As great and as popular a bike the KTM 790 Duke was, KTM eventually decided to replace the ‘Scalpel’ with a bigger and more powerful ‘Super Scalpel’ in the 890 Duke R in 2021. A bummer? Not exactly.
See, the 790 Duke’s exit from KTM’s lineup was only temporary, as the Austrian motorcycle marque has now announced the return of the original Scalpel for 2022.
The KTM 790 Duke is as macho as ever, sporting the same aggressive styling as before. There are barely any aesthetic tweaks here, save for the decals up front that come with the two new colorways.
The bike sports a 799cc LC8c parallel-twin engine that churns out 105hp and 87Nm of torque. With this power unit, the 790 Duke is supposedly capable of doing around 23km/L. While these all look familiar so far, KTM has equipped the bike with some nifty modern tech.
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Review: 2021 KTM 790 Duke
For starters, there’s the new cornering ABS with Supermoto mode which we saw in the 390 Duke a while back. The bike also sports LED lights all around as well as a full-color five-inch TFT display. Three different ride modes are available. All these here come as standard with the 2022 model.
Higher variants, meanwhile, get a Quickshifter+ for clutchless shifting, motor slip regulation, cruise control, and a tire-pressure monitoring system. The 790 Duke also boasts smartphone connectivity through the KTM My Ride app.
Seeing as KTM Philippines still sells the 790 Duke in our market, you’d be forgiven if you missed that the brand actually discontinued this particular model. In any case, the bike is officially back. The only question now is whether or not this will eventually make its way to our shores.
More photos of the 2022 KTM 790 Duke
