ) and was over 1000 pounds to be replaced, Or the fog lights that couldn't get wet... on my gs, and of course there were small issues like bolts dropping off. also issues with the servicing departments and very long waiting times etc. Best bikes I have ever owned were hondas, but even they had issues, Like my forza 350 with the vibrating dash, and sticking fuel filler cap as well as bobbing on the front wheel.... Unfortunately it is just part of owning a big toy....
I am happy to hear that you enjoy your SMT too!
Maybe I should have pointed out that all of that is my personal subjective point of view obviously. I am not a paid reviewer/youtuber with any significant reach, so that my opinion actually matters, or affect anything. It's just my personal owners experience and I let people know about what I experience with this bike - positive as well as negative...
As far as I am concerned it's less the issues themselves, but the way the manufacturer deals with the customers experiencing out of the ordinary amount of issues. I understand that almost any bike might have a certain number of issues. I could also understand that a new bike/model may even have more of them. But in my opinion, the way KTM reacted to my feedback would have been appropriate if this was a normal amount/number of issues. Which I am quite sure and do hope is not the case. I guess that most people will experience a handfull of issues within the first year, but 16 of them is out of the ordinary to me. So I think it would be a good idea to approach the customer and look for a way the customer is still able to enjoy the bike despite all those issues. KTM on the other hand just pointed out that there is no claim for such thing - which I know of course. But this shows the attention the manufacture is willing to pay to customers experiencing this amount of issues.
The exhaust valves you usually pull the whole thing out, get rid of weight and let your bike breathe better.
I had mine on the africa twin and it rusted shut twice, the 2nd time i just replaced the exhaust can with aftermarket and got rid of the whole exhaust valve in the process also.
“All brands suffer similar things”???
My Kawasaki hasn’t had a single issue in 7 years!
KTM after sales is terrible & getting parts takes ages, oh & they’re expensive, I for one would not buy a KTM especially now they are not admitting fault for the camshaft issues.
Ride safe
Suzuki GSX-S1000GX or a Yamaha Tracer 9 GT, maybe? They are not quite in the same class as the SMT, but they will be reliable.
I got a 890 Duke R and so far it hold up. There was a leak on some water regulation system at 17k km but otherwise its working just fine. Hopefully it stays that way. Thanks for your detailed report!
KTM is becoming a hot mess. Financially they are in big trouble. Moving production primarily to China and India is going to hurt brand perception as well. Between these issues, the cam issues, and their huge drop in sales = big trouble. Glad I went with a BMW M1000R instead of 1390SD.
KTM has a lot of issues that they really need to buck the fuck up . Their quality control is HORRENDOUS while other companies are improving
Eey I own a 890 smt aswell, I got it for 6 months now, I constantly get a message that the oil is to low while its not. Im already thinking about getting to Yamaha again, also because there many problems with KTM indeed. Its a shame looks wise, technical if it works properly and the marketing they do they are a great company.
Danke für Deine tollen Berichte! Habe seit Juli meine SMT. Herzgriffe, H&B Sturzbügel (erster war falsch geschweißt, sehr ärgerlich und von Seiten H&B war der Umgang damit auch erschreckend), hohes Windschild, Koffer von FC Moto mit Givi Haltern und eine Ständerverbreiterung.
Mich interessiert auch das Video über den neuen Reifen, das habe ich aber leider nicht gefunden, wie heißt es denn? Stehe vielleicht auf dem Schlauch, ist ja auch schon spät ;-)
Morgen beginnt meine erste Tour (Österreich/Italien) :-)
Herzliche Grüße! Harald
HI, danke! Reifenvideo ist noch nicht fertig/hochgeladen... sorry. Kommt aber bald.
Video zur Reifenwahl: ruclips.net/video/qYnrEDmFbMc/видео.htmlsi=57pd9zajupdOhYs2
Mine has 13k kms since may i had once mtc failure that stopped the bike but disapeared by itself after some use on that morning, water on the light signal, and irregular blinking on the brake light, i am happy with the bike and his concept but it doesnt give me trust for having it like 80k or 100k kms
As another owner of the SMT890 I have to say, I really like your content.
I had some issues too. Within the first year and within the first 10.000 KM.
At the moment, its at the workshop. My Baebae got an MTC failure. First i didnt start at all, after a few days at the dealer they were able to start it. Still, the MTC failure exists. Unfortenately, nobody knows, what causes the issue, nor how to repair it at the moment. Two and a halft Weeks later, its still in repair and I really dont know what i will do, after they repaired it.
We will see. Thanks for your work!!!
Thank you so much for your kind feedback! That sounds really unfortunate too! I do wish they find the issue and you can enjoy this otherwise great bike afterwards!
Try replacing the battery, KTM is notorious for problems caused by a bad battery/low voltage
SMT owner here! As others have said, thank you for sharing your experience! Luckily the only issue I've had so far is a faulty brake switch which caused issues with the cruise control like yourself.
Around 10:08, from the camera angle it looks like the angle between the shift rod and the pull rod isn't quite 90°? I had some issues shifting on my 790 duke which were completely gone after I set it at 90°. Also, did u grind away a bit of the plastic to change the bike to gp shift?
Great video!
Thx for your comment and I am very happy to hear that you experience less issues with your SMT! Also interesting that you had a problem with the brake switch as well!
And you did some very thorough observations, congrats! Yes, I did reverse the shifting to GP shift. Initially my plan was to get rid of this completely unnecessary platic nose KTM introduced here with the SMT (it's not there on the 890R where reversing the shift is even an option in the user manual! Why they did this stupid plastic think on the SMT is beyond me. Probably to keep a feature for the Duke R version) Anyway we achieved the reverse shifting position very elegantly by adding a couple of washers to the shifting rode screws! And also well observed, I did use a perfect 90° angle until recently, but the shifter lever was touching the bottom of the peg mounting brakets as explained and I could not adjust this enough by the rod adjustments itself, so I did move the lever for one notch - which you now notice as not being perfectly 90° any more. But shifting is working super smooth and perfectly fine now..
KTM bikes ride just great - if nothing breaks. KTM isnt too well know to do recalls. In 3 years there will be the followup model. Their product cycle is so quick, they dont take the time to fix things not working. Thats the very bad part. Because of this i try to look more to other vendors. But they often cant compare to KTM in riding fun.
very true so! Still I think KTM looses quite some business by not taking decent care of customers experiencing out of the ordinary issues with their products and eventually wander off to other brands therefore.. And/or loosing customers because of the initial image of bad built quality, especially in combination of customer experiences of how KTM deals with them.
Mistakes and problems can happen - I don't have big issues with that - but it depends on how a manufacture deals with it..
It's like an unfinished product that sampled for you to test and find possible faulty parts. Let's try some other brands. Japanese ones or Aprilia may be.
Yes and funny enough I did apply as KTM factory test rider.. : )
Sorry to hear you are having so many problems. I have 24000 trouble free km on my 2024 890 Adventure R. My previous 790 R was just as reliable.
Thx for letting us know some positive experiences as well - good to hear!
The givi crash bars are connected to the frame, the only con is that the left and right bar are not connected together through a center bar
www.givi.it/my-motorcycle/bike/ktm/890-smt-23--24
Thx for the info! They do look interesting indeed. Sadly I couldn't find lots of pictures showing it from different angles, but it does look like they would deflect the leg along the side of the bike more or less like the original plastic parts, which I now know is a huge advantage. Because knowing that your bike is better protected, but you basically are going to hurt your leg badly any time you run into a tricky situation, isn't a good feeling - which I had with the Hepko&Becker bar - besides of the other issues with it.
So I'd like to try to see it "in person" and then there the issue of how tricky the top mounting point is. I know from first hand that this is a tricky one to install and how easy it is to damage the thread of the mounting point. Here it looks like there is a long bar extending from this mounting point which could make this easier, or harder I guess... Depending on alignment - and regaring this, it's and advantage that they are not connected, because then the mounting is more flexible... How it behaves in hard crashes though remains to be seen I guess...
Very interesting option anyway! That's the link to it:
Hi Inam also looking for a different look to the amt! So if you have some pics available how the ease garage lot looks like on the amt that would be great! I was thinking of getting the rebelx kit for the amt!
see here: ruclips.net/video/YC3IiCUFcbw/видео.htmlsi=csoRYKzFJnm5cblD
My father in law has a Subaru forester xt. That car has had so many issues since new. I myself have had 4 Subarus not a single issue.
Thanks for sharing your experience, and it is definitely frustrating trying to trace down the root cause and fix it.
When I had the signal issue, the dealer stripped the bike down and took a couple of days to isolate the cause (ignition switch that acts as the "relay"). Luckily so far so good.
Your points on the crash bar is valid, and I might go your route in the future.
Now that you have the RG kit on, will you be clocking more mileage in the future?
All the best in your future endeavours.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! Yes, I do plan to continue to do long tours with my SMT. The one really good thing besides of all the issues I did have - I never stranded mid-tour.. So I do feel ok to continue doing longer tours (~3 weeks) with it.
Thanks for telling us the real ownership experience. Has your 890 R had as many issues? Like you I knew from the moment I first rode the SMT that it was the bike for me. It is a really lovely bike to ride. So far, apart from needing 400ml of oil, I haven’t had any issues. Everything works brilliantly and as it should. I have a 23 model with 5000 miles (8000km) I hope it will stay that way
Good to hear that you have less issues and you can enjoy your bike the way it is supposed to be! There has been some issues with my KTM 890 R as well. Some missing fairing screws, clutch defect at 4200 km, there was an issue that it move to the right by itself which was caused by the frame not being symmetric (frame replacement), fuel pump defect, new locks all around due to immobilizer defect, water getting into the fuel tank due to bad seal of tank cap, usb charging ports defect, clutch wire replacement, thermostat defect, valve cover gasket replacement, spark plug shaft gasket replacement... Actually quite a lot when I list it up like this... : (
Wow! Reminds me of Italian bikes in the 80s they were brilliant to ride, but very fragile. Still people loved them and they are icons today. This is my first KTM and I hope it will be a good experience. I have another bike that is always having something wrong and I forgive it, because it’s such a nice bike. So maybe it’s ok?
Tango thanks for this review. I was wondering if you’ll mention about the crankshaft and you did. I wonder how it’s GS equivalent would would keep in your hands for the same mileage. If not smt what else would you choose for touring?
I plan to ask my dealer specifically about the crankshaft in 2 weeks when the 30k service is done. Maybe I can make them to take pictures, that would be great... Anyway I will report about this in future videos for sure, as this seems to be an ongoing issue for plenty of customers too.
Well, besides of the windshield, basically all of those issues are completely unrelated to mileage in my opinion... It's rather an issue of reliability/quality of new parts - see the brand new starting switch not working properly..
I really don't know what else I'd rather ride. It was a very clear and easy desicion for my to go with the SMT after test riding a Norden 901, 1250 GS, Multistrada and Superadventure. If I'd do a lot more adventure/off-roading there would be more options I think. But with ~80-90% sporty touring on road I feel like I am not prepared to go away from a sporty 17" front road tire. With the SMT I can keep up with basically anything else on those twisty mountain roads, have various luggage options, comfortable, yet versatile seating position with rally seat and do light off-roading as well... It's very tricky to think of alternatives having the same power and versatile useability... Let me know if you can think of possibilities!
@@TANGORACING Thanks for this answer. Relative to the issues I think that yes partially is related to the initial design robustness of this bike but I hope you will agree that the way you use it will reflect the resistance for issues. As I mentioned under your different movie you`re an heavy user and they way you use it exposes all the weak points of the design. I think 30 000 km in one year is far above average motorcycle mileage in our European area. Its interesting that you`ve witnessed a lot of issues but the typical ones as piston head leakage, counter shaft leakage and camshaft failure didn`t happened in your case. You may be surprised that I`m kinda explaining the manufacturers imperfections but I know this industry from the "backstage" point of view: I`m automotive engineer in one of reputable parts suppliers (among others for KTM). What I want to inform is that all the components nowadays are designed to withstand a determined period of time. Today`s technology permits to precisely check for how long each component will perform with its nominal performance (HALT tests). It permits to the manufacturer to adjust their business and manufacturing strategy in much more precise way. Unfortunately instead of offering higher quality to build a good image of the brand they aim to satisfy the company shareholders by the cost of end users, and therefore we are the victims.. But now, the company like KTM is too late to push the lever to better quality side, as things went to faar in company financial strategy and the vicious circle runs.. Sory for this long digression but I observe a lot of complaining discussion about various brands but not a lot of people is diving deeper in the reasons of it.
Regarding the alternatives for 890 SMT: this modell was introduced as some “trial” from Ktm to fulfill some niche. I wouldn`t say so… it was rather to catch up with the competion that has in their lineup ie. Yamaha tracer, or Triump tiger gt pro or Kawasaki versys. I think what makes the SMT outstanding from they is it`s ADV/Supermoto genes that make for me it has no competition, whereas the mentioned before bikes has genes of strict sport bikes. And yes, me either I don`t see any alternative for the SMT. From the ones you listed as alternatives I only drove the multistrada and GS 850 but I didn`t felt this unity with the bike while riding and it makes me stressful that if not the SMT what else…