This is the 2020 KTM 1290 Super Adventure in action for its first testing miles on the open road.
Our spy snapper caught the bike undergoing road tests alongside a 2019 BMW R1250GS as the Austrian factory makes major changes to the 1301cc Adventure styled mile muncher.
Gone is the minimal bodywork from the 2019 motorcycle, replaced with a more encompassing set of plastics. There’s a bigger TFT colour screen, a new windscreen, new seats, more fuel carrying capability and better ergonomics, too.
The bike we’ve photographed undergoing tests is running a pretty crudely-formed set of bodywork that apes what we saw at the end of last year on the 790 Adventure from KTM.
The shoulders of the 1290 are now flared out, the petrol tanks are moved down lower on the front of the bike and the conventional-position for what would normally be the petrol tank is now filled by a tank cover that’s been re-shaped and has a side profile that’s lower than on the current version of the 1290 Super Adventure.
The fairing itself is also heavily revised with the current bike’s large, split-face headlights gone on the prototype photographed. The model being ridden in our photos only has a single round LED headlight unit. This is unlikely to be how the finished bike will look so it’s anyone’s guess at the moment as to whether we see the twin headlights return (in which case, why not fit these to the prototype motorcycle?) or if we’ll see something re-designed from KTM when this bike eventually hits the shelves.