Austrian firm KTM has been out of the road-going sportsbike sector for nearly a decade, having dropped its quirky yet acclaimed RC8R 1195 V-twin in 2016. And though it's played its part in MotoGP during those years, while building some very nutty naked roadbikes like the Super Duke 1290 and Duke 890, the Matighofen outfit seemed to set its face against the very notion of superbikes on the road. There was no place for 200bhp-plus faired sports weapons outside pure competition, so seemed the company line, much to the sadness of all. A crack is appearing in that high Alpine dam, though – in the form of a new supersport bike, the KTM 990 RC R. It's been hinted at over the past couple of years with the release of track-only versions, sold in super-limited editions at hefty prices. For 2025, though, we are getting a proper working class, road-going version. It's being trailed as a supersport machine, and if you think of Ducati's V2 Panigale, that's sort of the ballpark. We're only seeing a prototype at the moment, with limited
