Orange ace to the MotoGP race - Mumbai to Delhi on the 2024 KTM 390 Duke

The thought of riding solo across from Mumbai to Noida filled me a great sense of both excitement and disconnect this time around. Disconnect because I've ridden up and down these roads more than a couple of times now and, I think that a ride like this really allows you to take a step back from daily life, and ponder about elements that you usually wouldn't have had the time to give enough thought to back home. Never a bad thing, when you're cruising along. Anyway, the obvious exciting bit about it was, following a two-day ride along almost 1,300km of some prime Indian highway astride what I see is one of the most impressive machines to have launched in India this year – the 2024 KTM 390 Duke – I'd be attending the first ever MotoGP race to be held in here at the BIC. Definitely a week to remember in my book.

The monsoon was still pounding down on Mumbai the day I left Mumbai towards my stop for the night at lake Pichola, Udaipur. Thankfully I didn't have to waste too much time securing my trusty tail-bag onto the new KTM 390 Duke because the grab handles have points that let you hook it all up very nicely. I've done this stretch in little over 10 hours, but dismal weather this time around meant that progress down the truck-riddled highway past Daman to Surat would be slow. A definite downer. I spent about 580km of the 640-odd kilometers riding completely drenched, a bit fatigued by trying to keep the momentum while avoiding what I felt were some of the finest craters that NH48 throws at you in these parts.

Out here, some truckers don't even have their indicator lights on when changing lanes, and traffic often suddenly swerves to avoid max-suspension-testing potholes. The good thing about all this is that the Duke allows me up to react positively to all of it and although it does come with a 'Rain' ride mode, I found the full ABS intervention in this mode a bit too invasive and the dulled down throttle response wasn't to my fancy either. Street ride mode on the 390 Duke worked perfectly fine in these conditions, because this 2024 model comes with traction control, and after testing it in the wet a fair bit, I found it to function pretty much on point.

The second day from Udaipur to Noida was a lot better. As the light drizzle and haze cleared I could finally have a chance to take in the sights and sounds. About 5km of rain followed a nice overcast over some of the finest laid stretched of Rahasthan Highway, I was finally able to ride the Duke how I'd previously imagined. There were times when I'd be hovering around at 6,000rpm in sixth, just taking in all the sights, or disconnecting from it all, then I'd pull back the throttle just a wee bit to hit 7,000rpm and I'd was doing 120kmph in practically no time at all. It's like the bike allows you to relax a lot more than the older gen bike, where you always had the engine on the boil to get smile-inducing performance, and once you require the rush, the bike delivers it in spades. It's such a refreshing character about this bike. Never a dull moment with this one. When I chose to pick up the pace, oh man, the Metzelers stuck to the road like white on rice.

The bike may be four kg lighter now, but it's lost two kilos in unsprung mass, so that's everything under the shocks which is the wheels brakes and mudguard. It feels so incredibly light to flick around not, even with my 10kg luggage strapped behind. This new die-case aluminum sub-frame that's bolted on to the steel trellis chassis makes tipping the 2024 Duke into corners even easier. It's amazing how the bike allows you to chill out and take it slow, and when you want to pick up the pace, there's always that option as well. There were times when I saw display light up speeds in excess of 150kmph at certain stretches which made me think about one aspect of highway riding in general. If your bike is able to hit 130kmph with as much ease as it would take to hit 100kmph, what more could you really ask for? Because that's what this bike does with ease, besides making good travel time, you're getting ahead of pretty much everything on the road at that point. I'd ask for a windscreen if I were you though, because at around 130kmph is your helmet will start bobbing about.

The ride was lovely all the way to Manesar after which it was back to traffic once again. Now instilled with confidence in the bikes capabilities, I managed to make good time here too, but the route through Gurugram and Faridabad was really nasty at times. Here, stuck in the saddle in the heat got to me and worse still, my backside finally began to give in. It was fine all this while, because out on the road, the seat was big enough to give me enough room to move around and make adjustments on the go, which wasn't at all the same now. But having to ride for a good 30kms to the circuit every day for the four days never gave me time to recover from that particular instance, and I was a sore all throughout after that even on the ride back.

Reaching the BIC on the KTM 390 Duke didn't really feel like some outstanding achievement for me, or the machine even. Instead, it really felt like a case of it simply being meant to be. On both counts. It felt natural. The thought of being at the first ever MotoGP race weekend in India, not THAT was an absolute thrill.

The next couple of days shooting between my Airbnb to the track kept my spirits right up there with the high of being around those astounding MotoGP machines as well, because as usual, the bike made an absolute mockery of Google Map's time of arrival estimates. There were a couple of off-road shortcuts that sent me off-road and even through a random field with a single narrow stone road once for reasons only Google knows, but the suspension held up nicely over all of it without the belly scraping once, which I was very happy with.

The ride back after the event was pretty pleasant too. There was one instance worth mentioning though. At some point during the ride, after disconnecting for a bit, I realized that I'd covered a total of about 330kms and it was time for to refuel. On checking the trip data I saw that I had been doing an average speed of about 76km, with a couple of stops of course, while having an absolute blast down the open roads at speeds a motorcycle of this capacity weight and capacity really shouldn't be doing in some stretches. Now the odd bit with this 2024 390 Duke is that when it goes into reserve fuel, the fuel level indicator turns red and it doesn't read out an estimated mileage count anymore. The last I saw of it was 70km till empty and I don't know when it had changed to red, but I hadn't exactly been riding.. conservatively. I didn't come across any of the fueling station signs for a while after, so I had to take it easy for a bit.

I finally came across a small fuel station along the highway near a place they call Gulabputra, and noticed that there were two attendants lazing about. One of them sprang right up and ran over to me as I pulled in. To my surprise, he proceeded to unleash a barrage of bike-related inquiries upon me. It was like seeing a kids eyes light up when an ice-cream truck came into the picture in some movie. Out there in the middle of literally nowhere, a man knew everything about the latest KTM Duke. I mean, the first question he asked me was about the 390 Duke's launch control. He knew practically everything there is to know about it. This interaction completely blew me away. It made me think, that's the reach that this KTM has. That's the effect that the previous 390 Duke models have had in India. And everyone who's anyone who is interested in bikes, knows about this one as well. No matter where they are or what they do in this country. Because it's that exciting a machine, online videos aside, even on paper.

As predicted, I got caught in the rain and traffic on my return to Mumbai, but still managed to make it back home in record time. Looking back in retrospect, would I recommend you take the 2024 KTM 390 Duke out on a long tour? Every day of the week. I'd suggest installing a windshield and a better density seat if you're anticipating more than 10 hours in the saddle daily, but apart from that, the bike is absolutely a hoot to ride across the country. A healthy portion of orange delight guarenteed!