I’m a bit giddy with anticipation these days. After nearly three months of hemming and hawing, the good folks at Bajaj finally confirmed that the KTM 390 SMC R will be launched in April 2025. And I’ll get to realise a 20-year-old dream of having a proper factory-built supermoto in my garage. It’s never too late to get the right motorcycle, eh? And a supermoto, by intent and design, is more right than most.
It all began in the early 1980s in the US of A, when a racing series was created to pit motorcycle racers from across disciplines against each other. It was a big hit, too, but the series was inexplicably killed off in the mid-’80s (probably by some suit-wearing idiot who’d never touched a motorcycle in his life). However, the Europeans took the idea home with them and the supermoto developed a die-hard following, especially in France (they called them supermotards).
The Italians beat everyone else by making the first factory-built supermoto, though; Gilera launched the Nordwest in 1991, a 558cc single that made 46 bhp and weighed 141 kg dry. And I think it looks smashing to this day, too. Then, over the next two decades came legendary machines like the KTM 640 Supermoto which led to the 690 SMC R. Aprilia made the super-exotic SXV 550 with 70 bhp and a dry weight of 97.1 kg (!). Suzuki made the ever-popular DR-Z400SM, which has just recently received a full refresh. Many other manufacturers followed suit as well, but we never got a single supermoto in India.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Then-owners BMW Motorrad did launch the Husqvarna Nuda 900R here in 2012, the portliest of athletes that made 105 bhp from a 898cc P-twin and weighed 174 kg dry. It was a terrifying riot of a motorcycle and it remains one of the coolest motorcycles I’ve ridden till date. It had a hair-trigger throttle response and gearing that was shorter than all of Snow White’s seven acquaintances, so the mildest twist of the throttle produced dramatic results at either end of the machine — the rear used to spin up and the front used to become airborne, simultaneously of course.
The Nuda convinced me to swap my Hero Impulse long-termer’s wheels to 17-inch ones and on went the stickiest prototype tyres I was lucky enough to get. Even without any great power from that 150cc engine, the benefits of long-travel suspension working in tandem with quick-steering wheels made me a permanent fan. I even pawed at the thought of turning my old cast-iron Bullet and RX 135 into supermotos, but am thankful I didn’t. After the Impulse left, that was it for my own supermoto trip. Until the absolutely mental Ducati Hypermotard Mono 698 I rode last year reignited that fire in my mind.
I spent a considerable amount of my 20s watching videos of supermotos doing all sorts of stupid things in all sorts of places. The idea sounds as insanely fun as it is simple — a nimble single running on fat and sticky rubber with powerful brakes. A large number of professional motorcycle racers ride supermotos for training, so there must be something to it, no? As for me, getting the first legit supermoto made in India makes it a keeper by itself. And since KTM made it, I can be rest assured that my daydreams will turn out to be quite accurate. If you get the chance, ride it. There’s a reason for that ‘super’ in this kind of moto’s name, after all.
