We brought this bike for the kids to ride around, because it got too hard in 2021 to go to an offroad track and simply hire a bike for the day, like we used to.

This bike works well as a bike for kids to learn to ride on, and has the advantage of been road legal as well.

One of the mods I’ve done, was to lower the seat height by cutting some of the foam out the seat with a bread knife.

This is basically designed to be a farm bike. It doesn’t work very well as an off road bike though. It has very basic suspension, and rather spindly looking forks. It’s far heavier than it should be at 129Kg, which makes it feel heavy, sluggish and a lot less capable than it could be. On steep hills, you really have to rev it a lot, to keep the momentum going.

As a road bike it is a pleasure to ride, and the motor is an absolute jewel. With the right gearing, it’s possible to get 100km/hr. It is easy enough to start and kids love that electric start. It works OK as a commuter and it does about 36Km/ltr or 100 MPG on fuel.

It doesn’t have an oil filter, and it only has 0.9 ltr of oil in the sump. This means you need to change the oil regularly, for a long life out of the motor

I’ve had the KTM RC390 from almost new, and it’s been an outstanding bike even if it has a few quirks…

long term Review of a KTM RC390

The fork seals started leaking about 1000km ago (800 miles), so I replaced them with whatever I could get in the middle of a lockdown. This meant getting some cheap ones online, sight unseen.

It was only when I pulled the bike apart to replace them that I found that the replacement dust seals were the wrong size! This meant reusing the old dust seals again.

I used 425mls of oil (7W) in each fork, instead of the standard 450ml (4W). Less oil gives it less compression damping, and a thicker oil gives more rebound damping.

This improved the handling quite a lot, and made the front end feel really planted.

Alas, those cheap seals didn’t last long, and one of them let go while cranked over in a corner, which means I’ve had to replace them again.

I was intending to sit on this job, and leave it for, if and when I end up self-isolating for Omicron (yes I know that is insane, but I live in NZ, and they took the blue pill).

However, circumstances have changed, and I need the bike available for travelling to Wellington.

(Luckily I already had some replacement SKF brand seals, which I had brought between the lockdowns.)

It took me @ 5 hours hours to take all the fairings off, jack up the bike, remove the front wheel, and remove the forks to get to the seals, and then put it all back together again.

So it’s all back together again for the next adventure…

• 

It’s winter over here in New Zealand, so the bikes been mostly parked up and given the occassional run to keep it ticking over. I thought it was all good for next season but then a few things happened….

The fork seals gave up, so I replaced those along with the fork oil.

The stator wiring burnt out, it took me several days to find the problem and resolder all the connections.

• 

The bike failed a warrent of fitness (safety inspection) which meant replacing the steering head bearings (and pulling the front end apart again)

The good news is that I’ve  now built up a spare rear wheel with a road tyre and road gearing. This means I can use this bike for other uses besides following my daughter around an offroad track in the summer time.

This is the heart warming story of how 2 brothers stole their dad’s old motorcycle without his knowledge, had it restored, and gave it back to him for christmas.