I love this bike so much, I was always against duke 200 since the beginning of its launch and the reason was I didn’t like its exhaust note it sounded more like faulty tractor, all that changed instantly.:) when I tried my one of my friends bike.
on June 02 2015 one of my friend bought KTM duke 200 after shortlisting it between bullet 350 and classic 500, so finally after purchasing it he had the motorcycle for 2 months and clocked 2900 kms first service done and one day I asked him if he can exchange his duke with my gixxer for a week(though I didn’t like the duke I just wanted to get the idea of how it feels)and he instantly gave me the bike key, I was not so excited until I turned it on and boy it changed my opinion on duke completely, the moment I shifted to first gear and gave a hard rev it instantly took off like a sharp knife damn it gave me goosebumps and I fell in love with its performance it was great, so for a week I spent a lot of time with it and I loved this motorcycle a lot .
PERFORMANCE
The KTM Duke 200 is powered by a 199.5 cc single-cylinder, 4-stroke engine which is liquid-cooled, the engine is short stroke in nature and produces 25 bhp of power @10, 000 RPM and 19.2 Nm of torque @ 8000 RPM, the experience of riding the Duke 200 on the road is very different, this motor gives you goosebumps every time you rev it harder and trust me guys adrenaline rush is guaranteed, the way the power is delivered is absolutely insane and the gear box in this motorcycle is just phenomenal and flawless it is super smooth and felt effortless every time you shift the gear .
It reaches 60 km/h in 3.4 seconds and 100 km/h in just 9.4 seconds. top speed -134 kmph
BRAKING:
ktm duke 200 features 300 mm discs at the front and 230 mm rear disc brakes, made by Brembo . The brakes are extremely powerful and offers a good stopping power, however I feel that ktm should have provided duke with an optional abs system to its users.
RIDE AND HANDLING:
Duke weighs just 136 kgs, has a tubular steel trellis frame, 43 mm upside-down forks at the front and linkage-free mono shock suspension at the rear, made by suspension experts WP(white power), Duke 200 is sharp, extremely poised and ready to be flicked around corners all day long. One can simply point and shoot the Duke and it obeys without any fuss what ever the situation is .
The Duke 200 features a wide handlebar, which gives the rider ample feedback. The riders seat is hard yet comfortable and the riding position is sporty yet upright, the bike feels extremely stable even at speeds of 124kmph, the suspension set up is stiff hence the ride quality is average .
INSTRUMENT CLUSTER
Turn on the ignition key and you are greeted by "READY TO RACE" wordings which gives you a personal ownership pride and all switch gears are back-lit which feels great.The instrument cluster carries an insane amount of information’s like speedometer, tachometer, odometer, twin trip meters, side stand warning, low fuel indicator, distance to empty, distance to service, shift light, average fuel consumption, average speed, engine temperature, gear indicator, however one might find the fonts on the display to be slightly small it becomes difficult sometimes to read at broad daylight.
MILEAGE:
Mileage is the one factor which we people in India don’t fail to ask, for me it returned 28kmpl which is quite ok but hey this machine is designed only for performance and fun to its users so I cant complain about it .
CONCLUSION:
The KTM Duke 200 with great performance and features offers excellent value for money hence it turned out to be a blockbuster . Everything about this bike makes you feel special . I salute KTM engineers who have done a fantastic job on the Duke 200 and also I would like to thank bajaj for pricing duke 200 very aggressively, if performance and fun are the characters you are looking for in a bike look no further and head to your nearest ktm showrooms.
I would like to thank my friend vikky(ktm owner) for lending me his bike for a week and I can say the experience was awesome .