KTM 250 Adventure Review: Costly ride, but very appealing

This motorcycle has an elder brother, the 390 Adventure, which is an excellent machine any which way you cut it. It looks rugged, has a powerful engine putting out a healthy 44 bhp and is exciting to ride. It is also somewhat expensive, and the truth is that not everyone can handle 44 bhp – and this is why the 250 Adventure makes for such a sweet spot. In a market that has 250cc motorcycles of all sorts, it’s also the first proper adventure touring bike, which increases its appeal.

You’ll find it difficult to distinguish the 250 from the 390 at first glance, because they’re the same motorcycle with different engines and feature sets. You get a couple of pretty standard colour schemes to choose from – black and orange – and since this is a KTM, you may as well go with the brighter shade. A little colour in your life doesn’t hurt, right?

Let’s talk seating

If you’re a little vertically challenged, you may find it a bit of a stretch (literally) to place your feet flat on the ground on this bike, due to its 855mm tall seat; anyone 5 foot 8 inches or over should be fine. The seat is comfortable and spacious, and you get a very good view out at the road in front of you, as should be the case with an adventure tourer. Importantly, you can slide back and forth on it to alter your seating position (if there’s no pillion, of course), and when you’re standing on the footpegs while off-roading, it’s easy to grip the tank with your knees.

Remember what I said about it having less features than the 390? You’ll have to decide whether these are deal breakers; personally, I don’t think they are. Instead of the 390’s brilliant LED headlamp, you get a regular halogen unit with LED DRLs, which does the job well enough. You also get an LCD instrument display instead of the 390’s LED Bluetooth screen, but the LCD is extremely bright and easy to read. The 250 also makes do without an up/down quickshifter, ride-by-wire throttle, cornering ABS and traction control. On the upside, for a lower cost, you get great features from the 390, like an adjustable rear monoshock, trellis frame, upside-down front forks and radial brakes.

Let’s talk about the ride

The 250 gets the powerplant that goes into the 250 Duke and the twin Husqvarnas – a 248cc single with 29.5 bhp and 2.44 kgm of torque, paired with a six-speed transmission; the gear ratios are identical too. All this means that the engine needs to be revved past 4,000 rpm to really get it going; post that, you get a nice kick in the pants after about 7000 rpm until you hit the rev limiter. This doesn't mean that you have to rev the daylights out of it all the time, especially in the city; far from it.

It’s very easy to ride, and you can control its nature depending on the riding conditions and your mood. It’ll cruise all day at 100 kph, with vibes kept to an acceptable amount, although you’ll definitely feel them through the footpegs; heat is kept to a minimum too, because of the twin radiator fans. On a full tank (14.5 litres), you should expect to be able to travel around 600 km on a highway run and around 470 km in the city.

The 250 comes with Meteor tyres from MRF, rather than the more expensive Metzeler rubber on the 390. While the latter are definitely superior in every sense, the Meteors serve the purpose just fine as well. There’s enough grip from them both on and off road, and the ride quality is firm enough to be fun and absorbent enough to not cause your fillings to be shaken loose. The brakes are very good too, although I did find that after repeated hard braking, they began to fade a bit; most rider will not experience this in everyday use.

So, at the end of the day, how does one sum up this bike? It’s very likeable, easy to ride, is versatile and comes with a set of pretty good features. Still, at Rs 2.48 lakh, it isn’t cheap – in fact, it’s not too far off the 390’s price (especially if you’re going down the EMI route) as also the BMW G 310 RS. My personal take is to buy a 390 (because more power, bro), but if your budget is set in stone, the 250 Adventure will offer you plenty of excitement.