The biggest anomaly about KTM — at least, the biggest anomaly other than “Why orange?” — is how they have built a reputation for having the most outlandishly powerful motors while being built in the most overpoliced country in the European arena. Okay, the second-most over-policed. Swiss police are truly enthusiastic about their jobs and Swiss speeding fines are legendary.
Nonetheless, Austria, for all its lush mountains and serpentine roads, is also enthusiastically policed. Cop cars are on constant patrol, the speed limits on secondary roads are particularly restrictive and, frankly, everyone drives like the proverbial little old lady from Pasadena. Actually, little old ladies from Munderfing, where KTM has its factory, drive slower. How that morphed into Team Orange’s “Ready to Race” motto I have no idea. But I do know that trying to put a 1290 Adventure S through its paces on public roads in Österreich is a little like asking Michael Phelps to do laps in a
